Packing

As I’m packing to move to D.C. in a week, I feel as if I’m moving back to school: making lists, visiting the dentist, getting a haircut, planning my next moves.  I know as soon as I move to Alexandria, Virginia, I will have to register my car with the city in order to pay personal property tax, a feature of living in Virginia I learned from living there last summer.  For fellows who will have cars, I recommend checking with the city government of where you are living whether you need to purchase a parking permit for street parking or whether you need to register your vehicle with the city in order to pay personal property tax before you move so that you do not run into trouble later in your fellowship year.

On a school-related note, as I’ve been condensing my notes from school and preparing them for cold storage (just a box in my parents’ basement), I’ve removed staples, paperclips, binder clips, and rubber bands since these materials do not survive the years well and will damage paper documents.  Consider this a friendly tip from an ex-archives worker.

Twenty-five days ’til I begin as a fellow at Character Education Partnership!

Goals for Summer

Like many of you, I’m pretty excited to head back to Princeton for Reunions next week. After Reunions, I’ll be doing some traveling for work – first to Jefferson City, Tennessee and then to Chicago! Between all of the travel, it looks like I’ll only be in my office for 12 full days in June, which will be a shift after the past two months.

I’m excited to report that I will be staying on at Echoing Green past my Fellowship which would have ended in August. My title changed recently to reflect my current role at Echoing Green; I’m now called the coordinator of Work on Purpose. When I was hired, Work on Purpose was a book and my role centered around tracking its sales and building partnerships with organizations that could use Work on Purpose, but now Work on Purpose is a fully fledged program at Echoing Green. I look forward to being part of some of the strategy conversations as we think more broadly about how Work on Purpose fits into Echoing Green’s mission and how we scale the program to increase our impact. This summer I’ll have the chance to work with our Work on Purpose intern and also dive into some research projects for our team.

One of the things that I love about Echoing Green is the incredible office culture we have. We passed around a study recently that suggests that one of the best ways to develop employee retention is to allow staff to bring their ‘whole selves’ to the office and our managers do a great job of living that practice. At the end of our recent staff meeting, we went around the room and shared a personal goal for the summer. It’s a great way to be held accountable for growing ourselves outside of the office and it was really energizing to hear about my colleagues’ amazing side projects, hobbies, athletic feats, and more. One of my goals is to start volunteering again and hopefully get involved in some art projects.

Looking forward to seeing you back on campus!