By Dana and David Dornsife Dean Gina Lovasi, PhD, MPH

I noticed myself looking forward to work-related trips to Chicago next month, and to Minneapolis in October. While I have long-standing recognition of the importance of information sharing and networking at such events, it occurred to me that going to fewer conferences and work trips in the last year has given me new space for anticipation.

Traveling less was a deliberate choice to protect myself and my family while learning the rhythms of a new leadership role. An unexpected benefit is that upcoming trips stand out to me as more special, more worthy of deliberate planning to set the stage for connection.

As we plan for the coming academic year’s events, there may be a lesson here for our scheduling. Before we push forward with contingency planning and worry about attendance, could we find more joy and meaning in our events by simply having fewer of them?

I find myself thinking about a book I enjoyed, The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. My takeaway was that having many options often feels daunting compared to having just a few. Are we giving ourselves and our students so many event options to navigate that we are overloaded? With so many options, we rationally try to limit the time and energy cost of sorting through abundant options to optimize our attendance. As a result, we may show up haphazardly and with little sense of purpose, scrolling email from the back row or doing laundry while on Zoom, or not attend at all.

Identifying a number of events that is feasible and beneficial to attend might help us to work toward a goal for containing our volume of events. The ideal number would be few enough to feel navigable, and even intriguing. This might show up as attending one event each week of our academic quarters and monthly over the summer: around 36 events per year. Suppose that we want each person to be at 5 or 6 signature school-wide events, and then have 3 options for each of the other weeks and months. That’s about 100 events to offer for the year.

This sounds like a high number to plan, and a large investment of time and energy. Plus, to provide hospitality and reach a larger audience, we may add other costs such as refreshments or occasionally an off-site venue.

Last year, our school shared information about 160 unique events through our weekly internal and monthly external newsletters. That we may struggle to contain our event planning to 100 occasions annually is a signal of our growth, our strong community, and our wide range of interests and aspirations.

The number of events grows as departments, working groups, centers, student organizations, offices, and programs envision ways for their members to engage.

The gatherings of project teams, committees, and other small groups further add to the options that a given individual must navigate, even if those are not as open and visible to all on our school's events calendar.

Challenges that arise when events overlap in both intended audience and timing are worth considering in advance. A strategy we have used to encourage on campus presence in this era of flexible work arrangements is to designate 1-2 anchor days, most commonly Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This has had the unintended consequence of exacerbating overlap, as those days are filled to the brim and overflowing with events. While the sense of abundance and vibrancy on these days is something we set out to create, it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

The calm of the summer feels like the right moment for us to look for ways to make sure we are being intentional and audience-friendly as we plan for events and event-related communications.