Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! I finished teaching for the semester on Thursday, and now just have to give a final and finish grading assignments to close things out. It’s always a little head-spinning as we get to this point - things go so fast at the end - compared to how it felt back in August when the semester started and it seemed like classes would go on forever. Despite my negative comments last week, it’s been a good semester. It was good to be back in the classroom with everyone and not running a hybrid presentation trying to keep one eye on the students in front of me and one on the students who were on Zoom. That wasn’t good for anyone. Also, outside of class, I’ve been able to line up enough commitments from organizations to provide meaningful internships for all my juniors this summer - it will now be up to them to interview and find the right fit for themselves. We’ll be starting that process over winter break. I’ve been orchestrating virtual networking events for my seniors with executives to help them prepare to navigate the job search in the spring. I’m lucky to get to work with all of these young people.
I’m winding down my daily sketch - including tonight, I have 20 more to do to finish the year. It has occurred to me a few times how the daily sketching has crowded out my love of photography. I don’t plan to do another daily anything next year, but I do want to get back to photography once the sketch project is complete. I took my camera and my dog for a walk in the woods this morning and took the above shot of a random acorn. If you have never done a photo walk - when you go out with your camera looking for interesting subjects - I highly recommend trying it. The exercise helps you focus and be present to your surroundings and the fine details and shapes you otherwise might just walk past. You don’t need a fancy camera - just your phone will work. A fancy camera is nice - but it is not necessary. I had a nice chat with a colleague from our occupational therapy department - he is also into photography. We both started the hobby while we were in our PHD studies for the same reason - photography utilizes the visual part of your brain, which is great when the verbal part of your brain is being stressed by your work. So that’s another reason to try photography. If you spend your days working with words, photography is a great way to exercise a different part of your brain. What do you do to exercise your brain? Especially to compensate and balance the way you use your brain for work? I’d be interested to hear.
Have a great week and enjoy the links!
Read
What: DownEast, 70 Years Behind the Counter of a Small-Town General Store
https://downeast.com/our-towns/70-years-behind-the-counter-hollys-general-store/
Why: from the article, “You don’t want to find fault with a little place like this.”
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What: American Purpose, Ten Theses on Trust
https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/ten-theses-on-trust/
Why: from the article: “I act on what I believe about climate only because I trust what many scientists say about it. The number of life’s truths you can personally verify is quite small. All the rest is based on who and whether you trust.”
The rest of the points are also interesting.
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What: Persuasion, The War on Meritocracy
Why: Back when I taught macroeconomics for the Army Baylor Program, I included a section on economic development, and talked about the transition from a limited access order where the world was run by patrimony and threat of violence, to an open access order run on meritocracy. The open access/limited access framework came from the remarkable book, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, which I would say would be close to the top of my list of books that have influenced my thinking. This article is an arctic blast to remind us that the open access order world we live in is not to be taken for granted.
Look at the history of the West and you don’t have to go back very far to find a world where jobs were handed from father to son or sold to the highest bidder. Look at the rest of the world and you can see governments riddled with corruption and favoritism. The meritocratic idea is necessarily fragile: humans are biologically programmed to favor their kith and kin over strangers. We are right to think that the modern world, with its vibrant economy and favor-free public sector, would be impossible without the meritocratic idea. But we are wrong to think that meritocracy will be with us forever if we proceed to douse its roots in poison.
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Watch
What: UNH/NNEAHE, Improving the Health Status of Your Community (90 minutes)
Why: Last week we co-hosted a panel on community health jointly with the Northern New England Association of Healthcare Executives (NNEAHE), the local chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), and my department, Health Management and Policy here at UNH. My colleague, Dr. Semra Aytur, PHD, moderated the panel. The guests included: Douglas Brown, President, UMM Community Hospitals and CAO for UMass Memorial Health Care; Michael Swack, PhD, Professor, Director, Center for Impact Finance, Carsey School, University of New Hampshire; Debra Ellen McGill, BSN-RN, MS-Pop, Senior Director, Population Health, Maine Medical Partners; and Shawn LaFrance, Vice President for Population Health, Cheshire Medical Center. It was a great panel, and the guests shared some insight into some really great initiatives under way.
Note: If you are an ACHE member, you can claim 1.5 qualified credits for watching the video. To get your qualified credits after you watch the video, self-report your hours in your MY ACHE account.
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Listen
What: Longform, Emily Oster (52 min)
Why: Emily Oster is an economist who has become famous by reviewing studies first on child birth and later on child rearing and summarizing her findings in books such as Expecting Better, Crib Sheet, and the Family Firm. To be honest, I haven’t read any of these because I am way past that phase of my life. But I have listened to Oster on a number of podcasts talk about her process, and her goal of using data to drive decision making and I like how she talks about that. This was a good interview to test drive her work and listen to her thoughts on data-driven decision making (in the context of family development).
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome or use this button:
See you next week!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Associate Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast:
http://healthleaderforge.org
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picaso