Desirable Support

Traveling Workshops (tell us about them)
Information about other departments' administrative structure and history
Information on field trips/sites
Information on regional activities (including departmental seminars)
Compilation of data from curricula sessions (Carol has added these to the program page)
Citations/bibliography of resources that the leaders mentioned
Getting buy-in hotline: if you would like help getting buy-in from your colleagues, email Carol and she'll send it to just the workshop leaders or email Cathy and she'll send it to whichever leader(s) she thinks will be most helpful
Each other.... share our successes and failures: email strong_programs@serc.carleton.edu
Information on how many departments have participated in Building Strong Geoscience Departments (and Cutting Edge) workshops
Checkpoint to see how we're doing -- prompt the email list to send progress reports once/semester
Letter to Presidents/Provosts recognizing participants' contributions to this workshop (and a copy for ourselves)

Lessons Learned

We are not alone; we have lots in common
Each of us is doing some things well
Simple ideas can launch complex action plans with profound impacts
Think proactively
It's important to consider multiple perspectives: colleagues, students, alumni, and administrators
Meeting regional colleagues is valuable

More workshops (including the Traveling Workshops)
Workshop on Environmental Science/Environmental Studies/Geosciences and how they fit together
Export this workshop to related disciplines - or at least share with them what we did and what worked well
Update the list of characteristics of thriving departments
Workshop on how to be an effective department head/chair/leader (CCAS has such an annual workshop)
Workshop on working effectively with administration