The Center for Staff Life Design is officially open

More than 250 staff members and university leaders gathered in Homewood's Shriver Hall on Thursday, Nov. 14, to officially launch the new Center for Staff Life Design. The program included a welcome from Meredith Stewart, interim vice president for human resources, who congratulated those involved in bringing the center to life and thanked President Ron Daniels for his visionary leadership to enrich the lives of staff at the university.

Daniels followed with remarks reflecting on the fact that two years ago the Imagine Center at Homewood had celebrated its grand opening as the physical home of the Life Design Lab for students and alumni. It was fitting, he said, that two years later, the university is expanding the concept to its 12,000 plus staff members as a way for them to thrive in their personal and professional lives and build the life they want.

Both Stewart and Daniels highlighted how the work of the center will support the university's commitment in the Ten for One strategic framework for JHU to become a national employer of choice that recognizes, celebrates, and supports its staff and offers multiple pathways to professional and personal advancement for themselves and their families.

Patrick Brugh, the inaugural director of the Center for Staff Life Design, then led a panel discussion with various university staff members sharing how they have shaped their careers at the university.

"We are breaking new ground with the Center for Staff Life Design, and no other institution is doing this kind of work at the scale we are doing it," Brugh said in introducing the panel discussion. Saying that the center will help staff members create their own unique Hopkins stories, he asked the panelists what brought them to the university, what may have taken them away, and what energized them throughout. The participants were:

• Cori Ramos, community engagement adviser with the Public Safety office, who had left the university and returned two years ago
• Clifton Shambry, associate director of Life Design for Diversity and Inclusion at the Life Design Lab, who has held various roles during his 10 years at the university
• Peter Pan, associate director of Professional Development at SAIS and vice president of the JHU Staff Advisory Council, who has been at JHU for six years
• Sara Shunkwiler, instructional designer at the Whiting School of Engineering, who works remotely and joined the panel virtually

The first 100 attendees to arrive at the launch event received a copy of Designing Your New Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness—and a New Freedom—at Work. The book, written by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, gives an overview of creating an optimal life design.

Before the formal program and during the reception that followed, attendees had the chance to engage in activities the center does during workshops where, on boards, individuals identify what they like in their work experience, what they want to change, and where they see themselves in their JHU journey to help them start thinking about how to design their future work life. Attendees also chose their "work view"—that is, whether their ultimate goal was to have rewards, experience, growth, or fulfillment—and added it to their name badges to spark networking conversations about why they chose that view.

If you are curious and want to explore your own work life, visit the Center for Staff Life Design website to get started.