Staff Retreat
May 31, 2006

On May 31, 2006 the TCALL staff gathered at TCALL Director Dominique Chlup’s lakeside home for their semi-annual retreat.  The day was devoted to professional development and continued rapport building. Our retreat was facilitated by Texas A&M’s Human Resources Employee Development Coordinator Dr. Sharon Barnes.  The topic we covered was “Change:  Dealing with It.”  Did you know that it takes a year and a half to effectively deal with change?  As we learned from Dr. Barnes, “Change is much more traumatic and difficult for employees than most of us believe.”   By sharing with us a videotape of Dr. Ben Bissell, an expert on the subject of managing change and employee relations, we also learned that our reactions to change are normal and necessary.  The topic was an apropos one since Dr. Chlup has now been directing TCALL for slightly over a year and a half.  The retreat was a day filled with staff members growing professionally and bonding personally over the changes in their lives.