Invited Essay Hope: Believing in a Brighter Future

Susan M. Fritz is a highly accomplished academic leader. She served as interim president for the University of Nebraska from May 30, 2019, to January 1, 2020, the first woman to lead the NU System. She had served as the NU executive vice president and provost and dean of the Graduate College since August 2012, a role to which she returned in January 2020. Prior to her role in central administration, Dr. Fritz served as associate vice chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR). Among other initiatives, she was heavily engaged in the Institute's international programs. She was an associate dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) and department head of the Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication (ALEC) Program. It is fair to say that her many years in leadership have shaped IANR on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln campus today and have directly influenced policies, practices, and the vision across the University of Nebraska System: "One University. Four Campuses. One Nebraska."

Susan's credentials are impeccable and her leadership skills are second to none. I chronicle them less to impress and more to underscore the personal and professional gravitas she brings to her work, and indeed, her place in society. Susan has been a truly wonderful mentor to me. She brings a seriousness and dignity to the problems of our academic world and a remarkable understanding of the influence of the academy beyond our borders. At the same time, she is jovial and positive; no problem is insurmountable in Susan's view. She approaches problems with the authentic determination of one who fully understands what it means to have hope, hope that is grounded in the clear-eyed commitment, focus, optimism, and persistence about which she spoke in her Maxine Morrison Lecture on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus on October 10, 2019.

Perhaps some of the kinship I feel with Dr. Fritz is genuine, at least by way of country of origin. Like her paternal grandfather, mine also came to Nebraska at age 16 from then Czechoslovakia and through Ellis Island in the early 1900s. He was of the same hopeful, hardworking, and entrepreneurial stock. The stories of our lineage resonate in that they help provide us context for where we have been, who we are, and indeed, where we can go.

It is an honor for me to know Dr. Susan Fritz and to count her as both friend and colleague.

Charlie Bicak

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In the fall 2019, I humbly accepted the invitation to deliver the 2019 Maxine Morrison Lecture at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I was humbled because it meant my name would be added to the list of outstanding Nebraska women who, beginning in 2009, have delivered this lecture. Jean Galloway established this lecture to honor her accomplished mother, Maxine Morrison, and I took particular note of Jean's wish to emphasize hope as part of the lecture series.

Hope is an incredibly important topic. At its essence, hope is the belief that things will get better. Hope is a powerful, measurable belief, and it changes lives. In fact, researchers have determined that "higher levels of hope correspond with superior academic and athletic performance, greater physical and psychological well-being, and enhanced interpersonal relationships" (Rand and Cheavens 2009, 323). Hope in one's life matters!

Charles Snyder (1994), considered the pioneer of the field of positive psychology and a long- serving faculty member at the University of Kansas, established a widely accepted scholarly definition of hope: one's ability to devise pathways to achieve desired goals and to motivate oneself to stay on those pathways.

Snyder's definition of hope had three key elements: goals, pathways, and motivation.

Goals are abstract mental targets that guide human behaviors. Goals create energy and direction.

Pathways thought entails the perceived ability to generate multiple routes to desired goals. Commitment to goals means exploring several ways to achieve a goal.

Agency thought or motivation entails the perceived ability to initiate and sustain movement along a pathway. Essentially, staying focused on goal...