The Power of “No”: Managing Data Demands
& Setting Boundaries in IR

00:38Thank you for joining me today for another episode of Data Stakes, where I have conversations with professionals who work directly in the institutional research or effectiveness field, or are data-adjacent in their role in higher education. Today's conversation will focus on strategies to support IR and IE professionals' ability to manage the expectations and pressures associated with the changing responsibilities of today's data office. My guests are a panel of three, and I'm going to let them tell you a bit about who they are, and then we'll start.

01:14Hi everyone. Thanks so much for having us, Debbie. I'm really excited for us to talk about this topic today. My name is Katherine Gipalo, and I'm a student success analyst in the Office of Institutional Research at Florida State University. I've been in the IR office for a little over four years now, and prior to that I have a background in enrollment management. I actually got all of my degrees that I have thus far from Florida State as well, so I'm definitely an FSU 'Nole through and through. And I'm really excited to be here with my co-presenters Samantha James and Samantha Nix.

01:53Yeah, I'll go next because of the Florida State connection. My name is Samantha Nix. I'm the program director for curricular and student success analytics in the Office of Institutional Research here at FSU. I've been in institutional research for going on seven years, but prior to that earned my PhD in higher education. So I've been doing higher ed research for a while now, and was really excited to be invited to do this podcast following our AIR discussion group. So thanks, Debbie.

02:20Hi, I'll go next because of the name connection — my name is also Samantha. Samantha James. I am from Georgia Tech. I'm the director of institutional research and data portfolio management. I have been in the Office of Institutional Research and Planning since 2019; however, I've actually been at Georgia Tech since 2005, so I've been in the higher education community for over 20 years now. I'm really excited to talk about this topic. It is so near and dear, and I'm so passionate about it. And that's it — I'm turning it back over to you.

03:01Thank you. And you're right, it is a very important topic, especially because lately we're even seeing cuts to IR and IE offices as staffing gets smaller. And amazingly, there are a large number of one-person offices just like the ones that I occupied throughout my career. So learning to say no, learning to make sure you're really doing the right thing with all of the increased requirements — it is super, super important. We're going to talk a bit more about your recent 2026 AIR Forum discussion group session, which was called "How Do I Say No? Discussing Strategies for Saying No to Stakeholders." So my first question to all three of you is: what was going through your minds when you submitted this proposal? Specifically, why this topic, and what makes all three of you so passionate about it?

04:04I will take a stab at this first. I am the data portfolio manager here, so sometimes we do have to say no to certain requests — or not necessarily "no" explicitly, but frame it so that the stakeholder understands there are some boundaries. Even if you're asking for something: no, we can't get it back to you in two days, maybe two weeks. When I joined the IR office, that was one of the biggest concerns — the lack of efficiency — and I think it was because of the increased amount of urgency around everything. So how can you really be efficient? One of the motivating factors for me was that this was something I dealt with straight into my IR career: having to communicate with my boss, who hired me to get things more efficient, and inform her that we're going to have to say no to at least the time frame that we're setting the expectation for, and ensure our stakeholder expectations align with what's actually reasonable. It wasn't necessarily saying "no, we won't do it," but "no, we can't get it to you right then and there." The variations of no go on and on, depending on what you're being asked for. That was one of my motivators, because it was one of the initial things I had to handle in IR — getting everyone comfortable to do that as well. They weren't comfortable even saying no. And so I'll go ahead and pass it on to Katie — no, pass it on to Sam.

05:57Yeah, I wanted to follow up on that, because Samantha, Katie, and I have been connected for a couple of years — we meet up at these conferences and we end up in the same sessions. I think it was the 2025 AIR Forum where there was a session related to a project management strategy, and a question came up: well, when do you say no? And I think some of the conversation turned to, well, we don't. Samantha, Katie, and I just locked eyes in that moment. This has come up between the three of us, but that was the first time we'd really heard it from others at AIR Forum. We had lunch afterwards and started talking about what an interesting question that is — when do you say no, how do you say no? And Samantha shared some of her experiences about how that wove through her career. For me, that's where it came up, and why we wanted to have the discussion group at the following AIR Forum.

06:55Yeah, and I think both Samanthas have done a great job of talking about the professional connection. But one of the things I've really loved about some of the podcast episodes that I did in fact binge-listen to in preparation for this podcast is that you talk a lot about long-term sustainability of people in the discipline, and preventing and mitigating burnout of professionals in our field. In addition to what Samantha James and Sam Nix both said, what really spoke to me in your prior episodes is that I realized fortunately relatively early in my career that if I don't learn how to say no now, it's going to have much bigger, more severe impacts later down the line. So I really think that preaching that good word of protecting yourself, and really clearly identifying with the people in your office, with leadership, with your campus partners, with external people, the scope of your particular role and your particular office — and being willing to pass the baton to others who are capable just like you of some of the work that you might be doing — is a really important skill in mitigating a lot of those issues you've talked about previously. I kind of wanted to round out our answer by talking about that, because like you said, with the increase in requirements and, at a lot of institutions, the decrease of staff resources dedicated to that, I think it's a really important balance to strike: being able to say no to things that aren't in your position description or aren't in the scope of your office, to protect yourself and protect your office long term.

08:44Yes. So, two thoughts from me. Let me share the best piece of advice I received in my early career that I did not listen to at all. When I became the gatekeeper to the original DOS system that my first institution was still running, one of the things the vice president of IT told me was, "I know you're probably not going to take this advice, but I'm going to tell you anyway. You give them their data too fast. You need to stop it." And he was right. I told him he was right — I probably do. I should be embarrassed to say this right here on the podcast, but most of it was because I wanted them to leave me alone so I could get back to all the other pressing requirements of the office — the IPEDS, the state reporting, all of that type of stuff. But that is the best piece of advice that I disregarded. The other thing is, Samantha, I'm just blown away by how brave you were at the beginning of your career, because I can't imagine myself at that stage, when I first walked into an institutional effectiveness role and then the data became a critical part — not just the accreditation of everything — saying "I have to say no to people." That took a number of years, and actually, I would say I probably didn't even start saying no until I became an administrator. So I really applaud you for not just your bravery, but your motivations, because you understand that when you have too much on your plate, it's very hard to be accurate. And then it can affect your focus, your health, and everything. So let's talk a bit about the attendees for your session, because when we had our pre-podcast conversation I made a bad assumption. I thought this would be a room full of newcomers, but you told me something different. So tell me more about the attendees.

10:43The attendees were wide-ranging. We had colleagues new to IR, longtime administrators, those in supporting roles, as well as those who were giving out the demands. One thing that was very relevant, of course, is that everybody had someone asking them to do something — whether it was the president, whether it was their own boss in IR — but it seemed like the concerns remained the same. I got the impression that we were working on a lot of different things as a group, and in that space we want to do the best job that we can, but the asking and the demands on our profession keep coming. It seemed like everyone wanted to be that Debbie who said, "Here you go, here it is, I can do it." But it's challenging their well-being, their state of mind; it's causing long hours. What I heard from the attendees remained the same — it was just trying to take hold of that work-life balance, but not knowing how to say it. And another thing that was communicated: they knew they needed to say it. They were there for a reason. They were like, "I just don't know how to say it." What I felt really impacted them was the idea of framing the no ahead of time. It seemed like we had a lot of gravitation toward that — basically setting people up with clear expectations, something you do in project management, to say "this is what it is." So when it comes to that time, you're not saying no, you're saying "based on the requirements that we've already identified." I felt like it was a wide range of people, the concerns remained the same, and some of the solutions we talked about as a group would apply to all. But I'll go ahead and give it over to the other ladies.

12:49Yeah, I think it really spanned the gamut, as Samantha said. I also think it really illuminated for me the dichotomy of people who are already burnt out and really need the help and support, and people who see those people that are burnt out and don't want to become them. It focused for me the prevalence of that issue in our community. There are people, especially those earlier in their career, that see it happening and want to prevent it for themselves. And then people that are maybe later in their career, or just later in that specific role, that are looking to walk some things back. You talked about earlier how you started off giving people data within a day, within two days — and there are people looking for those strategies to walk that back in a way that doesn't make the stakeholders they interact with feel betrayed or slighted. What really strikes me about IR professionals is how much communication is a part of our job, even though that might not be something a lot of people think is one of the necessary skills. We all think programming is necessary. We all think data visualization is necessary. We know those very highly technical skills are a core component of our roles. But everyone kind of arrives at the realization at different points in their career that it's hard to be successful long term in the role unless you have those communication skills and the ability to set boundaries and set expectations up front in a way that both serves you and serves the person you're talking to.

14:46You know what surprised me most about the audience, Debbie, is that we packed the house out. It was full.

14:51I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised.

14:56It was full, and I think I was expecting at least a couple of hecklers — because IR people are very open, and we're open to hearing challenges, because I think we all know we grow from that. But truly, everyone came to the conversation either open to wanting to hear strategies or open to sharing their own. Katie shared with you in the earlier unpacking that we didn't even get through all our questions, because there was such a good conversation. To me, that shows the broad range: they weren't buckets trying to be filled. It was truly collaborative — how do we individually, or as a field, start to implement these strategies more?

15:41Right. And yeah, Katie, you are right about the need to become a good communicator. What I discovered early in my career was that when those data requests came in, if we didn't have that conversation, I ended up having to do the data request again — because I would send it back and hear "that's not what I wanted." Well, what did you want? "Well, why didn't you tell me that?" Well, I didn't know. So part of that communication I found over the years really pays off. Essentially, as your campus becomes more data literate, I think they also develop a better understanding of the time it's going to take for you to retrieve that data, make sure it's clean, and get it back to them. So during your session, you asked attendees to think about a challenge they faced with defining the scope of their role or office to a collaborator, requester, or administrator. What types of challenges did they share with you, and how did they handle it?

16:45Yeah, I can take point on this one. One of the examples that really resonated with me — because we are growing our data partners program here at FSU — is those coming into brand new roles, or roles that had been restructured from what were previously sporadic responsibilities across multiple other positions that had been consolidated into one role. There were people really struggling with, "it used to be that ten different people did all these small portions of my job and now I'm the only person, but they're still getting that communication. How do I set myself up as the designated person?" Or if there had been a restructuring of their role, they were struggling with, "this used to be in my position description, but it's not anymore, and I'm struggling to communicate that to the people I'm talking to." Or, "I used to be in this role and I got promoted, and the scope of my new promoted role is very different than what I was in previously. But I'm still at the same institution, I'm still working with the same people. How do I clearly set boundaries around that not being my responsibility anymore, and what my new responsibilities are?" I think that is really a symptom of what we've already talked about — how much change and addition there has been to reporting requirements, to requests for data, to this increased scrutiny on higher education institutions in general, which begets asks for data to answer those questions. It's led to a lot of reshuffling in IR and IE, and I feel like I saw a lot of that in the attendees.

18:44One thing that resonated with me about the attendees who spoke to this was the one-person or two-person office. The scope of their role was everything, so they felt it was even harder for them to say no — "I am the only person that's here to do this. I am an office of one, or it's me and my boss." There were several who had those same feelings, and the most encouraging piece of information we discussed as a group to implement was: whenever you are that one person, you are the scope of your office. What's the best way to communicate that no? It was saying, "Hey, of course I'll take that on — but what do you want me to drop off?" It was that conversation: "Of course I want to do this — what would you like to be pushed back?" To help the person they were talking to understand, look, I'm the only one here. So how can we work together to ensure that whatever you have most prioritized for me gets done, and I understand that this other thing I can deprioritize? When we asked that question, and we had attendees who advised that they were an office of one, I felt like they really gravitated to that conversation of "yes, this is a great way to frame this no in a different way." That was one of the most beneficial, because no matter if you're an office of one or an office of ten, I feel like at some time you're going to need to have that discussion — whether it's with your superior who is always pushing and pushing and pushing more, or with that vice provost. Of course IR will do this, but where is the balance here?

20:41I think what I sensed was an internal battle a little bit — the people in our audience needed to say no to themselves first, sometimes. We had this long conversation about data request forms, and I don't think it's because there was a challenge with having the data request form. I think it was a challenge of acknowledging what was going to take their time, and that they needed to understand what was on their list so they could do the internal negotiation of "I do need to pick some things to say no to." If you don't record what you're doing, you don't know that — and so you tend to say yes to more things without realizing there is something you need to say no to. I think that was really the source of that data request conversation, more than anything else. Once the need to say no was identified, then came the challenge of communicating it. It was almost like I sensed it was coming, but which one of those things would need to be the thing that I start to move in that direction of — "it can't be on me right now," or "it has to be on me in a different way."

21:51Right. I think what you've all brought to light is the need for your supervisor to trust that you know how to prioritize your own work — that you recognize what is significant, what is necessary, and what can wait, unfortunately. When I was hired at my most recent institution, there were very few reports. So there was the possibility to have lots of reports that people could be clicking on on their desktop. But the college had gone through a computer system transition, a change in ERP, and just hadn't had that set up. When I got there, I made a colleague in IT my best friend — in fact, I miss seeing him daily, even now that I've left the college. Between the two of us, we created a wealth of reports which really diminished the number of what I would call easy questions. Once that first six or eight months had passed and we had all of these reports and the types of formats that people wanted, it really reduced a large load from me as a one-person office. But then, of course, we started to get more of the federal requirements, and then there was more urgency to get that enrollment management data out faster, and all of those things. So what you've said is key: understanding what to prioritize, being more aware of it — especially through the vehicle of a data request form, where you can actually look back and see what is common — and then moving forward with that conversation with stakeholders and your supervisor. So, what advice can you give listeners who may be struggling with fear? As I said earlier, I did not say no to anyone at the beginning of my career, and it was purely fear motivated. So let's talk about that. What did attendees tell you about fear, if they did? And if you've had any experience with overcoming fear?

24:06Yeah, I'm going to take this one next, Debbie. I love that you brought up your conversation with your supervisor, because my growth in this area was through supervising. My role in this office was the first time I truly supervised full-time employees. Katie in particular and I have had a lot of conversations about her capacity, and about needing to have clarity with your manager about what you can do and how to prioritize that. I heard that from our attendees. I heard them talk about "how do I talk to my manager." One of the things that came up for me when we talked about presenting this as a discussion group topic — and why I think it hits a nerve for some people — is because of our generational differences. I graduated from college in 2009. I know that dates me, but it was at the height of the recession. The idea of saying no at that point in my career was a death knell. I couldn't. I felt like I needed to say yes to every single opportunity in order to make a living. I was in that resource-scarcity mindset coming into this job, but I didn't understand that it was also my job to support those under me in protecting their time and protecting the mission of our office. So the fears we were hearing were around this initial inclination, from their experience, to say yes to everything, and then needing to communicate up to their manager about that. I think it helped in this case for Katie and me to be there as a manager-mentee duo, to say, yeah, it can work out. And to be candid — as the employee, be candid about where you're sitting; but as the manager, be humble about that person coming to you and sharing something that might be vulnerable for them. Maybe it's just business to you, but for them it's a very vulnerable thing. So I think connecting the humanity part of it, and our prior experiences, and acknowledging that, was a big piece of unlocking those fears.

26:14I really agree with that sentiment, and I think there was also a component that — I love this about IR people, but sometimes it can be our own worst enemy — we love to help people, and we are so helpful and so giving. That is a wonderful quality to have, but without boundaries around it, it really can exhaust you and take a lot from you if you don't make the effort to pour back into yourself. So I think there was also a component of, "I'm a current or reformed people pleaser, and I really love helping people, and I really love giving, and that's who I am at my core. But I can't do it anymore because I'm so burnt out, or I'm so overextended, and I'm not sure how to handle that." I think to a lot of people it might feel like they are betraying who they are, or betraying their own identity, to implement skills like this. That is part of the fear too — am I not being true to myself and who I am by saying no and setting boundaries? We had some good conversation about how it's possible to do both. It's possible to have a balance of being very helpful and very giving and very eager to participate in any opportunities that you're given, while also, as Samantha talked about earlier, prioritizing the things that mean the most to you or are most closely tied to the scope of your role — so that you can continue to be giving and helpful into the future. It's really a marathon, not a sprint.

28:09I agree. I am a people pleaser, but I am also not recovering — I am an overachiever. I want to be a recovering overachiever one day, but I'm just still there. With those two things together, fear is very real. I have a fear of failure — a fear of failing not only myself, but failing at the task. We already have this stigma in institutional research where we feel like we are not doing enough. We feel like, well, this person is a data scientist, I don't have any data science in me, so I must not be doing enough. We all struggle from this fear. We literally call it out in what we do. My personal perspective on that is just what we know about fear: what is it, what are you afraid of, and calling that out. For me I had to call that out, and that's what I push out into the world — let's define what it is. To me it was fear of not meeting the assignment; therefore it was fear of failing, and fear that somebody was going to come back and say "yeah, this is not what I wanted, so do it again" — and now I failed. But it wasn't letting that run me. It was, how can I now overcome this fear? What am I afraid of, and then putting some things in place? I think Samantha and Katie already know where I'm going, but: now I need to start planning. Okay, so this is what I'm afraid of — let me start planning where I don't feel like this. If I can reset expectations on me, if I can reset this where I get everything I need in the beginning, then I know that I have the ability to champion this now. I just told one of my reports the other day — and I did use this word, and I told her I'm using it very intentionally, because I'm going to get this out — I don't care if you think your question is mundane. It's not. I want you to ask it. There are so many different caveats to IR. I want you to ask the question. Just because you hear people talking with all this fluency, with this whole different language, doesn't mean that you should know it. I am not a big IPEDS person. I use it, but I am not completing the information in there. So I may not understand whenever someone's speaking very openly and fluently about what's going on. I don't know what you're talking about — and I've been here a long time. But it's about gaining that awareness to say, I can ask the question, and I can make the change. It's all about how you communicate that on the front end. So when I think about fear, even now, I do think about that initial "man, maybe I shouldn't ask the question, because now I'm going to feel like the most inferior person in the room." But that's not the case. I think it's really defining what you are afraid of, and let's put something into action. In institutional research as a whole, we can institute some things on the front end to mitigate all this fear on the back end, and make some norms so that as a profession we take away a lot of what contributes to this syndrome that we're all experiencing at some time in our career.

31:34Agreed, agreed. So I want to round back to something that Samantha said. I'm sure that anybody looking at me right now through the camera lens can see that I am a boomer. I always like to tell people I was on the tail end of the boomers — as if that means I'm not that old. But I did grow up, as I shared earlier, with parents who, if work required Saturday, they went on Saturday. If work required bringing it home, they brought it home. My mom was an accountant, and I remember many evenings she would be sitting at the kitchen table with her calculating machine and spreadsheets, which of course were paper in those days. And what was she doing? She was still working on payroll or something else for her full-time job. Combine that with the fact that I was amazed, but extremely pleased, to see sessions at Forum that acknowledge trauma in our jobs. I don't know if it was the 2025 Forum or the 2024 where I saw the word "trauma" in a session title. And of course one of our colleagues from Maryland emphasizes a lot about the necessary self-care, so that you don't burn out, so that you can continue to take care of both your job and yourself. I'm really pleased that as more generations enter the workforce, it seems that you all have a much better grasp on that work-life balance than those of us have had. I think sometimes now you're dealing with continuing to correct the imbalance that we have had. But so glad to see that. So let me ask each of you: what's the best piece of advice you can give a listener who may be struggling with how to frame the no? This is something Samantha brought up a couple of times — it's so important to frame it the right way.

33:43Yeah, I think my best piece of advice — and I would expect that Samantha Nix might say this, because she was the English major in college and I wasn't — qualifiers. Qualifiers are your best friend. "Yes, but." "Yes, however." "No, maybe." All of those qualifiers. I know there's a sentiment in cultural discourse now that no, in and of itself, is an answer, and I 100% agree that there are absolutely instances where no is a complete answer. But I think when you're thinking about how to respond to others to protect yourself, and to maybe soften the blow of the severity of that answer: "No, but I could get it to you on this longer schedule." Or "no, however, I could give you only these data elements and get you the rest of the data elements at a later date." Or "yes, but I'm not sure that's quite the question you're really asking — could we investigate that a little more?" Just really approaching things with qualifiers and with curiosity. I think that's gotten me the better end of a lot of conversations that I might have otherwise.

35:11I'll go next. I actually have two pieces. The first: we identify ourselves as decision support — some people really gravitate to that phrase — and I want to remind listeners what "decision" means. Decision actually has a Latin root that means "to cut off." So literally, we call ourselves decision support; we're going to have to cut some things off. That's literally the root word of decision. That's my first thing. I don't want to say "to cut off" and not show you how — so if we're going to cut off, there actually is a process to it. It's a framed process that leaves people feeling and trusting you more, and develops that relationship more. And these women on here already know me — I'm going to go ahead and say it's data project management. It's creating that scope, creating that project charter from the beginning, and setting those expectations to say, "Hey, you know what? We're going to triage your request for the first two days, and then we're going to have some conversations about what you need and your requirements, and some expectations on when you can have this deliverable back." I think it's about developing that type of relationship in our work and with our customers, both internal to the campus. We don't really have that opportunity with our compliance-related partners, but where we do have that opportunity, start setting that as the expectation of how we do business — because then it's not about saying no, it's about saying, "Hey, you remember that scope that we agreed upon?" And it's about saying, "Hey, I want to support this." Even in the data portfolios that I do now, I'll let them know: you're going to get this data portfolio, we agreed on the components, but everything else needs to come later, because I need to respect all these other people that need data portfolios. So I need you to request this a different way — but when do I say it? I say it when we start the process. And that's all I'm going to say about what we can leave to the listeners.

37:09So I struggled to express this in the discussion group, and I'm wondering if I'm going to do a better job — y'all let me know. I think some of the framing around saying no is remembering that when someone has asked you for something — and again, with Samantha James's framing of not necessarily reporting and compliance folks, but those who answer data requests from internal stakeholders, or people where it's not a legal requirement — they're asking for information. When they ask you to do it, that means somebody else has said no. And often it's that individual who has said no. That individual has said, "I could compile this data myself, but I'm actually saying no to me doing it and asking you to do it." So I sometimes flip it around and try to empower the person asking the question to participate with me in this process. I frame it as, I'm going to do a portion of this — and instead of you saying no and making me do the other step, the analysis piece of it, how about I get you to say yes to doing the analysis? You're the contextual expert. I'm here to help consult and support, but I understand you may not have access to all the data. I can get you the data, but I think you should be the person who does this aspect. And so the conversation of no doesn't even sound like a no. It sounds like a yes for you, and not a no for me. That can sometimes work. I think that can also work inside your office too, if you aren't a one-person shop or a two-person shop. If you happen to be at one of these institutions that's bigger and you have younger members of your office, you saying no may be saying yes to mentoring them, and having them learn something new, and building something that will be great for the office as a whole, the institution, and also that individual. So just remember that it's not always a negative. It can be a really good positive thing too.

38:59Yes, you're right — it can become a really significant learning moment for that colleague. Maybe somebody never said to them, "You are the expert. You are the expert on this, not me. I can give you the numbers, but you really know what it means." And yes, bringing them on board like that is a very successful strategy to implement. So, final question for each of you: what do you do in your everyday work to set realistic expectations?

39:30That's a great question. One of the things I've implemented is blocking off work time as not optional. It's sometimes easy to let our calendars be overrun with meetings — and if you use Scheduling Assistant in Outlook, or Calendly, or a similar service, not everyone has access to the titles and locations of what you're actually doing. They can just see where you're busy and where you're not. If you don't block off dedicated focused time to do what you've been asked to do, or committed yourself to do, it makes you look like you're a lot more available than you actually are. So that's one of the strategies I've implemented: treating that as not optional, and as equally — if potentially not more — important than meetings that I attend or have on my calendar already.

40:31For me, I do that, but I also am very clear on the front end whenever I speak with people about what their expectations are. And in addition to that, I always give myself extra time. If I think it's going to take two weeks, I tell them three — because for me, the expectation is I'm going to receive something that's urgent, and the expectation is I might have to put this on the back burner. I would rather estimate more time, because no one's going to be mad I gave them their item early. So when I'm setting those boundaries and making those expectations, I always give myself an extra week. And there's a fear component there, ready to say, "Hey, they said they need it in two weeks — can I give it to you in three?" Most of the time they say yes. That's something I always do, and I encourage everyone around me to do, because like I said, the only thing that it's going to do is build that trust and build that relationship with your customers — for you to give them something early rather than to give it to them late.

41:42Yeah, I do that as well, and I don't have an argument against it. But I think what I do that might add to that is I openly share my task list. There's not a lot that I have on my private to-do list — I try to put as much as I can on a shared to-do list, particularly as a manager, so that the people I manage know what's going on. I can't see them all the time and I can't talk to them all the time about what's on my list, but then they can see. That also lets them know, if they've asked me to review something, that it is on my list and it's coming up, and that I haven't ignored it. That works really well with the calendaring strategy that Katie mentioned — they can see when the time is blocked off, that it's going to happen. I know our external partners don't see that as much, but I will often have a transparent conversation with them in a similar vein whenever we are setting timelines. So if we get to that part of the project where we're talking about when we might get this thing done, I'm very honest with them, if I can be, about the other things I have on my list to do. Not in a way that tries to downplay their request, but to let them know that their project is just as important as these other projects too, and I am prioritizing that for them — and they can see why it might take me just a little while longer, because I do need to move forward something a dean asked over something an advisor asked, for instance.

43:12Super. So let me sum up what I learned from the three of you today: that when you prioritize yourself, your mental health, your capacity — when you look at yourself and you realize that managing that is just as important as the job — when you start that, I think that helps you set priorities. When you use the types of tools that you mentioned, using your calendar, and canned reporting strategies, then I think maybe it makes you feel more in control. That can help reduce any anxiety that you might be having, that fear that comes up. I know we have a lot of colleagues who are not neurotypical, and anxiety is a real thing when you start thinking about not being able to meet deadlines, not being able to keep people satisfied. And then, of course, the importance of framing. All of you have talked about the importance of having good communication skills and building relationships on your campus. I wish I smiled as naturally as Katie does — I don't. I think Katie could tell me no every day, and as long as she smiles, I still feel great about the conversation. But it's those relationships and how we feel about each other that does help us in this ability to say no. So it was really great having each of you as a guest to have this multifaceted conversation, hearing each of your perspectives. And like we started out by saying, this is a very timely topic, because of the increasing pressures on data professionals to deliver results faster, even though not every campus has a mature data culture. And so do our listeners. Thanks for joining us today for another episode of Data Stakes. Data Stakes is sponsored by the Data Analytics Alliance for Higher Education, and you can visit our website to learn more about our upcoming quarterly meeting. If you have any questions about today's conversation, don't hesitate to reach out to me at dephelps@datatelligent.ai.