Thursday With Tom

So have you planned out all of your summer activities (personal and professional)?  The list is long…Hiring that final vacancy which will open in July; Taking your two weeks vacation (or more if you didn’t use your days); Bringing in that motivational keynote speaker for staff training schedule; Ordering the 100 mattresses for the “on-time” renovation project; Finding enough space in the halls for the extra 50 first-year students; and so many more administrative details with the three new initiatives my supervisor has asked for us to do this upcoming year.

Where do you begin?  Be thoughtful as you plan for your summer.  Try and rejuvenate as the August blitz will make us all yearn for a four day tanning marathon at our favorite beach.  Without being selfish and “sharpening the saw” as outlined in Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits we will never truly meet our intended (and assigned) goals. 

I always suggest to all levels of staff prior to their departure to pick up a 2-3 books to read for the summer.  One book should be purely for fun, another for personal growth in an area of interest, and the third should be a book related to our work as student development / human resource / construction-technology advances.  There is nothing like having a staff member’s brain be nourished by good ideas, being provided solutions for  challenges facing our organizations; or the escape from our daily work to enter someone else’s journey.

As you think about your upcoming summer plans try and map out those things that mean the most for you and will rejuvenate, provide reflection, and have you think differently about the work that we do.

Enjoy your summer!

Tom

At this time of the year as we all begin the process of closing, I often think what type of job we did this year and what was accomplished.  We begin each year with great hopes and promises for the future - new programs, new staff, new ideas on how we will make it can ensure the best learning experience for the students who arrive on our campus etc.. Have we been successful in the delivery of those services and programs?  How do we measure success? 

I often think back to a training session I have offered to RAs a number of times throughout my career -  it is a “sense memory” exercise.  The session occurs in August, before the new students have come to campus.  RAs are asked to close their eyes and envision the dialogue and activities happening on their floor on the last days of the final exam period.  What types of conversations are occurring?  How are people saying good-bye to each other?  Is there any reflection occurring as to how they felt the year went? Are the students discussing summer plans in which they will meet up with each other? 

Much of what we do on the front end of the year will show the desired results at closing.  So if you have the type of closing you could only dream about at opening, take a moment to congratulate yourself for the work you and your staff did with your training and welcoming exercises.

Some simple ideas to add to your end of the year checklist include: 

Exit Interviews for all staff:  This is a great way to receive qualitative feedback toward staff morale, ideas to improve the department and to create an individual and personal thank you to the staff members who are leaving the institution.

Memories Booklet. For departing staff providing a “memory book” of pictures, quotes and words of advice is helpful to show how important staff members were to the organization.

Year End Awards:  Most institutions I know have some type of annual recognition for staff members.  Providing slide shows, CDs of flyers / visual representation of the year, and other innovative thank you’s are key in demonstrating your appreciation for the work that was completed over the course of the year.

While some items on this list seem pretty standard, I am surprised at just how many schools do not engage staff at the time of departure.  Should you have further ideas, I would encourage you to respond with your comments in the response section of the blog.

Your ideas are encouraged!

It’s that time of the year again!  Conference season is in full swing.  I just returned from the NASPA conference held in Boston, MA.  This year’s experience at the conference reminded me of an experience I had serving on a committee assessing a professional association’s top rated services.  The survey asked participants to rank the services that the association provided in order of importance to their individual development.  It was not surprising to read that member’s felt the annual conference was the highest rated service” offered to the members.   

During the conference, one has the opportunity to connect with old friends and colleagues, learn best practices in our industry, test out our ideas with valued professional minds, and my personal favorite — meet the future of our profession in the placement center.  I always get rejuvenated by the idealism and energy of young professionals who aspire to be my future boss, as a Vice President of Student Affairs or President at a College.   

So I often wonder, what happens to those idealized young graduate students and where do they all go?  Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that all entry-level staff become disgruntled and pessimistic about our future, quite the contrary! However, in the end, where do those 1200-1400 newly minted Master degree students in Higher Education, or related fields, go?   

I might suggest that there are some very good reasons for attrition, (finding a new passion outside Higher Ed, not matched to be successful in Student Affairs, family / personal situation has changed), yet still we seem to need more and more professionals entering student affairs each year.  In today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, it is noted that the staffing position openings have increased by another 2-3% this year.   

So if we take what I learned about the conference experience from my professional association survey review, conference attendance is important.  We should do whatever we can to have our staff attend AND fully participate by going to the conference with a focus of purpose and goals to be achieved.   

In the end, this just might help us stay rejuvenated and assist our campus colleagues to keep the “optimism” about our future, especially towards the young professionals.  Hopefully our own energy and excitement will lead to us staying in the profession and simultaneously assist our “future bosses”, the optimistic young professional.  To help keep that future bright we all need to commit to take the time to mentor, challenge our staff to grow professionally, and provide collaborative opportunities to work with younger staff on projects on our campuses.  So while we are fresh from our return to our campus, how will we keep the energy, the new ideas, and commitment to the profession long after the conference ends?  Only two to three weeks from now will tell if we really committed to the goals of why we went to a conference. 

Happy March!

Black History Month is underway…..

I’ve always wondered, does it make sense to have a month honoring a particular group of people (ethnicity, gender, etc.) instead of honoring all year long.  After much contemplation, I’ve landed on the side of having these celebratory months as they help bring significance to the issues. 

Recently I had the honor of being a speaker for NYU’s Day of Service commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  My goal was to emphasize the fact that the work that Dr. King’s message lives in all that we do in Student Affairs work.  During his time, Dr. King’s words and actions filled a great void in our nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that truly lived by its noblest principles. Yet, Dr. King knew that it wasn’t enough just to talk the talk - he also had to walk the walk. In a time that was marred by controversy and uncertainty - he was a man of faith and of action. He practiced and preached a code of nonviolence, and held to his convictions when those even in his own community challenged him and insisted he do otherwise. Dr. King put his life on the line for freedom and justice every day. He braved threats, police dogs, water hoses and was even thrown in jail. He remained unwavering in his belief that this country would and should guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all of it’s citizens. Dr. King paid the ultimate price, through his own death, to make democracy a reality for all Americans.  

Dr. King stood for the elimination of racism, poverty, and war.  As staff in student affairs, we can live King’s dream by insisting that our institutions continue to increase access to higher education to first generation/low income/minority students.  As the price of higher education escalates, we should be aware of the programs and services we offer and remember to attempt to offer monetary support for those who can not afford a $5 co-payment for attending an event.  This is handled directly by students informing RAs, who ask no questions and get the funds from their supervisor so students can attend. Another focus we can have is through an interdisciplinary / multidisciplinary approach to solve social problems related to racism, poverty and war through working with academic colleagues on service-learning projects such as hall council partnering with local shelters or food banks and reflecting on the experience for a paper in Expository Writing, or Intro to Word Cultures.  Finally, we can continue to reach out to the local, national, and international communities by partnering with local elementary and high schools to role model the importance of education and how learning can help reduce ignorance.

Every year as MLK celebrations wind down and we head into Black History Month I remain proud of the various institutions that have continued to support these monthly celebrations and how they can remind us of the role we all need to play in making this a more equal and accepting world.

If you have any additional thoughts please post in the comment section!

The New Year - new ideas? 

How do organizations improve?  The act of assessment is one key component in improving practice.  A great deal of attention is being paid to assessment these days.  Many public institutions are being asked to prove that they are impacting student success in the academic realms by their state legislature. This has been happening for quite some time with elementary and secondary education, for example, No Child Left Behind.  So what happens when a College President says, “Well, what are you doing in student affairs?  Why do we need to continue to invest in “extra-curricular” activities?” 

Great question!  In fact, I would suggest ALL University Presidents ask that question.  Why shouldn’t we be held to the same standard as our academic counterparts?

This may not seem as a new idea for many but I am still astonished by how many of my colleagues across the country have not gotten into the world of assessment! While many Student Affairs Divisions have relationships with their Institutional Research Offices, I would recommend that units begin to devise a strategic plan for assessment in their own shops and not wait for it to come as a directive.  How would one begin this process?  The most important aspect is to begin with this question: What do you want your students to gain/learn from the housing experience on your campus, i.e., why should they live on campus and not off-campus?   

Many of us begin with the idea of answering the question by establishing programs and experiences for our students before we determine what we want students to learn.  This paradigm shift is articulated in the Learning Reconsidered 2, published in 2006 by ACPA, ACUHO-I, ACUI, NACADA, NASPA, and NIRSA organizations.  It is a good resource in showing staff how to approach our work from a learning centered outcome approach, rather than from a service approach (although we do need to keep that aspect in mind).   

At NYU, my home institution, we are currently in the process of teaching the lessons learned from the book to our staff in Residential Education.  Additionally, we have determined it is now time for us to assess how we have done as a department by bringing in an outside group of colleagues to provide us with a fresh perspective on how we think we are doing.  So if you haven’t read the book, or haven’t thought about how to start the assessment plan now is the best time.  It’s a new year, time for a FRESH view of how we deliver learning experiences for our students. 

As always, your comments and ideas are welcome.  Should you have any particular questions regarding the creation of an assessment plan, please drop me a line at te13@nyu.edu  

Happy New Year! 

Tom Ellett

How often do you get the chance to review and reflect on the past year and your accomplishments? If the answer to this question is rarely, I’d encourage you to engage in the reflection process this year! There are a number of formal and informal ways to incorporate reflection into your practice.

            For the formal, do evaluations and feedback forms. Remember, evaluations come from those you report to, while feedback comes from people who report to you (and even staff who are colleagues or other stakeholders on your campus).

            For the informal, do a 2-3 question survey to people attending a program of yours, or a service you were responsible for coordinating. Another less formal but very useful mechanism to gauge progress is through a process I call “debriefing”. At my current institution we try and incorporate debriefings at the end of each semester. Staff members choose the topics that they feel need review and reflections. This 1-2 hour commitment of time has proven valuable to all who have participated.

            The art of reflection is a key ingredient for self and organizational progress. Don’t forget to take the time to improve your practice – practice does make perfect…well, how about practice makes improvement!

            Enjoy the holidays!!!

Over the past year and a half I have had the opportunity to visit about twenty college campuses across the country either through consulting, recruitment trips, or while attending a conference.  Through all of these experiences it has made me realize there are college campuses for everyone.  When I speak to students or veteran staff members as I walk on the other campuses, I often ask, “Why do you like ABC College?” or “What makes this a great institution to work at or attend?”  In almost every case the student or staff member mentions the opportunities, the campus traditions, or the faculty that interact with the students. Unfortunately throughout my career I have also heard another interesting trend from new professionals at new campuses for the first time, “Well it’s not exactly as I had heard when I visited for my interview…”  For these new professionals I say, “Don’t be so sure the grass is much greener on the other side of the state”.  

For too long we haven’t done a great job educating our RAs or graduate students about the fact that other institutions do it differently.  We tend to get excited when we have a paraprofessional who wants to enter the field, but don’t prepare them for the real world, which includes educating them on institutions that operate differently than what they are familiar with. A few years ago a colleague of mine stated, “The seeds you plant at XYZ University will need to be different at ABC College as the soil there doesn’t allow the same seeds to grow”. This statement resonates with my concern about the level of dissatisfaction that I often hear from new professionals.

So what can we do if we are in a position of leadership?  One way we do it here at NYU is through a weekly reflection process called the TLC – or Transition Learning Community.  I started the group three years ago after I attended a new professional’s conference in our region. Throughout my day facilitating sessions, I heard from many participants that they were employed at a “bad institution”.  (In their words, “institutions who didn’t do residence life correctly”) While that may indeed be the case for some, it certainly has been contrary to what I have learned from students on those same campuses.  So where is the disconnect?  I believe it goes back to the idea that our newest professionals are so engrained in the way we do business at one University, that they are incapable of really embracing a new culture and perspective at another institution. So what are we to do?  In my opinion, which is supported by the feedback I’ve received from entry-level staff members, a program like TLC is an important way of allowing for dissonance, but at the same time challenging assumptions in a safe and comfortable environment. 

To give you a brief synopsis of what the TLC program is, I meet with all of the new staff in the department who attends 11 sessions which, begin in the late summer and then culminate in an off-campus luncheon in December.  Through the weeks I assist and encourage staff to engage in open dialogue about their transitions to our city, our University, and the department.  I use a series of readings and experiential learning projects that assist staff in this transition process.  I believe that framing and allowing for staff to vent in a safe place will assist them in understanding and having an overall  better experience of the new surroundings, rather than having their frustrations come out in other ways.

We utilize the book Job One by Magolda and Carnighi, articles on job transitions, a chapter on personal assessment and a tool that assists with identifying behavioral response to their environment.  All of these intentional discussions help the staff with not only understanding the rationale of who we are as an organization, but also to identify the issues that are challenging staff to be successful.  As a leader of a large organization it is much more beneficial to lead the reflection process than seeing it come out in negative ways on out in our organization.

I will be presenting on the TLC in greater detail for those who will be attending the NASPA Conference in Boston this March. I invite you to stop by to learn more about my experience with the TLC then. In the meantime, the next time you hear a young professional colleague state how bad it is on their campus, remember to remind them that not all feel that way, and yes while it may not be their alma mater, it is a place that students on their campus may really like and that their negative energy does nothing to help resolve the problems.

Wow – I can hardly believe that we have made it through the first six weeks since the students have moved into the residence halls.  As the fall begins to descend upon us, it is time for us to think about how we reflect on the foundations that we started with training, welcoming our students, and finding routine for our lives, if that is possible. 

Many of our institutions have begun to place the frame work of our programs through the lens of Ernest Boyer’s book: Campus life: in search of community.  The book gives an overview of the framework for creating community on our campuses.  (FYI – there is an updated version on Boyer’s model with the progress of campus community found in Donald’s Creating campus community:  in search of Ernest Boyer’s legacy. 

I know on my campus we ask RAs to meet with each of their residents for a thirty minute discussion to converse about campus connections, academic progress, and safety in the city.  We call it BASE — yes, we love acronyms too — Building Academic and Social Experiences.  I thought it might be helpful for me to provide my BASE interview with you, so here goes: 

Do you feel connected to the staff in your department, and more importantly to the goals and direction of the institution? 

How much intentionality do you have in the work that you do?  Are faculty members involved in programming, and / or do you have colleagues who get involved as stakeholders before you make decisions that affect others? 

Do you feel like your physical environment is conducive to the creation of a safe space for conversation among students and colleagues? 

Do you have someone to turn to when you have a problem in addressing a student issues or are stuck in moving forward in your own career? 

Clearly there are many questions that you can pose to yourself at any point in time.  But in higher education, more than anywhere else, we should continue to reflect and improve as individuals and see if the six week demarcation is helpful in bettering our practice and our ideals of our own campus community.  Assessment, such as the six week program, is helpful to us all.  I would encourage more “stops in time” throughout the year to continually analyze the work that we do in this field.  In the end, let’s hope after reflection of this exercise you don’t feel in the BASEment of the community you work and live in.

Please Comment on this blog… What has happened in your first six weeks?  To speak with Tom directly contact him at te13@nyu.edu.

You can fill in your own answer to that blank. Well, yes it is another year; my 22nd in the field of student affairs. So, does much change as it relates to opening of another school year? Well it does cost on the average 4.5% more nation wide (depending on what study you are reading) to attend an institution of higher learning; it is also exceedingly more difficult to recruit students to take on leadership roles at many of our institutions. In addition it is more difficult to find funding at our institutions to produce meaningful work and improve the quality of co-curricular experiences, and the list goes on However, there is another way to look at this “New Year’s Celebration” that we have every year at this time, a time to make our own “New Year’s Resolutions” as professionals. So what are yours?

Let’s start with the basics – learning. So what new things do you want to learn this year in our field? Have you received feedback in areas that you were lacking last year (being a good supervisor, lack of time management skills, poor written communications, etc.?) Well, now is the time to head to the bookstore and get a “Dummies book” on that subject, outline some professional development plans to improve in the areas that you know you could be better at, or even meet with your supervisor to map a plan for success.

Next, what about building your circle of “contacts”? When is the last time you emailed someone you met at a meeting, party, or program and said, “It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope our paths cross again”, or when you finished that best selling book dropping a note to the author to share your feelings on the book, or even asking the student who needed a service from your office where they are from and why they came to your institution. Aren’t we all just six degrees of separation from each other? Let’s get that down to five in the next decade.

Also - how about balance? In this New Year do you plan to continue to work 60 hours each week and continue to get paid for 40? Do you plan on keeping that extra 10 pounds because you are too busy at work to go to the gym or pack a healthy lunch? If you aren’t strategic in your plan, those extra 10 pounds, feeling tired and overwhelmed will continue.

Finally, what about what you are doing now? – What are you doing in your role in your department? Do you still want to be doing that next year at this time? If not, what are you doing so that when I say, another year, you can say, NOPE, it is a completely NEW Year. So as you go forward with some intentional thinking, I say Happy New Year and hoping you meet your New Year’s Resolutions as we start yet another year.

Please comment on this blog…What are your plans for learning, maintaining and making contacts in the field, and finding life balance in this “New Year”?

To speak to Tom directly contact him at te13@nyu.edu.