The Higher Education Blog

Educators or Police Officers?

2008-10-20T18:03:00Z

For years, campuses around the country have tried to stop, or at least prohibit, their students from illegally sharing files with other students and downloading copyrighted music on campus. Schools have had to not only designate manpower to fight this ongoing battle, but have had to use their own funds in order to stop it as well. And now the rest of us get a glimpse into what these institutions are having to pay...

This month, a study was released called the Campus Computing Project that shows just how much schools are averaging for supporting the strict policies that Congress has set up for them to meet. This pas August, Congress tightened the enforcement requirements in the Higher Education Act, which the report says will further increase the amount of money institutions have pay for keeping their students out of online trouble. The report says the average public campus spends over $20,000 a year on licensing fees for software that curbs illegal file sharing and other peer-to-peer (P2P) services; while private institutions are averaging around $100,000 per year.

Some feel that the amount of time, energy and expense these schools pay to fight copyright infringements is a waste of educational resources and turn our institutions into law enforcers rather than educators. Others believe that schools have a real responsibility to keep their students from breaking copyright laws while they reside on the school's property.

What do you think?

The High Price of College Textbooks

2008-10-17T19:36:00Z

It's nothing new for college students to bring up the high cost of textbooks, but up until this week a website run by an anonymous student was giving students a break by providing pirated versions of their books.

The website, Textbook Torrent, was discovered by the publishers of the textbooks after a story was printed about the site in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Although the site's owner reluctantly shut down the site, he urged other to take his place against the publishers and start their own sites for illegal downloads.

What do you think about the high cost of textbooks?

Update: Univ. of Illinois May Enforce Political Measures on Students

2008-10-03T19:29:00Z

Last week I blogged about the University of Illinois deciding that faculty and staff may not wear political buttons, use bumper stickers or attend on-campus rallies that favor either presidential candidate; now the school may be extending its measures to its students.

What do you think about this?
Does the school have a right to implement these measures on its employees? On its students?

University of Illinois Tells Employees Not to Express Political Leanings on Campus

2008-09-24T14:36:00Z

InsideHigherEd.com recently posted a story about the University of Illinois sending out an official memo from the ethics office to its faculty, staff and all employees telling them not to attend on-campus political rallies, refrain from having political bumper stickers on their cars, or even wear a button showing support for a particular political campaign. This memo has caused controversy within the school resulting in some employees saying the school is imposing on their freedom of speech.

A spokesman from the school said that the university president, Joseph White, was aware that faculty members were concerned about the memo, but went on to say that the policy is still in affect. Although the memo is not currently being enforced, a number of faculty, including a Urbana-Champaign campus professor who is also the president of the American Association of University Professors, have begun circulating a draft that shows their deep concern for the school's apparent disregard of the employees' right to free speech. Once part of the draft states,"Although these rules are not at present being enforced, the AAUP deplores their chilling effect on speech, their interference with the educational process, and their implicit castigation of normal practice during political campaigns.”

During political campaigns, most colleges and universities are aware that they aren't supposed to show any political leanings towards candidates, given their non-profit status and use of public funds, but some believe the University of Illinois has overstepped the normal actions during a campaign season.

What do you think? Leave a comment below, or join in the discussion on the Education Forum...

Colleges & Universities Crack Down on Off-Campus Violations

2008-09-17T18:30:00Z

by Chris Neiger

A little while ago the AP ran a story about colleges and universities extending the enforcement of their conduct codes to students who who commit violations off campus.

It's way of making sure students are obeying the conduct codes they agreed to abide by while on campus (and in some cases off campus), but some people think the education institutions are over-stepping their bounds on how they keep tabs on their students. The story mentions that Duke University states in its student code of behavior that a student is required to notify the university if they see a fellow student violating the code of conduct. Whether on campus or not.

Seattle University has used Facebook to find and shut down parties while Boston College sends out a college official to find students at parties and other locations to try to catch them in illegal activities. The story didn't mention any specific cases of students bringing lawsuits against schools for this enforcement, but they did interview an attorney who formerly worked with the American Council on Education that said that he expects challenges to this kind of enforcement in the future...

We want to hear from you about this story. Post your comments below or discuss your thoughts in the Education forum.

You know what really grinds my gears???

2008-08-01T20:34:00Z

Despite the Family Guy reference in the title, this next article is going to talk about the graduate assistantship process and how one would go about this process. First of all, I think that the NACA National Convention is a GREAT place to interview for graduate assistantships. With the evolution of this new joint partnership with NASPA (National Association for Student Personnel), ACUHO-I (The Association of College and University Housing Officers - International), NACA (National Association for Campus Activities) and ASJA (The Association for Student Judicial Affairs) combining to make "The Placement Exchange", it has become the ideal place for new job hunters to go and look for jobs after their graduate assistantship.

If you think I am going to talk about the job search process, you may want to stop reading here. Since I am going into my second year of graduate school, I have just one more year of being a student and then I must join the “real world” workforce. I don’t know about you all but if I hear anything about joining the “real world” when graduate school is done, I think I am going to explode. To be honest, what is it that we do then? Is everything that happens during my assistantship surreal? I will tell you this much the amount of hours that are put in my graduate assistants sure aren’t surreal, HA! But, on the flip side, it’s the experience that we are being paid with, not just the VERY small amount of money. That portion of the article is coming soon so stay tuned. As for what to expect when going into an interview for an assistantship, just be you! There is nothing more frustrating than interviewing a candidate that doesn’t end up coming off as well as their resume seemed to portray them. For those putting resumes together, don’t use words in your resume or cover letter that you wouldn’t normally use in real life. If you are trying to say something like, “I work well in a team setting regardless of the individual.” Try to stay away from saying something like, “My collaboration skills with other members of my cohort far exceed any expectation that you may have and are not contingent on the individual person that is a part of my committee.” This is just my opinion, but I would say that the simpler you are, the better it makes you look. If you start using words that you don’t use on a daily basis, most interviewers will be able to point that out during an interview. I will be writing an article for NACA Magazine in the coming months about what to expect during a GA interview, so get stoked for that!

Another things that grinds my gears is this next part of the blog. As per Minnesota State Statute, we are not able to unionize as graduate students. I am not sure what other states are like, but I just know we in Minnesota cannot do such a thing. I am not sure how many students would unionize if we could but going through all my classes gets me to realize the benefits of having a union, one of them being contract negotiation. Our graduate assistant salary is a whopping $10,000 and not negotiable after that. I was told however we got a $125 raise from the previous year which after you take that over a span of 9 months minus the taxes taken out it equates to them taking more money than they were before, HA! Does that sound right to you? We are required as per our assistantship to put in no less than 20 hours. But, what happens when you habitually exceed 20 hours? I just know that most, if not all, student activity programmers will put in over that much time in a week's span. Why can’t we be compensated as such? When getting into the student affairs field, it definitely is not for the money but the joy of working with students and having an impact in their collegiate experience. Can you imagine what life would be like if we all got paid hourly?? That would be somewhat intense! Just something to think about....almost like a Chicken Soup for the NACA Soul sort of thinking!

I just got back from Rochester, MN where I met with my fellow Northern Plains RLT and conference committee to plan for our upcoming conference in April. It is shaping to be quite the event so I am really excited. Talk to you soon!

One year down...one more to go!!!

2008-07-15T23:22:00Z

Hello all,

Let me take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Evan Schaefer and I am currently a Program Adviser/Graduate Assistant for the University Program Board (UPB) at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, MN. I just completed my first year of graduate school and plan to graduate in May 2009 with a Masters in Higher Education Administration. My undergraduate was done at Simpson College, a small liberal arts college in Indianola, IA (about 20 miles south of Des Moines) where I received my Bachelor of Music Education degree. Believe it or not, I actually have a license to teach in the State of Iowa. But, I chose a different path after college. Simpson has a campus population of about 2,000 students which made my transition to the 16,000 St. Cloud State University that much more difficult. Overall, my experience has been phenomenal and I would not change anything about it.

As I am now currently taking my last academic class to fulfill the course work for my program, I look back and realize I have only been here for one year. It is hard to believe that I officially started my second year at the turn of the fiscal year which, as most of you know, is July 1. There are many things about my graduate assistantship that have helped me become who I am today. Going from a small school to a large school was the biggest transition that I had to make. I was used to people on campus knowing who I was and being able to have a conversation with anyone that walked by me because I either sat through a class with them, met them at a CAB event or just knew them from another organization. From the aspect of taking classes, I was petrified about the first day of class. In my case, my classes were all on the weekend (Friday night and then all day Saturday - every other weekend throughout the first semester...sounds worse than it is, I will explain that later.) so I really wasn’t sure who all was going to be in my class. When I first walked in to the class I was amazed because I was definitely the youngest one in the room. There was only one other student in the room that was a graduate assistant from another department that also came directly from his undergraduate institution. All the other people in my class (soon to become my HIED (Higher Education) cohort) came from a variety of different disciplines. The different people in the room represented Financial Aid, Human Resources, Admissions, Foreign Language Faculty & Information Technology. As you can see there was a very diverse amount of people making up my HIED cohort. It made my classes so much interesting because I was able to bring the Student Affairs aspect to the table because this is one area most of them didn’t really understand.

As for my graduate assistantship, I would be lying to you if I said that I came in prepared and ready for ANYTHING!! I was rudely awakened very quickly. Come to find out, I don’t know everything like I thought I did, HA! It's weird how long it takes one to realize that. My first event was pretty intense. It was the Johnny Holm band concert here on the SCSU campus during the Fall Kickoff activities. Now, if you are from Minnesota reading this, you understand how intense these shows can get in terms of attendance. I was absolutely amazed by the amount of people that turned out for this event. I think the final number came out to be about 1500 students. I don’t know about you, but being my first event, and coming from a campus that had about 2000 students, that was like having an event where EVERYONE from Simpson was in attendance. It was intense but AWESOME all at the same time. My job was simple: front of house security. Yes, I was in charge of making sure no one charged the stage. If you are going to ask me what kind of barricade we used, save your breath because it was definitely just me, two of my students and the Public Safety officer coordinator. Yep, there were only four of us keeping 1500 students from running onto the stage. The hardest part was making sure that the students didn’t crowd surf. Due to such a confined space, there was really no other place for the students to go except down. So many times I had to go in and get students off of other students from mosh pitting and crowd surfing. If you have never met me, I am 6'4" 2XX lbs. (we just met and I never disclose that information right away, HA! just think BIG!) and very claustrophobic which made my life just that much better. But, it was my first event and I didn’t want to say anything so I just went with it. Before the night started I was given a name tag by my director and told to wear it at all the events that UPB puts on. I said okay and proceeded to put it on. To my dismay, I managed to somehow, in the midst of the crowd surfing and mosh pitting, get my name tag knocked off of my body and thrown into the crowd. Needless to say I was out a name tag on the first event day and not sure what to do. During the clean up one of the students found it pummeled into the ground with a lot of scratches and cracks making it look like it had fallen into a trash compacter. It was pretty awesome because we referred to the experience as my initiation into the department. I will have you know that he is coming back this year and we will be having barricade!

I think that is enough for today. Stay tuned because I am going to talk more about my course work and other events that have highlighted my first year!

The Evolution of a Student Leader

2008-06-25T18:56:00Z

So I struggled with what to write for this last blog. Having already talked about developing leaders in the classroom and then developing student leaders I wasn’t really sure what you all might find interesting. With the help of my supervisor I finally settled on the evolution of a student leader. I hope you all enjoy this last entry!

Motivating your new student leaders

We often find new student leaders need a push to get them started on their leadership path. When students take on a new leadership role they are often timid and don’t know where to start. This is where retreats are useful. Before your new (or returning) student leaders begin their assignment, spend a day or two with them going over what is expected of them in this new role. A good idea is to give them handouts, or a binder of handouts, going over everything they need to know and even some stuff they might not need to know. By giving them a folder or binder of information, even if they forget some of the things you tell them in the retreat, they can always refer back to that information as a refresher. During the retreat do some icebreakers and team builders with your students. You as the advisor should participate as well so that they get to know and be comfortable with you too. Once everyone’s comfortable with each other, run through scenarios with them, explain to them exactly how they should address each and every situation. Help to prepare them for the best and the worst of experiences. If your new student leader is prepared he or she will be much more comfortable in their new role. Also, remember to continue to challenge and support your student leaders, whether they be rookies or veterans, throughout their leadership experience. The more you challenge your students to be better leaders the more they’ll start to be comfortable in their new role and taking on more responsibility.

Burn out

On many of our campuses we find that the same students are involved with everything. Last year’s student body president at USCA was also a member of the programming board, an executive member of the concert committee, an active member of her sorority, a volunteer with the community service programs, a student employee in the chancellor’s office, an orientation leader, and an active member of a number of other organizations. While this specific scenario may not always be the case, many times we find that there’s a small core of student leaders on our campuses who do everything. Unfortunately, this is often where we first look when recruiting volunteers as well. We as professionals know that we can count on these students to get the job done, and do it well, so we frequently call on them when we need something. The problem many of us are finding is these students are over involved. These are the same students who are constantly stressed because they have too much going on in their lives; they carry multiple planners to try to keep up with where they’re supposed to be when, and what they’re supposed to be doing for each organization and class. They are often the students in our offices crying because some small task or minor incident has them very upset. They are the students who are freaking out afraid they’re going to fail a test or course because instead of studying over the last several days they’ve been preparing for programs and events. These are the students we need to keep an eye on.

Recruit new students

While we know we can count on these students to get the job done well, we need to put ourselves out there more and try recruiting more of those students who aren’t yet over involved. This is where we need to be looking for that leadership potential in some of those first year students and recruiting them to take on the smaller, simpler tasks instead of relying on those who we already know can get the job done. This will also help to keep us from over taxing our current student leaders to their breaking point. If we make a more concerted effort to recruit new student leaders and prepare them for the smaller task at hand, in a few semesters we will have a larger pool of students to use for those major undertakings which require greater student leadership.

Evolution

As we all know our students quickly evolve from being a timid rookie in a new role to be that over involved student who cannot say no. While it is easier for us to continue using the same, seasoned, student leaders for everything, it is up to us as educators and professionals to keep an eye on our students and make sure they are remaining healthy and not wearing themselves down. In order to do this we’re going to have to stick our necks out there a little more and recruit and train some younger students with leadership potential (not yet skill) to do some of the easier tasks and only call on our pros for the most important stuff. While this may seem more time consuming at first, it will make our lives easier for us in the long run because we won’t have so many students getting burned out by the beginning of their senior year.

I hope you all enjoy this last blog. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing about leadership and sharing my thoughts with you all. I also have to thank some of my colleagues for letting me bounce ideas off of them and helping me proofread and edit the blogs so thank you to: Jared Tippets at the University of Kentucky, Wes Riddle at Kennesaw State University, Luke Massee at the University of South Carolina Aiken, and Ahmed Samaha at the University of South Carolina Aiken.

Angel

Developing Student Leaders

2008-06-24T18:35:00Z

Outside of getting them in a classroom and teaching them directly, how do we develop our students into effective leaders? One of the easiest ways to do this is to take the students on our campus who are already in leadership positions and develop their leadership potential. I find that this is where Sanford’s challenge and support theory comes in handy. Then the question becomes how much do we challenge our students and how much do we support them? When is it okay to let them fall flat on their faces and when do we need to step in and take over for them? What is the balance between these two polar opposites? I would like to spend this next blog exploring these questions and others.

How do we get them in leadership positions in the first place?

Often we as professionals see leadership potential in our students and struggle with how to tap into that potential and get them into those key leadership positions. Each student is different in how you should approach them about taking on leadership roles. Many students will take the initiative on their own to pursue leadership positions on campus. Others however, need a little push. I have found that with some students all it takes is simply mentioning some of the leadership opportunities available. These students will usually take this and run with it. Often these may be the students who did not know about the opportunities or just needed a small amount of support from an external force to push them to pursue leadership opportunities. Many students on the other hand need a lot more support than just a mere mention. I have found that some of my students need me to directly tell them that they should pursue a position because I think they would be successful at it. Then I have to stay on them repeatedly reminding them and reassuring them that they can successfully fill that position. The problem with this is that the student can mistakenly think that simply because I told them they should pursue a position they will automatically be placed in that position. This is where you have to find balance between supporting a particular student in his or her endeavors and making sure they understand that just because you encourage them to pursue a position or opportunity does not ensure they will be granted that opportunity. I try to make sure that when I encourage a student to pursue a leadership opportunity I remind them that my support does not ensure their placement in that opportunity.

I have found that many of my students don’t pursue an opportunity simply because they have a fear of rejection. When students tell me this, I use these opportunities as teachable moments. We all know that our students are going to have to face rejection at some point or another in the future. Whether it be when they start applying for jobs after college or in their personal life, at some point they are going to be told no. It is part of our job as educators in the field of higher education to prepare our students for this rejection. This is when we can step in and challenge them to stick their necks out there a little. I find myself often telling these students that the worst thing that can happen is they’ll be told no. Then they’re no worse off than they were before they pursued the leadership opportunity. I try to be honest with my students about the fact that they are guaranteed nothing in life and life will be a lot easier if they learn to handle rejection sooner than later.

Once they’re in place what do we do with them?

Once we’ve gotten our students with leadership potential into those leadership roles that we knew they could learn and grow from what do we do to develop that leadership potential? I have learned from experience that you can challenge a student too much and cause a huge blow-up at an inopportune moment. I had a student a few years ago who I knew had great leadership potential and was going to be a great leader. I often pushed her to think outside of herself and her social circle. I was constantly challenging her and asking her questions with the simple intention of trying to help her see the bigger picture. Unfortunately, I did this a little too much and in the middle of an event she broke down and tried to start a yelling match between the two of us in front of her committee. I quickly realized that I had been pushing her way too hard. While I knew that she had amazing leadership potential and was going to be a great leader, I was trying to get that leader out of her way to quickly and before she was ready. Two years later she graduated one of the finest leaders at our university and ended up being one of the best students I ever worked with. Had I not realized (with the help of my supervisor) that I was pushing her too hard to quickly she could have shut down completely and things could have turned out very differently.

On the other hand, we cannot provide too much support for our students causing them to get lazy and too comfortable either. My first year as a new professional I learned this lesson the hard way. I had a committee chair who often did things the easy way. Because I was new to the field and the university I was afraid to push her too much because I wasn’t yet sure of the campus culture and I didn’t want to upset the pot my first semester at work. This committee quickly went downhill however. The events weren’t well attended and the committee became non-existent. By the time I realized that simply supporting this student’s ideas and endeavors wasn’t enough, it was too late to save the committee for that year. I have spent the last couple of years working with the new committee coordinator trying to rebuild the committee and its programs. Due to my lack of challenging one student coordinator for a semester the committee suffered a huge hit and has taken twice as long to recover.

Finding Balance

How do we find the balance between challenging and supporting our students? We don’t want to push our students so hard that they simply shut down but we don’t want to support them so much that they don’t try to do better either. I have found that posing simple questions that plant seeds into their minds helps a lot. One, you are not telling the student directly that what they’re doing is right or wrong. Two, once they ponder the question for a little while they’ll most likely come up with an answer similar to what you would have suggested but because they’ve come up with it on their own and it’s their idea they’ll be more accepting of it. The key is to pose the question so that you have a slight push in the right direction. Questions like: Do you think you should check with the rest of your committee about this first? Have you considered A, B, and C? What if you did such and such instead? These questions are non-threatening but challenging. Each student is going to respond differently, and the key is to learn what works with your students and tailor your style to them.

It is often hard to find out what does and doesn’t work with our students. Some students need and like more challenge than others. Some students need a lot more support in the beginning until they get comfortable with their leadership role. It is up to us as professionals to get to know our students and learn what’s going to work best for them. Each student is going to be different; it’s simply a matter of us adjusting our advising/supervising style to be most beneficial for our students.

Angel

Student Leadership Classes, where and when to start...

2008-06-23T14:49:00Z

So this is the first blog I’ve ever done so just bear with me as I learn what works and what doesn’t. If any of you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. So my topic this week is on fostering student leadership. With this being a wide open topic that most of us in the field are interested in I wasn’t really sure where to start. I finally settled on a topic for today so here goes… I hope you enjoy!

A number of us have leadership courses for students on our campuses and those of us who don’t are probably looking to start some. The question is, where do we start?

What do we include in these courses?

When teaching a leadership course you have to decide what approach to take. Do you want to do a more theory-based course and use a book by Maxwell or Kouzes and Posner as your text or do you want to do a more experiential course and include activities such as a ropes course and guest presenters? You can always try to incorporate the two into your course as well. Kouzes and Posner wrote a great leadership book titled The Leadership Challenge which walks the reader through “five practices of exemplary leadership”: modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. This book is great for freshmen and sophomore level students who have leadership potential that you wish to foster. Another great book to use is John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Maxwell takes the reader through the 21 qualities a leader should develop to be successful and effective. Both of these books also have supplemental materials such as the Leadership Practices Inventory by Kouzes and Posner and the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Workbook by John Maxwell. There are a number of other great leadership books out there that can be used as a text. I would recommend that the person teaching the course read some of these books and determine what would work best for their audience and their institution.

Guest speakers are a great way to vary the content of your course. One idea is to bring in presenters who are or were student leaders during their collegiate career. This gives the students a feel for what they can become if they capitalize on their leadership experience while in college. Various speakers will also likely keep the students engaged because each presenter is going to have a different style that may appeal to various students in the class. If you plan to incorporate guest speakers and a text in your course I would also recommend sending them a copy of the text, or at least the chapter you are studying at that moment, and ask them to make sure they incorporate the book in their presentation.

What year should we start teaching leadership courses?

We all know leadership courses can serve as a bridge to those leadership positions we all have on our campus, and can help those students who are already leaders improve their leadership skills. So do we start with first-year students and use the course as a pool from which to recruit new student leaders? Do we teach to upperclassmen to help them refine their leadership skills? Or, do we open it up for anyone and let first-year students and upperclassmen, who are most likely at two very different leadership stages, take the course together. The answer to these questions can vary depending on what it is you want your students to learn.

Many institutions offer emerging leadership courses to their students. The University of Kentucky has an Emerging Leaders Institute offered only to students in their first two years of college. The students who wish to take this course must apply for admission and get accepted; although students do not receive any university credit for this course. Once accepted, students are taught leadership theories and how to put those theories into practice. Often these students are used as a pool from which to recruit student leaders. Many of UK’s student government officers, programming board members, and Greek life leaders complete the Emerging Leaders Institute prior to their role as a leader on campus. This is just one example of how one institution handles the concern of when to start teaching students leadership courses.

The University of South Carolina Aiken does it very differently however. USCA allows any student to take their Emerging Leaders course. There are four sections taught in the fall semester and two in the spring and any student can register for the course. Students receive two credits upon completion of the course. Throughout the semester guest speakers visit and present to each class. These speakers are campus faculty and staff who discuss with the students different areas and topics of leadership such as service, communication, ethics and power, empathy training, and a number of other leadership related topics.

No matter how your institution selects students for a first-year student leadership experience, the focus should be on developing a well rounded and effective leader.

Expansion

An introductory leadership course is just the beginning of teaching leadership to students. The University of South Carolina Aiken offers a second leadership course focused on service titled Citizen Leadership. This course is for students at or above the sophomore level and is a follow up to Emerging Leaders (although Emerging Leaders is not a prerequisite for this course). Many campuses have leadership minors where students can take a program of leadership courses and receive a minor in leadership. Some institutions have a leadership program or fellowship that students can participate in. These students have to partake in a number of leadership initiatives such as workshops, courses and events to complete the leadership programs. The options are wide open in regards to where you go to help continue with leadership development on campus. There are a number of different institutions across the nation that have various leadership programs incorporated to suit their campus. The key is to figure out what it is you want your students to learn and what will work for your campus.

I hope some of you who read this and have various leadership courses on your campus will share with us your ideas and successes. I look forward to hearing back about what you all think about my first blog!

Angel

Here are your keys...good luck!

2008-06-18T18:23:00Z

Some of us have started new jobs with that very unsettling version of new employee orientation, "Here are your keys... good luck!"

(oh, and sometimes you don't even get keys!)

I am so excited to mention that we will be finishing the last step in our staffing strategies journey by welcoming our new Associate Director on Monday! My post today is dedicated to the important task of welcoming new staff and some intentional strategies to make that transition into your office culture a smooth one. After years of observing the victories and disasters in this process, I've come to know a few important things about staff transitions.

If your campus is anything like mine, getting someone up to full "existence" on campus is no small task. Email accounts, calling codes, student information access, keys, ID's... it's all a huge mysterious web of confusion. For us, I am still challenged by the fact that you can't get certain things done until the new person gets here in person and there are some items that you really think should be in place for a new staff member's arrival. The whole process makes me pretty crazy here, so I'd recommend learning your campus steps very carefully. Even though that paperwork alone is enough to occupy a lot of time, I'm writing today about even more you have to think about when trying to build a smooth transition for a new employee.

Many of us have learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.. so I want to use that as a way for us to discuss the needs of new staff and ways supervisors can address them.

Physiological Needs:

Physiological needs like food and shelter are the first rung on his ladder and these are also all things that come into play with starting a new job also. The next steps up the ladder include safety needs, so we'll talk about those too.

Where will the person be working? Have the workspace cleaned, get some basic office supplies, and make sure that your staffer has a key to his own office. On the topic of food, I usually plan some lunches for the person in their first week with some fun people. I know this is super-basic, but it has to be said.

Safety needs:

Safety goes back to the issues of making sure the new staff member's work space is secure and that the new staff member has whatever keys or card access is needed for full access to your department from the first day of work. In addition, offering some information about parking guidelines on campus and even emergency procedures and any campus safety procedures should also be addressed.

Belonging needs:

Only after those first two steps are accomplished can things like belonging be addressed. Since we are all campus activities people, we know that "belonging" is one of the things we do best! Make some time to connect your new staff member with those who can help them belong, by arranging lunch appointments and ways for them to get orientations to different offices on campus by people you know to be dynamic, friendly and welcoming. Other ways you can help this new person belong are to make sure they have business cards waiting for them when they arrive and have some kind of "logo" from the college on a shirt, promotional item or even their department nametag.

Love needs

"All we need is love!" We all know that the need for love is expressed and manifested in many different ways by many personality types, but the need to be "loved" still stands in the way of other important things to come according to our friend Maslow. It's hard to explain "love needs" and how it may relate to the workplace, but I think of it in terms of making sure that a new job does not prevent a new employee from focusing on those he or she loves most in life. If someone moves cross-country to take a new job, they may have anxiety about being far from family or significant others. Take some time to talk about upcoming vacations or ability to request time off so that they can maintain those essential relationships. In addition, helping a new employee achieve the elusive "balance" in their life can make all the difference in someone's potential to move further up the Maslow hierarchy.

Competency needs

Now we're talking... achieving needs for competency are pretty important for supervisors and this need focuses on helping the new staff member feel confident and competent in their new role.

You as a supervisor play a key role in making or breaking this one. Your new staff member is dying to know if they are doing a good job in your eyes and you need to figure out a way to let them know, whether you are a "warm fuzzy" with that stuff or not. I know it's not comfortable for everyone out there in cyberland to give that pat on the back, but I need to ask you to force yourself to figure out a way to let the new person know where they stand with you.

I attended the ACPA Mid-Level Managers workshop a while back and they helped me to see the value in a written document that describes supervisory expectations. I really liked the idea of working on this as a guide for new staff, so I worked on an overview of my expectations of all staff in their roles as Manager, Educator and Communicator. I believe that all of my staff play these roles in some degree or form, so this was what I chose as a "springboard" for discussion. I will confess I don't use this document as much as I should, but it's a great start for new staff to understand me better.

Self-actualization

Ah, the brass ring! This is the "full realization of one's potential" and I think it represents what we all want for our staff. To get to this point, however, you can see that a lot of time and effort has to be spent and you can't hit the ground running expecting this to happen overnight. I hope that this trip through Maslow has helped readers to see that all of the "early work" is time well spent as an investment toward true excellence. At the point where you are able to focus on self-actualization, you are able to let your new staffer settle in to focusing on how the work on your campus will help them to achieve their personal goals and development.

Get ready!

My new staff member starts on Monday and I know there is a lot to do if her "self-actualization" is going to be ready for the start of school (kidding! ) I am thrilled that this latest journey into creative staffing is stepping into its next phase but I know that in our field the reality of this situation is all too familiar. I know that what I can do in the meantime is to be sure that I am using the lessons learned along the way to keep our work focused, dedicated to our mission and goals, and always keeping staff development as a priority among our many competing areas of focus...just in case the next wave comes along.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have gone through this latest journey with some extremely talented and patient people. (Matt, Carla, Kristy-Ann, Tia and Christina...there's the shout out you've been asking for!) I know that all of this great experience will sometime "pay forward" for all of us as we move into this great next phase of our department (and our personal!) development.

It's been a real pleasure getting the chance to work on this blog! If you have some comments on any of the posts... please comment! (NACA will make me start asking my mom to post comments...so please!) Thanks for reading!!

Cindy

Clouds and Silver Linings

2008-06-18T15:52:00Z

Sure, "see beyond the clouds and find the silver linings..." blah blah blah. Easy to say but hard to believe when you are pulling your hair out trying to manage some kind of staffing crisis. While things may seem bleak when something like this is going on, I want to tell you about what we gained through our most recent round of staffing changes and some true "silver linings" that emerged.

Focus, focus...

After these painful exercises in "what do we need to stop doing," we can now say for sure that we are "lean and mean." We have gone through the process of analyzing all of our areas and can be sure that our college's leadership agrees that we are putting our energies in the right areas. Now that we are so focused, we can make more strategic decisions on new programs, departmental goals, and advocate for growth appropriately because of a solid foundation. All of that hard work helped me to see a clearer picture of who we are and why we do what we do. I also was reminded through that process that although my remaining staff was pushed to the limit with an already full workload, they were talented and patient enough to know that through teamwork and creative thinking we could not only survive but THRIVE amidst chaos. (they may read this post, so I won't go too far in shameless plugs for them!)

Silver Linings

Our silver lining in our most recent round of staffing issues was discovered through a meeting with my VP. We were lamenting over the fact that two administrative staffing vacancies out of a total of four administrative positions would force us to scale back our operations to a painful degree. With spring semester looming, we were worried that our orientation planning responsibilities would have to put everything else on the back burner with only two administrators here to keep things going. My comment to our VP was "if only we had a separate funding source that could help us to add a new position." She then suggested we investigate our fee-based account as a potential funding source and we were overjoyed to find that our current fee structure could support a new position for at least the next three years. We also discussed the fact that we were aware of a great potential candidate from another department on campus who had expressed a goal of job searching in the coming semester for a position in student affairs. So, in one meeting, we found a potential funding source, identified a great potential candidate right here on campus and then wrote a proposal about how this new position would advance the college's strategic goals of continual improvement to the first year student experience. From there, a plan was born, a proposal was accepted, a search was started and our new Assistant Director for New Student Programs joined our team!

Is this the move for you?

If you are considering reshuffling responsibilities in your area there are a few questions you will need to ask yourself:

Responsibilities were allocated this way for a reason. Does that reason still exist? What things have changed?
Is the allocation of responsibilities to a less experienced professional a help or a hinderance?
Will you be able to appropriately challenge as well as support the new person in the new role?

If all of this reflection points you toward making the change, then go for it. In my case, it meant that I would need to give up my responsibility for managing the orientation programs that I have directly implemented for the past few years. The major benefit would be new energy and new life to the program. The staff member who we ended up hiring was someone who had worked with our program in a more limited role for a few years in the past, so she was familiar enough with our operation to be enthusiastic and ready to hit the ground running to run her own show. With the two staffing vacancies on our plate for the semester, it seemed like making this change was the only way we were going to squeak by in one piece! So, we went for it!

My own outlook

My own outlook on my job had to change during this process. I mentioned in previous posts that we rarely get the opportunity to "direct" when we are directors of campus activities offices and my reality of my job was that I was going to need to be a greek advisor, an international student advisor and a director during Spring semester and that some of my "director-ish" things would need to be on hold. However, I knew it would only be short term and that the shuffling of the orientation roles was what was going to get me through until the summer.

Now that we are knee deep in the orientation season, I can tell you that the transfer of responsibilities isn't all that easy. You can plan for it and talk about it, but until it is upon you you don't know how things will work. You can pass along every document in your files but until you can figure out how to download experience, it might not be the complete picture.

My involvement in our orientation programs has been very strategic as I have chosen the points where I get myself very involved in what is happening and sometimes intentionally make myself absent so that my very talented staff can handle things without me. I have to be really conscious of the fact that my presence may or may not be welcomed and may actually enable problems to happen if our OL's see a more direct route to an answer to a question my asking me instead of the person running the show.

Let's put it in perspective... it's not like I'm taking vacation or anything crazy like that and I'm only a Nextel "chirp" away. The "letting go" process was definitely one that had to happen intentionally. I will confess to cyberland that I am really missing some of the direct interactions with the orientation leaders (as we all know this is a highlight of a program like orientation!) and the other "highs" of a program so intense. However, I am definitely not missing the food service headaches, the challenges of developing the perfect OL work schedule, and having to address the five hundredth orientation leader complaint when they figure out how little money they make per hour of service. It's all a trade off, I guess!

In summary

Long story short, we grew our department during all of our chaos! We now ended up "plus one" in the staffing tally thanks to the need to manage our crisis in the short-term. I really think the "emergency" forced all of us to pay closer attention to thinking carefully about some creative strategies and it paid off in the end. I'm celebrating a new opportunity for my department, my administrative staff, and my personal outlook on my own life to start some new challenges thanks to this rearrangement of roles.

I'm really lucky that things are starting to get back into whatever definition of "normal" we use in this field. The last piece of this puzzle will fall into place on Monday, as we will welcome our new Associate Director to our team. I'll talk in my next post about preparing for her arrival! I can't wait for her to get here!!

Cindy

Assistant, Associate and Director of Student Involvement...

2008-06-16T20:09:00Z

One former student (now campus activities professional!) thought it would be amusing to embellish my business card with the title "Director, Associate Director and Assistant Director" during a year when two of my three administrative positions in the office were vacant. (Yes, the third being my own!) Even though her sarcasm was a little tough to hear at the time, I still kept the business card and keep it posted in my office as a reminder.

My experiences with navigating short-term staffing issues are more complicated than I can even believe. We've had to cover mid-year departures, hiring freezes, maternity leaves, and coverage of support staff and administrative staff roles and the strategies have covered a wide spectrum. Over the past ten years, all of the strategies did have a few things in common.

It's up to you to navigate it!

Everyone is busy, everyone feels they are short staffed, and everyone feels their office is the hardest working office on campus. Know that up front and remember that when you feel the urge to complain about the hand that you've been dealt. Moral of the story - you're in charge and it's your responsibility to fix it. You know who your "trusted people" are on campus that you can vent with, so outside of that "inner circle" you need to remember our Admissions director's mantra of being "honest but positive" in every interaction on campus.

"Honest"

Do an honest assessment of what you can and what you can't do during a time of staffing shortage. This isn't as easy in our area as it might be in others, because the "driving force" behind a lot of what we do is driven by students. So, you need to focus on things that are "staff-directed" and also quantifiable so that you can be sure that once it is crossed off of your list, it stays off until you decide it comes back. After that review process, find an opportunity to discuss the decisions that you (and your supervisor!) have made about what isn't going to be done anymore and share it clearly and concisely with your peer group. I did this at a director's retreat before the start of the year and I believe it was both a way to communicate the information but also a way to show my peers and supervisors that I was in control of the situation.

"Positive"

It's tough to be positive when you are feeling like a victim of really bad circumstance. However, the student leaders you have that year are still counting on you in the same way they would be as if you had a full staff. You certainly need to manage their expectations, but that's not going to make the needs disappear. To stay positive, take the step of reviewing and refocusing your goals for the year in the new context of reduced staffing and enjoy the opportunity to narrow your focus on a few "small wins" and keep things moving forward.

Ah, keeping things moving forward... a nice concept. Through our struggles in this area, I tried to stay committed to the need for students and more distant colleagues to never even notice a "pause" in our department's positive trajectory. It's the essence of a positive customer service strategy, but it also works to try to maintain your positive standing on campus. To get to that point, I want to talk about a few important sources for help that we found during some really tough times.

Students can help!

One big change we made over a few staffing shortages was to re-examine the roles that students played in our department operations. Through two of our most serious staffing shortages, new paraprofessional roles for students were born. Our first was a "Student Program Advisor' position that we created to help us address the planning needs for our smaller events and our smaller clubs. We assign each club to a SPA (those that aren't directly advised by a member of our professional staff) and they are the club's main point of contact for all of their event planning. The positions were created because of a staffing crunch, but we kept them a permanent additions to our team because of the huge timesaver it meant for our professional staff! It was a much needed shift in focus for us and ended up being a significant professional development opportunity for our most advanced student programmers. The other way we utilized student paraprofessionals was to create a Marketing Coordinator position to provide extra support to the marketing of departmental programs and services. Knowing that marketing might be something that would suffer when we are stretched by covering other responsibilities, this enabled our events to stay successful and gave us a way to give significant experience to marketing and graphic design majors.

Granted, a move toward more paraprofessional positions means that you will need to change your supervision approach and may take on new issues when you trade for the old ones. However, in a time of staffing shortage you need to make productive use of your time a priority.

Other colleagues can help!

Think of ways that your colleagues in other departments might gain something from increased involvement in your areas. Granted, don't make your staffing disasters someone else's problem... but you never know who might be out there who might have interest in advising student groups or getting more involved in your training of student leaders. For us, we found a resident director who had big interest in working with our international student population, we found a student looking for a practicum opportunity from a different school's graduate program, and we asked a colleague to join up as a co-advisor to the Student Government. All of these are significant contributions to our department's work, a big help in sharing the workload, and an opportunity for those individuals.

This will also force you to adapt your approach to supervision and in a different type of change than working with students. You will know best where the involvement of other colleagues will help or hinder the situation.

Also, I know every campus culture is different... but ask for additional compensation for these people. Even if you can only get them a one-time check or some other kind of compensation, it is worth it and will be helpful when you need to count on some degree of accountability to make things successful.

Technology can help!

Think of ways that technology could help you to deliver your content to students in a different way. Are there policy documents or forms that you can make available on-line that can save your staff some time? Are there programs you can deliver on-line that can make things easier?

We recently changed our "nuts and bolts of programming" training sessions to be on Blackboard instead of "live." We find that the change not only alleviated staff from having to do so many presentations, but it offered us some "gains" in that the content is now available 24/7 to students instead of just during the first 2 weeks of the school year. Gone are the days of the glazed looks on their faces because they didn't see the urgent need for the information. Our recent foray into podcasting for our Leadership Institute was also a staff/time saving strategy. We worked on the content development over the summer and the weekly time needed to implement the program was lightened a great deal.

The phrase "desparate times call for desparate measures" is one that you should take seriously. Be fearless in your approach to analyzing your work and this is definitely the time to call forward your most creative and objective thinkers to sit with you to analyze your next moves. You can't be afraid to eliminate programs, ask for help, and ask for additional resources to make your strategy happen. We actually ended up recommending the cancellation of our Leadership Awards this year due to these issues, but our SGA ended up stepping forward to coordinate the event. It was a great exercise in establishing priorities and it showed me a lot about what our students could accomplish.

You never know.... some of the best opportunities come from some of the most difficult challenges. I'll talk a little about those "results" in my next post!

Have a great day!

Cindy Kane

A Guide to Being in Charge

2008-06-11T01:20:00Z

Hello! I'm grateful for the chance to blog a little... the topic is on "supervision" and I'm struggling with some titles. What do you think of...

"Who's the Boss?" (wait, taken by a 1980's TV show)

"Gaining SUPER-Vision" (this blog will get deleted for violating a NACA anti-cheesiness policy statement)

"All I do is sign forms" (hold on, my boss might read this)

"Follow the Leader" (I need to stop playing games with my son and focus on this blog)

So, I landed on "A Guide to Being in Charge".

Although this is my first blog, I'm pretty excited! I think blogging casts a much more modern and hi-tech light on what I'm doing instead of calling it "online therapy" and "storytelling." How often is it that you get the chance to reflect on major issues in the field and all without the pressure of correct footnoting?!

I'm hoping that someone out there in cyberland is reading this, because I'm excited to share some thoughts regarding experiences with developing staff. In campus activities, I think it's challenging for us to maintain the focus on both the "urgent" and the "important," and all too often we don't get the chance to explore our challenges with supervision until they are upon us and we are staring a huge problem in the face. So, let's cut to the chase.

Challenges of Supervision

I look around the director's meeting table every now and then and can't resist the temptation to compare my perception of my work life with that of my peers, especially when the world of supervision is getting me down. Let's face it, the world of campus activities does not afford us the opportunity to make supervision our most concentrated area of focus. I don't know if there are a lot of areas that do get that luxury, but I know that when I compare my load of direct program responsibilities and advising roles to that of my fellow directors it definitely seems that I do a lot more "hands on" work than just "management." I will confess, my tally when comparing my work life against that of my peers sometimes ends up in frustration. To add to that, since I work at a public institution a local paper confirmed my salary fears by publishing some numbers recently. Gee, isn't that nice of that reporter!

I know I don't need to write about the need to focus on the "intrinsic rewards and benefits of helping students" to the audience for this site as it will define that cliche about preaching to the choir. What I also know is that I have learned a few great lessons over the years that have proven successful in working to focus my energy in appropriate and positive direction. I'm not going to sugar coat a thing for you. There have been times where I've been ready to just cash it all in and try to pursue my dream job of becoming the person who wears the college mascot costume instead. However, just when something drives me to make the next trip to the NACA Northeast Regional my last, I am reminded of what an amazing impact supervision and leadership in campus activities can have on the future of our profession.

The journey to supervision is always interesting, as we aren't always afforded the chance to "practice" these skills before we are required to show them. You could easily go from supervising no one to supervising professional staff with just one job shift. As overwhelming as this responsibility might be, it's worth it. Every painstaking detail on every search process is worth it. Every anguished discussion analyzing every aspect of who to hire is worth it. Every dollar of institutional money invested toward staff development, volunteer experience, and whatever we can scare up for compensation...worth it.

Meeting these challenges

I'm hoping that this blog can help someone out there in NACA-Cyberland to effectively navigate challenges relating to staffing and supervision.

My most recent adventures have focused on the need to adjust staffing to cover for a mid-year departure AND someone's maternity leave, all in the same semester. We have had our share of staffing challenges like this over the years, but never to this degree and never at the same time! The staffer who was on maternity leave also happened to be the specialist in a new area for us of International Student Services. So, we were figuring out who would cover what areas for one campus activities position, but also learning the new aspects of the joys of SEVIS, quickly ramping up skills in cross-cultural communication, and then having to figure out who was ready to take on these areas as additional workload for both positions. Of course, all of this happens while our "normal" workloads burst at the seams.

Good news - we did great and we're coming out of the "storm" as we speak! Honest news - it was really tough.

I'm going to focus on a few areas relating to staff development and supervision this week. First, I want to share some suggestions for coping with significant staff transition, including changes to staffing roles and ways to approach what may seem insurmountable. I'll also talk about adaptations to my own role as Director that will be long-term gains for our office. Finally, I'll talk a little about some tips for welcoming a new staff member to your team as we are preparing for such an event on June 23rd.

Hope we can make this an active blog and send lots of comments around! Now, off to check in on Orientation...academic advising ends in 10 minutes! (no one can multi-task like a campus activities person!)

Cindy

Higher Education Blog - Coming this June

2008-05-27T18:27:00Z

The Higher Education Blog will feature education professionals writing about their knowledge and experience in the campus activities and student development fields. Blogs will cover topics such as: student organization, fostering student leadership, planning campus activities, volunteer management, etc. Each blogger will post at least thee posts in their assigned week.

If you're a higher education professional and a member of NACA, contact Chris Neiger (chrisn@naca.org) for information on how to blog with us!