College graduates be proud, even if you’re unemployed

July 31st, 2009 | Posted by Gary Alan Miller in Careers | University - (0 Comments)

I posted this on my own blog earlier today and didn't originally intend for it to live here on the Student Affairs Blog. But, after re-reading it, I thought it might be interesting to see how people feel about it. So, it's slightly more "controversial" than normal what I might normally write (although considerably less controversial than the word might merit). But, hopefully spurs dialog.

*******

A fascinating statistic that many don’t realize: As of 2008, only 29.5% of our nation aged 25 and higher held a college degree. All college graduates should be proud to be among the best educated in our society.

But, to paraphrase (hopefully not mis-characterize) John Dewey, while it’s not unreasonable to expect a career to result from an education, it is not the reason for that education.

An educated democracy is a better democracy. The better educated tend to live longer and have higher levels of community involvement. They also tend to have children who are in better health and have higher educational outcome potential. They have better critical thinking skills and tend to be more resilient.

The ability to parlay one’s education into a career doesn’t have to be intrinsically linked with the perceived value of that education. As today’s graduates are finding out, there are too many variables involved to lay either all the blame or all the credit for their career on their education.

As something of a higher education fuddy-duddy, I cringe that we’ve come to define higher education as being equal to job training. I recognize there is a convoluted history of higher education that involves not only items like knowledge creation, student development and an educated democracy on the positive side, but also segregation and elitism on the negative side. So, I try to walk the balance between pining for “the good old days” of higher education and recognizing that said “good old days” probably never existed, at least not in a fair and equitable manner.

But, with all that acknowledged, I’d like to push for us to recognize that simply being better educated is a reward in and of itself, and it does come with “perks” that aren’t specific to finding a job, and those perks also have value. We simply haven’t decided as a society to give as much attention to ROI that isn’t directly related to employment and income.

For the unemployed out there, I do feel for you, and it is my hope that you find not only employment but a satisfying career. I understand why you’re frustrated. You bought into the idea that if you work hard and do well, you’ll be rewarded with a career. And I’m sure you still will be. But, until then, know you carry with you many tools and have had experiences that have shaped your thinking in ways that may not even be revealed for a few years. There’s value to be had there, even if it’s not immediately obvious to your current situation.

Update to story: A story just posted on CNN regarding a graduate of Monroe College in New York who is suing her institution for not getting her a job upon graduation. This situation puts a whole additional layer onto the intent of my post here. Wow…

Gary Alan Miller

Is Whuffie a good thing?

July 27th, 2009 | Posted by Cindy Kane in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Author Tara Hunt, in her book The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build your Business, introduces us to the concept of social capitalism (a.k.a. "Whuffie") as the ticket to success in a Web 2.0 world. Hunt presents us with a charge to build Whuffie for your organization by dedicating yourself to as many substantive relationships as you can build through existing social media tools. In turn, by amassing as many of these relationships as you cam build, you will build trust. Trust then flows into "capital" by referrals, consumer choices, and repeat business. This is the difference between reading a company's "FAQ" list on a webpage and interacting with the company through the exchange of "Tweets" and getting quick response in an informal setting.

Answer a student concern about an orientation mailer via Twitter? More Whuffie. Get into a dialogue about a controversial blog post that one of your students wrote? Big Whuffie. Host a website that still lists your Fall 2007 campus events? Deduct Whuffie. Invest time only in "taking" from an online community without contributing anything yourself? Negative Whuffie. You see how the pattern goes.

The development of relationships goes to the core of of student affairs work and at the heart of every personality inventory I can take, so I immediately latch on to this idea and want to talk about its application to student affairs. One of the biggest fears I hear expressed about some of the new Web 2.0 tools in higher education is "what if I get a really negative comment posting on my residence life office's blog?" or "things like Facebook or twitter take too much time to maintain." Using Tara Hunt's approach, it is time for us to "turn around the bullhorn." Instead of broadcasting our words out to the students, let's use Web 2.0 tools to let them broadcast back to us. Hunt's charge to organizations everywhere is not to create new tools, but instead to meet "customers" where they are and play in their playground.

With students this is no different, but college students adopt tech tools in a different pattern. As previous posts have stated, students are slow to sign on to Twitter and sometimes can resent the non-student presence on Facebook. In addition, discussion about sites like Flickr or other photo sites raises the issue of what we would do if the wrong photos fell into the wrong hands. We have spent the past few years on my campus exploring the "what if" of social media tools. How about spending some time on the "Why Not?"

I'd love to hear some success stories about using Web 2.0 tools to promote student engagement, or deposits to your "Whuffie" account on campus. Have you had positive experiences where you feel your office is building Whuffie and engaging students?

I'll post next time about her thoughts on "embrace the chaos." It was one of my favorite sections!

Higher Tweducation

Emerging social media is dominating the internet and users and jumping on board in record numbers. We all know that Facebook leads all, but what about others? I've
realized that many of my colleagues who work in Student Affairs offices, are just now starting to hop
onto social media giant, Twitter, and its many possibilities. As
community builders on our campuses, we need to tap into Twitter and connect with our students. Here's what I tell all new
"Tweeple" on Twitter:

1. Ask Yourself (and your Staff) Why You Want to Use Twitter
While many of you are now starting to use Facebook and Twitter for personal
reasons, why do you and your staff want to use it for your office?
Does your College's "Institutional Communication" office use it for
official communication? Do other departments around you use it?
Gather information and find out if using it falls in line with your
office's mission. Don't just use Twitter because other people are, use
it because it fits your staff!

What most
folks in Higher Education are finding is that college students don't
use Twitter as much as Facebook; at least not yet. If you think about how
Facebook started in the college market, once it opened itself up to the
public, the rest of the world caught up. With Twitter, it seems that a
certain segment of Web 2.0 users got on it and now college students are
trying to catch up and see if they like it enough to continue using
it. I recommend using it creatively in conjunction with Facebook, and
you may be able to get your students on board!

2. Find one or two "Social Media Managers"
If you are new to using Twitter, it would help to find a current
staff member or student familiar with it to help you navigate the
Twitterverse While it is easy to sign up, using it is much
different than other social networking sites, like Facebook and
MySpace. Whether you have anyone or not that can help you get started,
I would recommend the following sites:

a. "Twitter in Plain English" – A great, short video about what Twitter is!
b. Get familiar with "Mashable" – Mashable
is the world's largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social
Media news. Founded by Pete Cashmore, this site is simply awesome and
chock full of information. His top five tips for new Twitter users can be found here
c. Need more newbie Twitter Information? Visit Michael Hyatt's Blog on "The Beginners Guide to Twitter". It's a fantastic, comprehensive guide to using Twitter.

Once you
feel comfortable understanding Twitter, just use it as much as possible
and add it to your list of advertising strategies for events or
announcements. Use your Media Manager(s) to help implement this form
of communication and networking.

3. Offer Incentives and Contests to Gather More Followers
Some Tweeple use incentives and contests to increase their
followers. Applications in Higher Education could include: Student
Activities Offices giving away "free stuff" like t-shirts, tickets to
big on-campus events; Residence Life giving away a better lottery
number for their respective housing lottery; Parking Offices giving
away premium parking spots on campus; Campus Centers giving out meal
vouchers at their dining halls; etc. all for following and/or
retweeting and selecting a "follower" at random for the prize. Have
you ever done this to increase followers? If so, what have you done?

4. Follow Other Department's Tweets (On and at Other Campuses)
There are many Student Affairs offices using Twitter now and its
important to connect with those folks to see how they use it! To find
and connect with all these great Tweeple, use a service like "WeFollow" and you can easily search them and even add your Twitter account to the list!

5. Use Hashtags As Assessment Tools!
While you can use Twitter's search tool to find specific people,
companies, and their messages ("tweets") on the service, Hashtags allow
users to sort topics into useful categories to revisit later. If
you've spent any time on Twitter, you've probably seen a hashtag
before. A "#" symbol sets off a hashtag. For instance, if you wrote a
tweet about the Red Sox, it might look like this:

Utilize
Hashtags to organize information that you contribute and consume on
Twitter. As the tweets pile up, the extra time you take to thoughtfully
categorize your tweets with a hashtag will help the greater Twitter
community (and you individually) make the most of the service. An
example of this might be: A student activities office tweets that
their programming board is holding their annual concert and wants to
know from its followers who they should bring. An example tweet could
be: "BCStudentEvents is planning its Spring Fest Concert. Who would you like to see them bring? #BCSpringFestBand"

I'm hoping
more of my colleagues in Higher Education will think about more
creative ways to use Twitter because it is a fantastic community
building tool that could benefit those who work
at Colleges and Universities if they gave it a shot. What do you
think? Does it have a place in Higher Ed?

Branding, Higher Tweducation, New Users, Tips, Twitter, Twitter Marketing

What’s a Whuffie?

July 23rd, 2009 | Posted by Cindy Kane in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

No, this is nothing inappropriate. Just stroll down (or click over) to your bookstore and pick up a copy of Tara Hunt’s book called “The Whuffie
Factor” and learn a little more about her views on what she calls “social
capitalism.”

I picked up this book at the recommendation of a friend
because of my summer “To Do List” that included a goal of better understanding
not just how to use social networking but WHY to use social networking for my
department. Much like many of you,
we love to try the new bells and whistles, but among all the Facebooking,
“tweeting,” blogging and more we start to get overwhelmed with all of the
updating that is required to just keep on top of things. The Whuffie Factor has been the answer
to what I’ve been looking to figure out!

I don’t think everyone out there will add this book to their
list just because the SA Blog tells them to, so I’m going to spend a series of
posts addressing some of what this author has to say about what Whuffie is and
why you should want it.

WARNING: These posts will take principles used in corporate
America and try to apply them to higher education and student affairs. If you are someone who scoffs at any
connection between what is being done in business and
building student engagement, you may not like what I have to say. So, if you'll agree to tolerate these parallels…

Now that it’s off my chest, let’s talk Whuffie.

What’s a Whuffie?
Ms. Hunt describes Whuffie as a form of currency, much like a bank account of social capitalism. Your Whuffie Factor is, according to Hunt, what will elevate your company's presence and status in the Web 2.0 world. She paints a picture of an ideal on-line
presence for today's organizations that has changed my whole line of thinking about how our departments should be developing on-line tools.

I used to think that if my office spent our time building
the best websites and just figuring out how to more clearly communicate our
policies and information that students across campus would suddenly have an
“aha” that will immediately drive them to seek what they need from us through
our online presence. I figured that if we just put the right things out, the students would just suddenly use those web resources.

Not so, says Tara Hunt. If we don’t
invest ourselves in their on-line world, then they won’t invest themselves in
ours. Increasing our “Whuffie”
would mean that we develop our relationship with our “clients” that is mutual
and two-sided. We contribute some,
then they will contribute back.
The exchange of information and opinions back and forth is the secret to
increasing Whuffie. If we focus on
increasing our Whuffie, we will use existing on-line tools that will help us to
develop relationships with our students.

This totally mirrors our institutional conversations on my campus about the fear behind what students might post on our Facebook walls and/or how comments on a Blog might have to be moderated.

How about you?
Is your office just “putting information out there” hoping someone will
read it? Or, have you invested in building some Whuffie of your own and started investing time in becoming a part of the online community of your students?

I’ll talk next post about “deposits” to your Whuffie account
and how to make them in student affairs.
As Tara Hunt says, “embrace the chaos!”

Tuesday Tally – How Has Your School’s Department Dealt with Budget Cuts?

July 21st, 2009 | Posted by Tom Krieglstein in Poll - (0 Comments)

If you cannot view this poll click here.

And here are the results from the last poll.

One Time at Band Camp …

July 20th, 2009 | Posted by VaNessa Thompson in Club/Org Recruitment | Event Ideas | University - (0 Comments)

Wayne State has announced some great news; they are introducing the WSU Marching Band!

"We are excited to announce…debuting this fall…the Wayne State University Warrior Band! This band will play at football games, basketball games, and other university special events. A director is being hired and plans are getting set! Many of you have expressed interest and attended information sessions about the band and we thank you. The WSU Warrior Band is open to all WSU students!"

With my sister being a member of marching band all four years of high school as well as many of my former residents being members of the marching band, I have always enjoyed the synchronization and the dedication it takes to be a member of such a huge team. Here are some reasons why:

Creative Way to Stay In Shape

In Drumline (2002), you saw a little bit of the hard work that the members of the band have to go through. I couldn't do it, but it would be an interesting way to lose weight. It must be great to have a whole bunch of people suffering with you.

Taking Pride in Something Bigger than Yourself

I was thinking about the quote that pretty much defined their goal. "ONE BAND, ONE SOUND!" This definitely helps people with skills later in life: working as a team, being selfless. All those things are vital to the success of the band.

Former resident and fellow band members

Building School Spirit

Students become more invested in not only themselves, but the school as a whole. Not to mention, students want to see and support their friends carrying the pigskin and carrying the tuba. It allows students to be even more invested! I took pride in knowing that the drum major was friend from high school.

Friends from high school in rival college bands

Did anyone else do band? Or were they involved in another tight group, i.e. choir, etc.?

Student Affairs and Campus Crises- A View from New Orleans

July 20th, 2009 | Posted by Ashleigh Heck in Campus Issues | Risk Management - (0 Comments)

When I get in bed at night, I can look out my window and see the Superdome, one of the most recognizable features of the New Orleans skyline. Its brilliant white facade is a point of stark contrast at night against the darkened skyscrapers and blinking rooftop lights.

I bring up my view of the Superdome because much of what I do at night during my NODA internship is turn over and over in my head the experiences I am having as an outsider in post-Katrina New Orleans. The Superdome, for many outside observers, was the epicenter of Katrina's wrath; a roof over thousands of displaced and battered New Orleanians. My work with new first-year students and parents this summer in orientation programming at Loyola University has become just a part of a larger whole of understanding what happened in this southern pocket of the country nearly four years ago.

I have talked with people in my office, as well as neighboring campuses, about what it was like to be here in student affairs roles before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. The narratives that have unfolded in these conversations are tinged with pride for the city and life as a New Orleanian, coupled with a profound sense of loss. One of my supervisors, a near 30-year resident of the city, lost his home, church, and sense of community that can only be built over the course of a lifetime. But still, he came back here because more than 20 years of service to the university had made Loyola his community too, and perhaps the only one he had left here.

In the wake of disasters, both natural and manmade, student affairs professionals play a major role in response efforts. They coordinate evacuation efforts for domestic and international students, operate command centers for calls from the media and concerned families, coordinate mass counseling and support services for their communities, and in general, provide the glue that keeps our colleges and universities together. Crises are sorted through by student affairs administrators, and often, it is this group of people who become the architects of recovery on campus.

In my work, I have experienced student and campus crises on a smaller scale. I've made late night calls to parents whose children have been sent to the hospital for injuries and alcohol poisoning, done rounds through darkened halls during storms and power outages, and been part of the conversation about campus grieving when students have passed away. But hearing the stories of New Orleanians who work in student affairs has given me a renewed and profound respect for our work and the caliber of people who take part in it. Because just as the Superdome was pieced together by great community and national efforts after the storm, the colleges and universities of this city been rebuilt and renewed by the hands of dedicated student affairs and faculty colleagues.

Do you have stories about student affairs colleagues and their work in times of crisis? If so, please leave them in the comments section to continue conversation on this topic.

The One(s) That Got Away

July 15th, 2009 | Posted by Sean Cook in Careers | Work/Life Balance - (0 Comments)

Once you've worked in Student Affairs for a while, you've probably
accumulated many stories of former students, and found it particularly
gratifying to see what some of your former students have done. Living
vicariously is one of the benefits of working in higher education. We
revel in our student's successes, and as they grow up and move on, we
follow some of their lives and careers, and do our best to maintain our
connections. It's one of the great sources of joy that help make up
for low pay, long hours, and endless bureaucracies on the flip side of
this particular job-coin.

Working in student affairs isn't all
rewards and relationships, though. It can also be heart-wrenching, when
things don't work out according to the usual plan. But these moments
also teach us about the honor of serving students, the responsibilities
we accept along with our jobs, and the trust that our students, parents
and institutions place in us. I've found that this is especially true
for me when dealing with situations where students aren't able to
continue with their schooling, due to accidents, emotional and
psychological issues, severe illness and death (of a close friend or
family member, or of the student.)

These sorts of stories
won't particularly be the feel-good pull-out-of-your-memory-box
moments, or the funny stories that you tell friends or relatives at a
dinner party. They may be the moments you do your best to push aside,
because they tear at you and make you wonder if you can really handle
all the drama of college life. You may hide them away, because they
leave scars and hurts that aren't easily healed. They may be the
moments you never forgive yourself for being a part of. But don't.

Don't do this to yourself, or to your colleagues, or to the profession.
It's easy to celebrate moments of success, and to revel in them.
But some of the most valuable lessons you are likely to learn about
life, about students, and about yourself can be drawn from the well of
disappointment, failure and even tragedy. If celebrating student
successes is a great benefit of working in this field, then these
moments of harder learning are the dues we pay for membership.

In recent posts to my personal blog I have been dwelling on life, death and
purpose. I thought I was done for a
while. Then, last Thursday night, I learned from one of my coordinators
(Bryan Koval, who also writes for this blog) that one of his RAs, who had just finished two years with us, and was
due to go on Study Abroad this fall, was killed in a car accident. She
was a beautiful, kind and sweet girl who really had a great impact on
others.

Bryan asked me if there was anything else he
should be doing to assist his staff. It was then that my administrative
side kicked in and I started going through protocols in my head, so I
could make the proper notifications to the VP's office, the main Res
Life office, etc. The impersonal nature of such necessities really hits
home when you know the student well. It feels cold, and requires
setting aside personal feelings for some other time.

When this
feeling hits you, hold it up to the light, examine it, and understand
it for what it really is. Taking care of business doesn't make you
inhuman, or unfeeling, or cold. It just means that you accept your
responsibility in the process, and understand that your duty to care,
and to take care of people, includes taking care of details, setting
aside your personal feelings, and being there for others. It's not
easy, but it's worth it. It teaches you humility, shows you your
mettle, and reveals the finer details of your character.

So
when you think back on the highlights of your career, and reflect on
the experiences that molded you, look back not only on tales of
success, and students who went on to do great things. Some of the most
telling tales will likely be found when reflecting on what you learned
from "the ones that got away."

Career guidance from Michael Jordan

July 13th, 2009 | Posted by Gary Alan Miller in Careers - (0 Comments)

As a Carolina guy, it's hard to go too many days without having Tar Heel basketball invade at least one of my thought processes. Basketball goes well beyond sport here in Chapel Hill, and we in University Career Services are not immune to those impulses.

Case in point, this past spring my colleague Laura gave a very creative presentation in which she used a NCAA-style bracket to accomplish two objectives with a group of students. First, she used had them fill out one wing of the bracket with a variety of employable skills, and then had the students consider the skills and have them"compete" until each student had one in the winner's bracket, jump starting a conversation about strengths. Second, she flipped the bracket over to illustrate the process of networking in ever-growing branches of connections.

A different basketball/career correlation sprang into my mind this past weekend as I watched a countdown program on ESPN. The segment I watched focused on Michael Jordan's time as a baseball player. You may or may not even recall that Jordan played professional baseball briefly after his first NBA retirement. By many critical reports, his time in baseball was an abject failure. In fact, there was outright hostility toward his attempt at the sport from many. But, the best thing for me about his baseball foray wasn't his stat line (clearly!), it was the fact that he walked away from an arena in which he was considered one of, if not the, greatest of all time to pursue something that he always wanted to try.

Jordan has been quoted as saying, "I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying," and while his attempt at baseball may have been a failure, he should be applauded for pursuing a passion, and that's a great lesson for all of us — students, staff and faculty. Better still, sometimes a "failure" is actually a win. Last week as I was riding the bus to work I was reading the Kvetching Board, a section of the student-run Daily Tar Heel which allows readers to post short, anonymous quips. The first one in last weeks' paper brought a big smile to my face. It read:

Thank you for rejecting me, Kenan-Flagler Business School. I can now pursue the career I didn't have the courage to before.

Have you have any situations that initially felt like failures that lead to other opportunities? Post your stories in the comment section. I'd love to hear them.

Gary Alan Miller

Great article!

July 12th, 2009 | Posted by Amybeth Maurer in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Can Community Colleges Save the U.S. Economy? — Printout — TIME

Source: www.time.com As laid-off workers add to surging enrollments, the White House looks to two-year schools for an educational bailout