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Cindy
Original post
Work/Life Balance — View Comments
18
Aug 10

Countdown to Opening: On Vacation?

My department’s equivalent of “opening” happens on Friday with the return of our Orientation staff.  I’m feeling the typical range of excitement, gratitude for the approaching fall weather, cursing myself for making the summer project list too long…and utter terror at the thought of the to-do list.  How am I spending this week?

On vacation.

You read this right.  Student affairs martyrs of America, I know you are freaking out and probably are getting ready to e-mail my supervisor to find out how this is possible.

There is a three and a half week gap between the closing of my son’s preschool on campus and the start of his next step in the journey, kindergarten.  With such a long period of time to schedule, we needed to wait until this point in the summer to take a week of vacation as a family and there wasn’t a darned thing I could do about it.

I distinctly remember life before I became a parent and hearing this same explanation from those with children thinking “sure, your kid’s April vacation on the same week as our Spring Week and you’re not coming in? Must be nice to have that option.” I really didn’t know it, but there was no option for many of these people as they, like our family, may not have had the “go-to” relative nearby to help save the day.

I will confess that it’s taken me about two months to make peace with the fact that I was going to be off for the week before opening. I was having a bit of a crisis of guilt mixed with a bit of student affairs martyrdom in thinking that if all of my colleagues across the country were in their offices going nutty then I needed to be too. I am ashamed to even type these words, as someone who preaches the “hire great people and stay out of their way” approach to supervision.

Reality check came next. Guess what?! I did hire great people and they do their best when I stay out of their way and let them shine. Truth be told, the illusion that summer is a ‘break” just isn’t real and we’ve been preparing for this all along.  They are going to be crazy busy this week, but it would be that way whether I was there or not because our department is hosting some giant programs coming up in the next two weeks.

I’ve spent all summer patiently waiting for time off with both my husband and son, a quick trip to visit my parents, and the great feeling of more than five sequential days of casual dress.  I’ll admit that I’m going to be reading e-mail as it just causes less stress to me to know there are no e-mail surprises. Rest assured though, there won’t be much replying but to a very short list of possible senders. (if your position title has the word “president” anywhere in it, congrats! You’ve made the cut!)

I honestly have no idea how someone can be a “micro manager” and also be a parent. This small redheaded person has taught me so much about loving life while he dictates my vacation schedule, forces seriously inconvenient exits from work due to sicknesses, and has destroyed most every hope I have of ever sleeping late again. I value blow-drying my hair in the morning as my only minutes of solitude each day and the last ten movies I’ve seen in theaters have all been animated.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cindy
Original post
Marketing — View Comments
2
Aug 10

Not Quite On Target: Shameful College Marketing

This was a sad day. One of my favorite stores let me down.  Target, how could you do this?

My colleague at Bridgewater State posted this photo on his Facebook expressing his disappointment at this marketing approach and I took the liberty of sharing it with the student affairs community on Twitter.

The result was a flurry of “Retweeting” and conversation and many people wondering if this was a one-time mistake by a manager in a location that shall remain anonymous in Millbury, MA or a company approved display approach for their “off to college” season.

Needless to say, this is a huge disappointment to see a major retailer advocating for binge drinking and targeting (pun intended) families of incoming students in a store’s attempt to be “fun.” A large retailer like Target is in an outstanding position to support student success on college campuses and I would hope we would see support for the goals of higher education instead of this slap in the face.

I really hope that incoming students and their families out there who are going back to school shopping are savvy enough to realize that the list of “campus essentials” need not include ping pong balls, solo cups, and a folding table. If you don’t believe me, please consult your campus’ student handbook to find out what potential student conduct sanctions we may need to discuss.

One additional interesting piece of this whole dialogue has been the lack of response from Target to what I believe was a significant level of conversation over the course of a day.  I posted this picture in a tweet at 11:15 a.m. EST and the message was mentioned or retweeted more than 65 times over the course of the day in my Twitter feed alone.

The Target corporation has 29,213 followers so I am quite sure they have a long column of @ Mentions. However, 65 mentions on the same topic should probably be worth noticing, even if over the weekend. This is a great example of why any organization should be monitoring their online brand. One response to my tweet at some point today may have helped to quell some of the dissatisfaction.

On another note, another colleague emailed Target with a complaint about this display and in a matter of hours received an email reply  that included the following quote:

“We try to represent our merchandise in a manner reflecting our company philosophy and image as a fun, family-oriented store, while serving many guests with diverse tastes and interests. Of course your thoughts and comments are a big help to us, and I’ll be sure to let our Advertising executives know what you’ve had to say.”

Oh, Target. I’ll refrain from writing about your claim of “family-oriented” while we are talking about what is clearly a beer pong display. Instead, I will ask you to learn a little more about what it takes for students to be successful in college.  We need you to play a supporting role in helping young people to get the best possible messages about what it takes to succeed in college.

The student affairs community can play a great role in educating retailers about ways they can help us to promote positive messages about college student success.  How do you think we can best share our expertise?

Cindy
Original post
Orientation — View Comments
30
Jun 10

Orientation: Not Your Average Life

I remember being a grad student and thinking about areas I wanted to pursue in student affairs. I thought “wow, being an OL was a great in college. Being in charge of the program would be really amazing.” That was back when my view of Orientation was like a pause in the great time/space continuum. Everything just switched on in June when my fellow OL’s and I moved on campus and everything switched off when we left. It was all matching shirts and name games in my head and all the life-changing opportunities came with it just arrived on campus like turning on a faucet.  I also remember thinking I “knew Orientation” when I was just a supporting staff member who was on the committee.

Over the years, my roles with orientation have progressed from OL to graduate assistant to the “person who presents the getting involved session and helps with training” to the person in charge of it to today. Now I am the person who supervises the person in charge of it, so I have a little more of an objective eye on this phenomenon we see every summer than I used to. I’m writing today to tell you that even after 15 years in the field there is still no experience quite like directing Orientation. What’s so unique about it? Here’s my two cents:

• If you really want someone with broad campus knowledge and perspective, ask someone who coordinates Orientation.
 There’s a reason why my Assistant Director for New Student Programs can quote what placement scores will get a student into Writing II and what types of health forms are required for immunizations. It’s because she is responsible for an important conduit of communication for the new students to get this information. Every orientation professional I’ve ever worked with has a great knack for taking a wide view of the incoming student experience. How can we get the rest of campus to see even parts of that wide view to understand the college transition from outside their own areas? It’s such a great skill.

• “Other duties as assigned” is the rule, not the exception!
 My staff members have filled roles in place of colleagues from areas like Counseling Services, Information Technology, Transit… you name it. We’ve set up rooms, consulted on dining support for those with severe food allergies and had to deliver news of family tragedy to a student who was with us at orientation.  Most duties that we would never be expected to handle during the year.  When the campus is on “skeleton staff” in the summer you find yourself in an array of situations needing your quick attention when your colleagues might be on other projects or on vacation. You have a choice. You can lament this situation, or you can use it to let the campus see you and your team shine.

• If you want some experience in navigating campus politics, direct Orientation.
 Part of coordinating orientation means taking a lot of moving parts and trying to get them to move without hurting each other in the process. We struggle to get these parts to collaborate all year long, but somehow they have to make it work during Orientation. If you’re running Orientation you likely don’t supervise all of these parts all year long, but suddenly you’re in a position to dictate where and how these areas will contribute to the new student experience. So, when one of these parts messes up royally…how do you address it? The political savvy needed in these situations is not for the faint of heart.

• Most of your campus believes “if I had five minutes at Orientation” that they would get automatic success in their major, program or organization. They may not say it out loud, but the number of people who agree that just five minutes of talking head stardom with the incoming students would change everything is staggering. It’s a compliment to what they believe is the impact of Orientation, but also can be difficult. What we can do is to help them understand that there’s some important time to be engaging students between the time they get their acceptance letter and their first day of classes. As we who preach social media opportunity know, there’s ways to engage people that don’t require sitting in a room together!

• Orientation is a process, not an event.
This is my mantra to every colleague who campaigns for “just five minutes.” Students begin their transition to college from the first moment they consider what college might be like through their entire early time period on campus. As institutions, we miss out on so many opportunities with new students by not being intentional about how our messages are communicated. As an example, even my own department promotes a “Get Involved” message at Orientation without recruiting students for the SGA or program board. We show them how to find this information, but if we get them thinking about specific organizations too early they will miss the point of emphasis on the impact of involvement on campus.

• Group development – on fast forward!
I’ve been advising student leaders for my whole career, but group development in an Orientation setting is just not the same. It’s a great study in group development because they are with each other 24/7 and their sole focus on campus is this program. During the year, they have a billion other things going on, but we ask them to work together on one giant project all month long.

I always enjoy watching groups progress through stages of group development, but as my Orientation colleagues know, the intensity of this group experience makes each stage come and go quickly! When you don’t have a whole year together to patiently await self-actualization, the urgency factor makes things much more dramatic. Small problems can’t just be brushed aside in hope of them “working out eventually.” There’s just no time. On the bright side, the great moments are magnified too. That’s just incredible to watch.

Oh, but what do I know. We’re just the people who play name games, right?

I’m going to go write my staff member a card now that it’s finally over. I know what she’s been through!

What do you think? I know that every campus has its own unique dynamics around their program format, timing, structure and responsibilities, but is your experience anything like mine?

Cindy
Original post
Conferences / Professional Organizations — View Comments
8
Jun 10

Calling all “experts!”

One of the best things about the world of social media is that former barriers relating to positional leadership go out the window. You could banter for six months via Twitter with someone and then realize he is a published author on the very topic you are debating.  You can be a VP for Student Affairs and have conversation with first year RD’s about a campus issue that has you stumped.  You can also write blog posts on any topic and leave it up to your readers to figure out how credible your arguments are or how much experience you have had with the issue at hand.

After a few less than perfect educational sessions at NACA and ACPA this year as well as some growing interest in research and writing, I find myself thinking more about the idea of expertise in our field and how it is developed and proven.  I distinctly remember being a new professional and wondering at what point I would be ready to stand up in front of my colleagues and proclaim expertise on a topic.  I think as a new professional I figured I should present on anything and everything I had experience with and then after getting more experience I realized how little I really did know and how many others out there knew more.

I know the answer lies somewhere in the middle and the secret is to push yourself to learn new areas with the right amount of support and foundation to your work.  Given conference proposal season is looming, I wanted to offer a few tips to readers out there in SA Blog land if there is anyone else out there wondering what it takes.

If you are trying to think of a presentation topic to submit for an upcoming conference, ask yourself a few questions:

  • What has been the most important thing that I have done over the past year on my campus?
  • In what ways is my work innovative or different from my colleagues at other campuses in similar positions?
  • Is there an important discussion that needs to be a part of the conference that hasn’t been there in the past?
  • Is there an interesting point of common interest between my close colleagues that might make for a good co-presentation?

Once you’ve come up with the right topic of focus, it’s time to write your proposal.  I’ve observed a few important things about conference proposals and presentations that I want to be sure to share:

  1. It’s all about the description.  How you write your session description makes all the difference.  Even though you might have to write it six months before you present it, this absolutely must be the way you plan your session.  Your participants are using this paragraph to decide whether or not to attend, so you had better deliver on what you promise or you’ll have some unhappy friends in that room.
  2. Put your experience in an accurate frame. If you are a first-year administrator and plan to present on supervision, you can create a session called “My First Year in Charge” and be very authentic about your expertise and shed some great light on an important topic.  This kind of title will make sure that the right people come to your session and that the fifteen year Director of Residence Life doesn’t end up in your session as the cranky one in the first row if she’s surprised to know you are a first year professional.
  3. Be honest. If you are presenting on a new program, say it’s a brand new program and frame it as a presentation about your pilot year.  If you’re presenting on something that has faults, admit them clearly.  There’s nothing worse than watching a presenter burst into flames as question after question from the participants begin to reveal a more honest truth than the one that has been discussed for the previous 45 minutes.
  4. Anticipate your audience. It’s pretty easy to anticipate what your audience might be looking to explore and what may motivate them to attend your session.  Review your session description and try to think like your audience. “Reading this, what would I expect to learn?”  I once did a presentation relating to podcasting where a good portion of the participants assumed I was going to teach them how to podcast.  In reality, we were talking about using podcasts in leadership programming but they were looking more for the “how-to.”  In future sessions, I remembered to be much clearer about what the session was not going to cover.
  5. References are important. Someone out there probably thought this topic was worth talking about too.  A reference list for those who attend your session is such a great addition.  It will show your participants that your ideas are connected to the rest of the profession and will give them a way to seek additional knowledge on the topic after you leave them wanting more.  You can even use other colleagues as references if you are talking about program innovations on campus.
  6. Theme-related corny stuff only goes so far. Please resist the urge to get over-schmaltzy with the conference theme stuff.  I know that sometimes mentioned as part of  the review process, but if we’re talking about professional conferences we want to be sure these programs are grounded in some kind of reality.  If the theme is “Soaring to New Heights” you can bet on the fact that the majority of the proposals will be “Soaring to New Heights with Technology” or “Soaring to New Heights in Assessment Practices.”  You can do better than that.

I hope that these tips might demystify the program proposal process a little bit and won’t scare you off from developing an idea.  My goal is just to focus you on being comfortable in your own skin – it’s easy to see when a presenter isn’t comfortable with their own content.  If you pick something that’s grounded in your experience, you’ll be the natural and inspirational presenter that you hope to be!  Best of luck!

Cindy
Original post
#sachat / Professional Organizations / Social Networks / Web/Tech — View Comments
7
Apr 10

Confessions of a Twitter Newbie

Now that I truly feel like Twitter and I can change our Facebook status to “In a Relationship,”  I can come clean.

I, @cindykane, once thought Twitter would be a waste of time.

There, I said it.  I struggled, resisted, complained, and even frowned once or twice at the thought of introducing yet one more social media tool into my life.  I was a frequent Facebooker and liked it that way and could not imagine why in the world the universe needed to hear from me through Facebook, through this blog site and now through Twitter.   I thought to myself, “who the heck would read my tweets and who the heck has time to spend on this anyway?”  Well, a quick purge of Facebook applications found some time available and I can still hold my head up high even without a Farm in Farmville. Regarding why the heck anyone would read my tweets, I’ll keep that one rhetorical for fear of inspiring “unfollowership.”

I had a few choices to make regarding my lack of love for Twitter.  I could have just ignored it, but for some reason it just wouldn’t go away.  I could have just decided to stay in my safe little Facebook friend circle and happily tended to my farm.  However, that wasn’t doing much for me in the name of stepping outside of “my circle” and I’m really not a fan of sitting by the sidelines and not getting involved. (ok, I’m Director of Student Involvement on campus…this works).  So, there was no choice.  I jumped in and figured it out.

Right when I got started:

  • I took recommendations from friends about people to follow who “use it well.”  I didn’t define what that meant because I didn’t really know.  I just let my friends show me who was sharing good things.
  • I didn’t follow celebrities.  Granted, I follow them now… but at first I stayed away.  Yes, Ashton Kucher (I’m sure he is an avid follower of this blog!) I am the one follower you didn’t have.
  • I didn’t tweet much.  I still was trying to figure out what to put out there.  Using the cocktail party analogy, I just sat in the corner for a while and did some “people watching.”

While I started my “figure out Twitter” project, I also read Tara Hunt’s book The Whuffie Factor.  These two forces aligned for me in a way that I finally understood social media and why I needed to figure this out. I also realized that this wasn’t just about me and my personal networking/connections with friends, it was about what ways I could take the opportunities social media presents to the world and translate it to campus and ways to reach out to students.  (If you want to read more, I did a series of posts on this book starting with this post called What’s a Whuffie?)

So, after a lightning bolt of “aha” arrived into my Twitter life, I now really can’t imagine not being connected in that way.  I have really found a professional network on there that I never knew existed and found a way to (economically!) challenge myself to meet new people and learn about new topics without having to travel from the comfort of my own computers.  If you are still struggling to find the relevance of the world of Twitter in your life, I’m happy to offer a few stories:

  • Twitter is an equalizer.  I have debated some “hot topic” issues with people many years my senior in the field and have also been “schooled” by a few new professionals in the same manner.  These lively discussions wouldn’t happen across a conference table because we’re all too focused on rank and politics.
  • Twitter is concise.  As someone known for being a tad verbose, Twitter has taught me how to hone my communication approach when needed.  It’s amazing how much you can say when limited to 140 characters.  The brevity of Twitter is what makes it so powerful.
  • Twitter is simple.  While the world of “hashtags” (don’t call it a number sign…trust me!) and “@” and the “DM” was a bit much at first, if you learn these few pieces of Twitter trivia, you are golden.  That’s it.  If you mastered Facebook you will find Twitter to be refreshingly simple.  (and if you’re still confused, read my friend Ed Cabellon’s post called Teaching Twitter to Colleagues.)
  • Twitter is a community.  You get as much as you give. The main difference between Facebook and Twitter is that Facebook is a “closed” circle and Twitter is an open one.  Using the cocktail party analogy again, if I just kept sitting in the corner and not saying anything then no one was going to come talk to me either.  So, I jumped in and started talking.  Now you can’t shut me up ;-)  This includes talking to your “friends” as well as talking to those who reach out and talk to you.
  • Twitter connects people in “real” ways. Some of the participants in the weekly #sachat met up at the NACA, ACUI, NASPA and ACPA conventions this year.  I was a bit apprehensive about what these “tweetups” would be like but I know for darned sure that I wanted to check these folks out in person!  What I learned was that while we were meeting for the first time, we already knew each other.  You got the chance to skip the small talk and just pick right up “where you left off” to the tune of the last 140 characters you may have read from that person.

I confess, I had no idea what to expect when I met up with a group of student affairs people I had been writing in short sentences to since October 2009 in #sachat and beyond.  What I found was a group of outgoing, hilarious, friendly, accepting people that were even more dynamic in person than they seemed online.  In the wise words of Teri Bump, “you tweet who you are.”  These people were the real deal and I easily could have spent my entire ACPA with them and not gotten enough time.

So, what are you waiting for?  If you need some encouragement to climb on board just post a comment and I’m happy to help. As I recently learned, there’s an entire professional network out there just waiting for new participants and you just need to be yourself.  Take it from me.  The only way to figure it out is to just jump in!

Cindy
Original post
Uncategorized — View Comments
9
Mar 10

TuesTally: Which statements best describe your use of Twitter?

If you cannot view this poll click here.


And here are the results from the last poll.


Cindy
Original post
Uncategorized — View Comments
9
Mar 10

Me vs. “InBox.” Let’s Go.

One recent thread on the Twitter #sachat has related to the quest for something called “In Box Zero.”  Out of sheer desperation for some motivation to get my e-mail life under control, I posted a challenge to readers and participants of the #sachat to see if we could motivate each other to get our e-mail situations under control.

Postings and responses were mixed.  I could talk for a while and analyze whether or not it is possible to be productive when there are 2,000 e-mails in your In Box, but I’ll let your own conscience ring in on that one as you are asking yourself if your current system is working.  Instead, I’ll share a bit about what I did and how I’m hoping to reclaim my productivity.

This quest for In Box Zero was inspired by a few frustrating e-mail searches during situations where I needed to be able to quickly locate an email.  As I was frustrated by the huge numbers of messages that kept coming up no matter how specific I thought my searches were, I realized something big.

My e-mails are important, but not that important.

I owe it to myself to manage my own life intentionally and with the same care that I coach my own students and staff to do for each other. I am really starting to tire of all of the student affairs culture that asks us to wear our stress as a “badge of honor” as we tell anyone who will listen how busy we are.  This has to stop, especially if we are going to accomplish the respect we are looking for.  We need to show our campus leadership and ourselves that we have our *stuff* together.

Getting to the point of In Box Zero took about two days of moderate focus (I will confess!! It was fun – a nerdy “spring cleaning” of sorts).  Here were some important parts of my attempt:

  • Email folders are my new best friend.  If you think of a paper-driven system, my former In Box was akin to a pile of papers with the one that just came in on the top.  They are now filed in a system that makes sense, kind of like file folders, so if I need to quickly review emails all relating to the same event or issue they are still there.
  • Un-subscribing like it’s my job. In campus activities we get a lot of email from artists, agents, vendors, etc.  In many cases, these subscriptions are not ones that I asked for but are ones that come with membership in associations.  My past approach was just deleting, but now I’m also making an effort to unsubscribe to those I will never need.
  • Ruthless deleting. For every message, I thought hard about “what are the chances I will need this info again?” and “can I get this information somewhere else if I needed it again?”

I got to In Box Zero in time for this past Thursday’s #sachat, as promised.  The main question is, can this last?  From here out, I’m hoping to change some things about the way I work to take more control over my management of information.  Based on the Tuesday Tally results, I think at least a few of you might be interested in joining me on this quest!

  • In Box Zero is the goal each week.  I don’t think I can manage it each day, but I think by the end of the week each week I can do this.
  • No more using email as a To Do List. This was sage advice I received  (from the wise @reyjunco) and I will most definitely oblige.  Most of the reasons why I was keeping so many emails was “as a reminder” that I had to do something.  I was also keeping a To Do List that usually included all of the email items, but not always remembering them. From here on, I’m deleting or filing those messages after I enter the task on my list.  Now, my e-mail is in better control and my To Do list is now more of an accurate picture of what is on my plate.
  • When In Box Zero is accomplished, close the e-mail. Again, sage advice from Reynol Junco (@reyjunco…follow him!).  With e-mail being empty, the accumulation of a few messages isn’t a big deal anymore.  The peace of mind of not worrying about every little message coming in for a few hours is quite nice.
  • Set up some rules. For the e-mail subscriptions that I kept, I set up auto rules for the ones that I wanted to read when I have time. This way, the messages are out of my day-to-day message flow and I can review them when I get time.
  • Manage the blog reading. Before I really figured out the world of the blog, I was subscribed to some blogs via email/RSS.  I finally caught up to the rest of the world and started using Google Reader in the way it is supposed to be used.  My newsflash: Collect all of these great messages in one place…and that place is NOT in my email!  This way, I can use Google Reader when I have the time to read the blog posts.

The feeling of getting the e-mail world under control is this ENFJ’s “natural high.”  This is a great feeling and I really believe I can approach the work week with a bit more sanity.  I have this community to thank for some motivation.

For more on In Box Zero, Merlin Mann is the guru you want to read more about.  Check out his 43folders.com site. More About In Box Zero

So, are you willing to give this a try, or are you sticking with the “I’m Too Busy” explanation?  If you can’t work on this, what are your struggles with managing your e-mail and getting control over your work?

Cindy
Original post
Assessment — View Comments
22
Feb 10

On Citizenship

Greetings from data land with the Multi Institutional Study of Leadership results for my campus!

As my previous few posts have indicated, I’m strolling down a very long road with analyzing our rather large volume of data from this study.  Some changes in our Institutional Research department on campus have left me with more of a role in managing this step of the process than I had planned, so this is a little more than what I expected!

As some of you know, the MSL is structured around assessing leadership as structured around the values of leadership in the Social Change Model. (read about the theoretical frame for the study on the NCLP website!) This model offers values of leadership based on individual, group, and community values.

We were investigating the specific results along one of the values that is essentially important to our campus, Citizenship.  Our campus has invested a great deal of time and focus around building our commitment to a mission of service as indicated in our motto, “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”  I’m working with a graduate student on our campus this semester on a project relating to community service involvement of men on our campus, so I immediately went to that area and looking at gender differences.

Rather than digging in to this aspect of the data, my eye strayed over toward the opportunity to look at other areas of campus involvement in addition to prior involvement in community service.  Instead, I went to look at the students who have cited prior involvement in campus programming organizations.

DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!

Students who cite prior involvement in programming organizations reported significantly higher results on Citizenship than our general student body. Their results are comparable to those from students who note prior community service involvement.

We knew this all along, didn’t we?!  Or did we?

I know that our programming board students are always among the most selfless students that I have the pleasure of working with.  I also know that their commitment to improving our campus has always been second-to-none after over 15 years of experience across a few institutions.

Knowing all of this, why have I never linked this to Citizenship before?  Conversations about citizenship on our campus typically only include discussions of service activities outside of our campus boundaries and various forms of political activism.  Yet, this study is telling me that the value of Citizenship is alive and well in our programming students to a comparable extent to our students involved in more typically termed “service” activities.  I am really not saying that all groups of students are meeting a “need” that is even comparable, but our students working in all of these capacities are telling me they understand Citizenship in a different way than our general student body.

If our field is emphasizing a focus on student learning and we see that learning about Citizenship is happening in campus programming, is there any hope of expanding a definition of service to include campus-based service?

I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this one.

Cindy
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Uncategorized — View Comments
3
Feb 10

Drowning in Leadership Data!

I wrote last about our campus initiative that is going to push us toward a “comprehensive” leadership program.  We’re really building this from the middle, as there are many leadership efforts around campus that already exist.  A  move in this strategic direction is still without a lot of focus and without any defined leadership roles for our office in this effort, but as the Director of Student Involvement and LEADERSHIP, it’s probably a good idea for me to get our ducks in a row, right?

In preparing for this movement on our campus, I know that someone needs to take  leadership for leadership. (grin!) I don’t know if I’m going to end up in this role, but I need to get prepared for my office to be primary partners in this effort if not charged with overall direction.  So, how do we get the plan in place?  Let’s look at needs and let’s look at assessment.

I’ll confess that I’m someone who gets pretty fired up at the idea of assessment and feels very dedicated to its place in our department.  However, I’m not someone who is blessed with a natural gift for statistics (as my grades last semester show!) and I also didn’t get much preparation for the mechanics of assessment in my master’s program.

So, now I’m a department director and we need data.  Go.

We needed information and we needed it quickly.  So, we looked to a national survey on leadership and found the MSL.   I don’t know how many of you have participated in the  Multi Institutional Study of Leadership, but we decided to take the plunge for the first time this year. This national study of leadership that looks at how the higher education experience impacts leadership in college students.  It surveys a HUGE majority of your student population and gives back a TON of data!  Check out this work from Susan Komives and John Dugan and you’ll certainly see why we were so excited.

I now have a set of data that tells me what 4,000 of our students think about leadership and need to figure out what to do with it!  eeeek! This beginning Ph.D. student looks at all of this great data, knows there are great pieces of insight in this binder, but is shaking in her boots to try to figure out where to go next with it.

Here is what I have figured out so far:

  • I’m developing a list of “research questions” that I think the data might answer.
  • Then, I’m going to work with someone who knows data analysis much better than I do and see if they also agree.
  • After that, my supervisor and I  are going to figure out the implications of these conclusions here on campus.
  • Once we write the implications and conclusions, I’m going to do this presentation as many times as appropriate culture on campus will let me and tell everyone I know what we found.

As of now, I’m hoping it will help us understand a bit  more about our college males and why they aren’t stepping forward in leadership roles here.  I’m also worried about what looks like overall weak self-report of leadership efficacy from Undeclared majors and really glad to see what looks like very positive ratings on Citizenship from students involved in campus programming. There’s also a list of 20 additional potential questions to pursue and I certainly have my work ahead of me!

Off to a meeting with my supervisor to dig into this for the first time.  Wish me luck!  I’ll write next time about leadership and what I’m learning about the different “parts” to this change effort.

Until I get back, can you tell our SA Community about a time when you were facing an assessment “Mountain” and conquered it?  We will learn from your journey!

Cindy
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Jan 10

Building a leadership program. Go.

After some degree of reflection on my career path these days, I’ve noticed that at every stop along my journey I have had some role or charge related to starting a new leadership program.  Whether you think of “program” as a leadership event or as a comprehensive four (or five!) year approach, I think a lot of campuses are reinventing their approach to leadership development.

At my campus right now, we are building some momentum around leadership because it’s made its way into the strategic plan. (insert dance of JOY from me!!)  This doesn’t mean that we don’t already have existing leadership programs that meet with good success in areas like residence life, athletics and in my office (Student Involvement and Leadership).  We’re honestly in pretty deep with these programs in these areas in addition to a couple of isolated academic courses.  Even though we’re in the middle of this already, I’m beyond excited for the potential that comes with institutional commitment and potential synergy in collaboration.

So, the light finally shines on an area I’ve been excited to get started for a number (not saying!) of years now on campus…what next?  Where do you start when there is finally “permission” to dream for your campus?  Join me in some planning and tell me what you think…

  • Leading Change by John Kotter is an essential resource for anyone planning a change effort or who is overwhelmed by the change process.  Kotter’s fairly straightforward analysis of the change process reminds me to be patient and build momentum around this process.  I need to be intentional, build stakeholders, and not rush forward on what I believe needs to get done immediately.
  • I don’t think we need to need to choose a leadership model.  I think our job is to offer a variety of models in a variety of settings for dialogue about what leadership actually means.  If students are able to grow in their personal definition of leadership, then they can pursue activities and opportunities that take their definition deeper.
  • There is much to be gained from involvement of student leaders from the beginning of these conversations.  I’m hoping to include plans for student interns and directed study projects that let advanced students get the opportunity to influence knowledge about leadership for their peers.
  • I believe our goal needs to be a “comprehensive” leadership program that includes…
  1. Leadership training: Training for positional leaders (RA’s, club officers, etc.) on how to be more effective at managing their responsibilities.
  2. Leadership development:  Campus-wide initiatives to cultivate broader understanding from students that they possess the potential to lead and increase their willingness to accept the challenges of leadership wherever they are presented.
  3. Leadership education:  Educating more students about the art and science of leadership including exploration of leadership models, attributes, skills and case studies.

I am hoping to develop a series of posts about our journey toward connecting our many disparate parts of leadership education efforts on campus.  To start, what do YOU think needs to be considered when starting from the ground up… when you’ve already started the pieces a long time ago?

Next time…we’ll talk assessment.

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