As a graduate student in a Student Affairs in Higher Education program, I endeavor to eventually work on a college campus, encouraging students to mind their civic habits and responsibilities, while simultaneously teaching them about life throughout that journey. In order to fulfill graduation requirements for my masters program, I must work in an office on campus for twelve hours a week; such an experience usually involves creating some form of original work. In working with a leadership institute on campus, I have managed to perform my own bricolage, mixing two seemingly disparate elements together: politics and education. I have organized a series of discussions in which students having no knowledge of politics can contribute to a conversation, along with the political elite on campus, on what politics means to them. I guess one could metaphorically associate this effort with the training wheels needed for what is hopefully a life-long career marrying civic responsibility with education.

My motivation for pursuing what can be an all-too-frustrating task was initially selfish. I was a political science major. I didn’t have the guts to denigrate characters in political attack ads or the logical skills needed to practice the law. I liked living and working on a college campus as an undergraduate. Voila. Student affairs allows me to straddle the line between politics and education.

But, as many a graduate student has come to know, this line I speak of is fictional. That’s the lesson I have learned this year, perhaps nowhere better than these dialogues. Navigating a curriculum rooted in social constructivism, understanding that there is never a “right” answer, but merely socially-constructed knowledge, has sharpened my realization that politics is in everything we do. Yes, it’s in presidential elections every four years. It is in the partisan bickering and strategizing that goes on in Washington. But it is also in fraternity and sorority elections. It is in where you get your coffee in the morning. It is in the choice of news you wish to consume. Politics is everywhere.

My experience with undergraduates at my former place of employment and my current institution reveals to me that I was not alone in seeing the line. Politics can be compartmentalized into a convenient box. Students associate politics with Washington DC, voting, Congress, and the like. In one of our political dialogues this month, one of the students expressed boredom with politics. “Whenever I see politics on TV I change the channel,” they explained. “It’s just not fun. I don’t really want to get involved.” Yet, the act of channelsurfing itself is political. They did get involved in their decision to forego public affairs programming.

Unfortunately that involvement was unseen, and small in magnitude. I am recognizing that while student affairs practitioners and scholars spend quite a bit of time on social justice education, we tend to spend less time on civic education, developing the set of tools needed to engage in one’s community. While service-learning and voter registration drives have been trendy on college campuses over the last two presidential elections, engagement in local and state politics continues to suffer. It’s no wonder students associate politics with dysfunctional Washington.

If we were to take a problem-solving approach in our student affairs practice, we might make some headway.

Embracing a problem-solving approach to learning would be appropriate if we seek to rid higher education of the “mind/body split” that compartmentalizes intellectual discussion from one’s public actions (hooks, 1994, p. 16). A problem-solving approach would require the construction of deep and sustainable relationships between student affairs educators and the rest of the faculty, staff, and administration; a problem-solving-based model would necessitate an emphasis on the common good, meaning that students would see departments and offices role model this approach by collectivizing agendas as much as possible and placing the institution’s mission (which would ideally emphasize problem-solving) above their own. In addition to the construction of strong relationships, a problem-solving approach would encourage student affairs educators to create Freirian relationships with students; with an emphasis on community problem-solving, student/teacher and teacher/student “learn from and teach each other” – “doing ‘with’ rather than ‘for’” (as cited in Manning 1994, p. 95).

In this model, collaboration is the name of the game. The common good is at the heart of this effort, with problems uniting academic disciplines, student affairs staff, and students as opposed to egos, departments that are siloed off from each other, and disengaged students. To get here, we do need to re-examine our social justice efforts.

In order to face society’s problems today, our students must first begin the process of understanding and exploring their identity, their values, and how they view difference. In addition, the educational nature of problem-solving demands from students the ability to see an issue from another’s perspective. Following these tough lessons, students also need to learn about power and privilege, the source of many of the problems our students will be trying to solve.

Politics does not have to be perceived as a bad thing. The derivation of the word — “polis” is the Greek word for a city or state, thus “politikos,” or politics, means affairs/issues of the city/state — is hardly negative. However, college students unfortunately associate the broken system currently in Washington with politics; consequently, “politics” gets a bad name and other, more positive opportunities for political engagement become invisible. With just a bit more effort, student affairs practitioners can reveal the other side of politics — civil conversations, learning from others, changing their realities to help themselves and others — and align programs with our institutions’ “citizenship”-laden mission statements.

Ira Shor, a critical theorist, explains the importance of democracy to education and vice versa: "A democratic society needs the creativity and intelligence of its people.  The students need a challenging education of high quality that empowers them as thinkers, communicators, and citizens" (Shor, 1992, p. 10).  Unfortunately, higher education and democracy have moved in different directions over the past few decades.  With the onset of consumerism in higher education, students’ and educators’ roles changed, with both disengaging from the other out of fear.  The result, an objectivist streak in our education in recent decades, divides the academy further, leading to a hierarchical view of academic disciplines and campus offices and departments.  Student affairs, in light of the large number of troubles plaguing our global society, can lead the way out of this malaise by viewing students as problem-solving citizens, understanding that each of them possesses a vital and different piece to the solutions we seek as a society.  In this post, I argue that our responsibility as student affairs educators is 1.) to collaborate with the entire campus community to encourage students to explore their identity, their gifts, and their skills, and 2.) to pursue solutions to our problems by empowering our students to connect their diverse identities, ideas, and talents to various opportunities for civic engagement.

In the early days of the United States, Thomas Jefferson saw democracy and education as being inextricably linked.  "Whenever the people are well-informed," Jefferson noted, "they can be trusted with their own government…whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights" (Thomas Jefferson on Politics and Government, 1999).  Over time, scholars like John Dewey continued the tradition of highlighting the democratic principles inherent in education, arguing that participation in school is vital to both learning and democracy (as cited in Shor, 1992).  While the 1937 Student Personnel Point of View did not include fostering an appreciation for democracy as an objective, the 1949 document did.  The authors suggested that the student’s role "as a responsible participant in the societal processes of our American democracy" relied on "his full and balanced maturity," and served as the "means to the fullest development of his fellow citizens," suggesting that democratic education was not only vital to the nation’s governance, but also to the student’s peers (Student Personnel Point of View, 1949).  After the influence of in loco parentis faded following the campus activism of the 1960s, the college-student relationship would eventually turn toward a consumer model, in which institutions were increasingly viewed as simply offering services to customers (prospective students and their families) for a price (as cited in Nuss, 2003). This view of higher education limits its meaning to students, dovetailing with the banking system of education Freire laments (as cited in Manning, 1994).  Students (and parents) paid for an education, and the college/university was expected to put its best product forward.  Increased standardization also led to gross generalizations of students, ignoring their individuality and treating them like pawns all in an attempt to please the consumers.

In 1954, Esther Lloyd-Jones observed similar trends in higher education.  At that time, specialization was threatening the field of student affairs.  In “Changing Concepts of Student Personnel Work,” Lloyd-Jones reframed the debate.

… [S]tudent personnel workers should not so much be expert technicians as they should be educators in a somewhat unconventional and new sense.  Student personnel workers have many opportunities through their work to contribute to the development of students, to help them learn many lessons and skills of vital importance for their fulfillment as whole persons within a democratic society. (pp. 12-13)

Lloyd-Jones’s writing from over fifty years ago is applicable to higher education’s present position.   Educators and students, both paralyzed by fear, choose to disengage from the educational process, deciding the path of least resistance (the banking system of education) is more desirable than facing the "other" (Palmer, 1998, p. 48).  These decisions plague our higher education system by rendering student and teachers callous to each other, leading to the system’s value of objectivity – the notion that one must separate his or her own reality from a subject in order to appropriately learn it.  Parker Palmer (1998) traces our hierarchy of academic disciplines back to objectivity.  With objectivism,

…[A]ny way of knowing that requires subjective involvement between the knower and the known is regarded as primitive, unreliable, and even dangerous.  The intuitive is regarded as irrational, true feeling is dismissed as sentimental, the imagination is seen as chaotic and unruly, and storytelling is labeled as personal and pointless. ( p. 52)

The notion that chemistry and/or biology is more difficult to pursue as a major than music and/or art is an example of this hierarchy at work.  Another example might be faculty noting that student affairs staff deal with "all the touchy-feely stuff."  In both scenarios, the objectivist subverts the subjectivists’ relevance in higher education.  Is it any wonder why distrust between academic departments and between the academy and student affairs abounds?

In order to correct this, we must pledge to embark on a seriously difficult mission to change the culture surrounding higher education starting with students.  The impact of fear on both the educator and the student demands that we initiate an effort to address it, similar to the way Palmer (1988) suggests, and Shor (1992) does.  Following these conversations, it is imperative students see themselves in their educational activities and feel that every contribution they make to their educational environment is valued (hooks, 1994).  Shor’s experience taught him that "[his] students are complicated people whose authentic personalities can emerge in the context of meaningful work" (1992, p. 8).  As student affairs educators, we have the responsibility of filling the gaps between our students and ourselves and coaching our students in the process of finding that meaningful work.

Given the complex issues facing our society discussed earlier and the profession’s recent emphasis on educating the whole student using all of higher education’s resources, these corrective steps would best be pursued through a goal of developing citizen problem-solvers.  The mundane exercises associated with learning are passé in these challenging times.  In order for colleges and universities to send forth the best students to grapple with our complex problems, we need to educate them within the complexity of their lives (as cited in Manning 1994).  Embracing a problem-solving approach to learning would be appropriate if we seek to rid higher education of the "mind/body split" that compartmentalizes intellectual discussion from one's public actions (hooks, 1994, p. 16).  A problem-solving approach would require the construction of deep and sustainable relationships between student affairs educators and the rest of the faculty, staff, and administration; a problem-solving-based model would necessitate an emphasis on the common good, meaning that students would see departments and offices role model this approach by collectivizing agendas as much as possible and placing the institution's missi
on (which would ideally emphasize problem-solving) above their own.  In addition to the construction of strong relationships, a problem-solving approach would encourage student affairs educators to create Freirian relationships with students; with an emphasis on community problem-solving, student/teacher and teacher/student "learn from and teach each other" – "doing 'with' rather than 'for'" (as cited in Manning 1994, p. 95).

Citizen problem-solvers obviously could not step into a college experience and be prepared to excel.  In order to face society’s problems today, our students must first begin the process of understanding and exploring their identity, their values, and how they view difference.  In addition, the educational nature of problem-solving demands from students the ability to see an issue from another's perspective.  Following these tough lessons, students also need to learn about power and privilege, the source of many of the problems our students will be trying to solve.  Gaining a "critical cultural perspective" would allow students to understand the role "political, cultural, and economic forces" play in determining one’s place in society (Rhoads & Black, 1995, p. 417), and would also permit students to realize that knowledge is not absolute power unless one has the ability to change their place in life (Shor, 1992).  Under a critical cultural perspective, the campus takes on new qualities:  inclusiveness of everyone, collaborative decision-making as the standard, and a resistance of hierarchy.  A transformed college campus would be far more supportive of problem-solving efforts, especially any effort liberating the oppressed on the margins of society from injustice (Rhoads &  Black, 1995).

A “citizen problem-solver” could not rely solely on gaining a critical cultural perspective to find solutions.  As Shor reminds us, "…understanding reality is not the same thing as changing it" (1992, p. 6).  Student affairs educators have the responsibility, then, of working with students to identify appropriate ways of acting on their newfound knowledge to solve problems.  Possibilities include the various pathways included in democracy, like social action (such as protesting, boycotting, or informing others) and political action (such as voting, campaigning, or contacting one’s representative).  Other possibilities include modeling the same behaviors within corporations or other organizations.  The idea is that students are able to tailor their interests and skills to the appropriate pathway, while working in conjunction with other community members to solve the larger problem, an issue they identified and articulated themselves.

In the final analysis, higher education is at a crossroads.   Consumerism has transformed higher education into an institution with little meaning compared to its past.  Educators and students, both fearful of the “other,” turn to objectivist knowledge, safeguarding their vulnerabilities and thereby compartmentalizing their individuality.  A strong effort by student affairs professionals to fill the gap between students and educators by directly addressing these fears is absolutely necessary.  Students’ must be able to see their complexities, skills, and talents, in their educational activities.  Given the large number of problems facing today’s society, utilizing a problem-solving-based approach to reinvigorate higher education for students and educators alike is appropriate.  Using problem-solving as the central concept of student affairs encourages students to engage in self-reflection, pursue cultural proficiency, and understand how they can use their particular talents to create positive change.

References

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Lloyd-Jones, E. & Smith, M. (1954). Student personnel work as deeper teaching. New York: Harper. Manning, K. (1994). Liberation theology and student affairs. Journal of College Student Development, 35, 94-97.

Nuss, E. M. (2003). The development of student affairs. In Komives, S.R. & Woodard, D. B. Jr. (Eds.), Student services: A handbook for the profession (pp. 65-88). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Rhoads, R.A., & Black, M.A. (1995). Student affairs practitioners as transformative educators: Advancing a critical cultural perspective. Journal of College Student Development, 36, 413-421.

Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Student Personnel Point of View (1949). Retrieved September 16, 2009. Web site: http://www.myacpa.org/pub/documents/1949.pdf

Thomas Jefferson on Politics and Government (1999). Educating the People. Retrieved October 6, 2009. Web site: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1350.htm

Crossposted at Future Majority.

One of my favorite aspects of blogging and working in student affairs is learning about various programs and initiatives that infuse civic engagement and service-learning into the college experience. Dickinson College in Pennsylvania is prepared to announce the implementation of a public service fellowship program which will serve as one of the best examples yet of an institution linking its values with President Obama's call for public service.

From the soon-to-be-released release:

After four years of high school, not all students are ready to continue with higher education. For some, a one-year break from academia, commonly referred to as a "gap year," provides time for students to learn more about themselves and the world. Already common in other countries, the U.S. is now seeing an increase in students seeking time off before matriculation to save money for college; others seek civic engagement or travel. President Obama has called on Americans to participate in our nation’s recovery and renewal by serving in our communities. To support this idea, the federal government’s Web site Serve.gov is an online resource for registering a community program, finding service opportunities and the tools for creating one.

[...]

Students can apply for admission into the Fellowship in their senior year of high school. If accepted, students may defer enrollment until the beginning of the academic year for one, two, three or four years. Students who have engaged in public service for up to four years following high-school graduation receive a $10,000 tuition credit for each year of public service, up to a total of $40,000. Use of credits will be limited to a maximum of $10,000 annually and will be applied to the student's account when matriculated. The Fellowship amount will be in addition to other institutional grants and scholarships for which the student may be eligible. Dickinson grants and scholarships won’t be affected by receipt of the Fellowship unless the student's total gift aid exceeds the student's total cost of attendance. The college will work with students to determine the best timing for using the credits, within the context of other aid.

Students must engage in meaningful public service devoted to improving the human condition and/or the natural environment. A student may opt to join well-established public service programs that offer a wide array of experiences, such as AmeriCorps (which also awards up to $4,725 for college tuition), or the student may pursue an independently designed project with a local, national or international nonprofit organization. In all cases, students must work 30-40 hours a week for 10-12 months (at least 1,200 total hours). The hours may be a traditional 30-40 hour workweek, or a more intensive experience such as disaster relief work that may require 12 to 14 hour days. The public service work may be compensated or uncompensated.

In order to reap the financial benefits of this program, Public Service Fellows must submit an application including an essay stating how they hope to contribute to themselves and society through the work they will be completing. Once the project is complete, the student is then required to submit a reflection essay discussing how the student's experience will impact his or her Dickinson experience.
In addition to the financial advantages afforded to them, Public Service Fellows will add to an already impressive Dickinson education. Those students participating in the program will contribute to a reflection ceremony open to the Dickinson community by sharing lessons learned from the public service projects. Furthermore, the campus will give Public Service Fellows priority consideration for campus-based leadership positions, such as resident advisor and campus advisor, further emphasizing the importance of giving back to one's community throughout the Dickinson experience.

Granted, a Dickinson education isn't cheap to start with. The tuition itself is almost $40,000 a year, and the bill only increases after other fees are added. But as noted above, students can work in public service for up to four years, netting $40,000. While students can only spend up to $10,000 yearly, all of this money is on top of any additional financial aid the school offers (receiving the fellowship does not impact other scholarship and grant opportunities).

One way to add to the program might be to incorporate an academic piece. For instance, instead of limiting students to writing two essays, perhaps those deciding to matriculate at Dickinson any given year would be required to register for a seminar to further explore their experiences, more intensely investigating themes they observed or felt while serving. This would then improve the quality of the on-campus discussion led by fellows.

In 2008, many of the Democratic presidential candidates offered similar proposals on their platforms, but nothing was this beneficial to students. This initiative provides Dickinson with a way to accentuate the importance of civic engagement among its students, while making its valued education more accessible to students predisposed with the ability to work hard and develop strong reflective skills. Those fellows admitted will be offered opportunity after opportunity to learn how to contribute to the greater good, while following in the footsteps of Dickinson College's founder, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. In a public address in 1787, Rush urged every citizen to become an engaged public servant. Now, some 222 years later, with another American leader issuing the same call, Dickinson College is doing its best to lead it.

Are there any similar programs at your institutions?

If you've not had the chance to watch/read singer/songwriter John Legend's commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania, you should.  Legend uses cognitive development theory to describe his own experience in college and to sound a call for more truth-finding in our society.  Just a disclaimer:  Legend expresses some political opinions in the speech, so if you're not willing to read those, you might not want to keep reading.

Before coming to Penn, like they said, I grew up in Springfield,
Ohio, and much of my education had come from my parents, my Christian
elementary school and the Pentecostal Church we attended on a regular
basis.

With my grandmother by my side, I learned to play gospel piano,
and I absolutely loved singing in the church choir. So, as you might
imagine, I heard a lot of sermons. A lot of sermons. Some of them were
rousing and inspiring. Some were the perfect cure for insomnia. And
almost all of them were very, very long. I'm going to try not to do
that today. Sometimes I just wanted them to wake me up when it was time
for me to sing.

But it gave me a sense-it gave me a strong sense of morality, a
belief that there was a right and there was a wrong. It gave me a sense
that there were two sides to this journey we call life. Good versus
evil. Dark versus light. Heaven versus Hell. You're either with us, or
you're with the terrorists. Clear choices. Perfect opposites.

Like many people, I found comfort in that clarity. There's a
certain confidence that comes with being sure about the way the world
works. It's all written in an infallible book, and there's nothing left
to discuss. Mission accomplished.

Dualism anyone?  Legend continues:

Legend's plea — that one should use the privilege of a college education to better pursue the "truth," confronting deception and obfuscation however it may appear — is particularly relevant.  In a technological world that enables us (and our students) to reinforce our opinions by tuning in to the media of our choice, it is now more difficult for our college degrees to get any exercise.  We're told what to think in bullet points, and we're expected to accept it, even though there remains much gray area to be explored.  Developing and using that internal voice — what some might call "self-authoring" — is at the heart of Legend's message and, political views aside, I believe he linked it well with our current events.

I found Legend's speech intriguing enough to post here because it fit so well with student development theory and was one of the more explicit references to it I've seen in pop culture since I've been in student affairs. 

You can check out more of Legend's speech here.  The video of the entire address is below.

Any thoughts?  What are the best, more explicit examples of student development theory in popular culture that you've seen?

As student affairs administrators, we face formidable challenges to living a healthy lifestyle. For instance, with the prevalence of live-on entry level positions in our field, it can take more work than usual to live anything but a sedentary and gluttonous life, especially if one lives on a smaller campus.

The food that is most readily available tends to be ultra-processed. The supply of Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, Pop Tarts, and potato chips is inexhaustible, while ripe fruits and fresh vegetables make occasional cameos. Sandwich lines appear to be a decent choice, until the sodium content is analyzed – bread, lunch meat, and cheese usually add up to over half of one’s sodium allowance for the day. Sodium is also a problem with many dishes in many all-you-care-to-eat facilities.

The notion of exercise in our field is ironic. We have better access than many people to a fitness facility, but the nature of our jobs, especially for those in residence life, makes scheduling this time into our schedule appear to be impossible. The weight room and gym are usually crowded at your only available times throughout the day, and while you might want to take care of your body, standing around and waiting for equipment to become available is frustrating.

While many of us don’t want to intentionally endanger our health, there are, of course, other forces coming into play. As I just mentioned, the notion that we are already too busy makes many appearances in excuses for not going to the gym (I speak from experience here). It also can lead to increased consumption of the aforementioned processed foods. Put simply, after a long day of work, your couch’s value skyrockets. Inversely, the idea of making a fresh, nutritious meal in the kitchen has never been so repulsive. At this point, sodium-laden TV dinners make an appearance, or, if one is particularly motivated, he or she may visit their fast food joint of choice for a low-thought, high-everything else meal.

If you’re reading this and don’t recognize yourself in the preceding paragraphs, or do but don’t care, then you may stop reading here if you wish (I don’t want to come off as preachy – some people are happy with where they are). If you do wish to change some things about your wellness routine (or just create one), I have thought of a few ways to begin. Disclaimer: I’m not an expert, and I want to make sure I’m not perceived to be one.

• Examine your thought process:  Yes, we like to help people.  It's noble.  And sometimes we like to think of it as selfless.  But when it gets to the point that it's harmful, it's a problem, and it can limit our effectiveness.  We help the best when we feel good and have added credibility.  So frame your efforts as a way to help students.  By taking steps to improve your quality of life, you'll be role modeling excellent role modeling skills!
• Gather support among colleagues:  Even taking a few steps can require support (challenge and support!).  Find some colleagues — those who you trust and those who you might want to get to know better — and explore whether or not they might be interested in joining you.  In attempting to avoid conventional office fare — M&Ms, baked goods, etc. — an ally or two to assist you in resisting the peer pressure to binge can not only be helpful, but it can also create opportunities for establishing better relationships.
• Take advantage of on-campus resources:  Yes, the gym might be the go-to place for too many people, why not be different?  Instead of walking the track every day, make that your rain location, and walk outside.  Is your campus hilly?  Find a hill to run or walk, or find a set of stairs for a good cardio workout.  And start slow — identify two days a week which could contain a good time to exercise.  If it doesn't work out, don't just quit, but go back to the drawing board.  Try it again.  For nutrition, campus health centers are usually an overlooked resource.  Many have staff members prepared and ready to assist you in changing your dietary routine.
• Plan a program:  Find a few students who might be interested in encouraging positive wellness habits on campus and invite them to help you plan a large-scale program on campus to raise awareness.  Farmers Markets in appropriate climates, for example, can bring the campus and community together, while encouraging sustainability and wellness simultaneously.
• Eat fish for dinner:  In my own effort to eat better, I have discovered fish as a good compromise meal.  Fish delivers you the protein found in most red meats, but contains a quarter of the sodium and far fewer levels of cholesterol, saturated fat, and calories.  The compromise comes into play in the preparation.  Most fish can be baked for 20 minutes.  Pair the fish with some rice and your vegetable of choice, and voila!  A substantive and healthy meal.  (One should be careful to avoid overconsuming too much seafood due to the possibility of mercury poisoning.  Also, be sure to check the nutrition facts prior to purchasing the fish; I'm not talking about fish sticks here.)

Again, this isn't the be-all, end-all of exercise/nutrition programs, but I felt it was an important topic to broach among student affairs practitioners.  Many of us (including myself) are so absorbed in our work and helping others that we neglect ourselves.  Do you have any tips to add?

Over my last three years as a young professional, something with
which I’ve been constantly tinkering is my professional/personal
balance. I heard from the start that I needed to be cautious about how
much work I do, how much time I spend in the office, etc. due to the risk of burnout. I didn’t really understand that at first, as I had
just begun a job I couldn’t get enough of. It didn’t take me long to
understand that it didn’t matter how much you did like your job; if it
was constantly in your face, day in and day out, you’d start to get
annoyed.

This year (this semester in particular), I feel good about my
balance. I’ve learned a couple things over the course of my three years on the job that helps my balance and stress level. First,
I’ve blocked time on my calendar if I don’t feel like having a meeting
at that time. I targeted certain times during the day when I feel like
I’m not at my best, or time slots in which I know I’ll be rushing
thanks to the standing meeting or lunch that immediately follows. For
instance, I will never meet with anyone from 9:00-9:30 AM, the first
half-hour time slot of my day, because I want to have time when I can
get settled and understand the big tasks of the day and what I need to
do to attack them. I also will not meet with anyone at 11:30 unless
it’s absolutely necessary. One thing I realized I value during the work
day is being able to take that early lunch, especially so I don’t
encounter a crowded space when all the students try to eat at the same
time.

Another thing that’s worked for me is stacking most of my meetings
on one day and making that day “sacrifice day.” I’d rather have
one long day, in which I surrender some free time and retain it for
later in the week, than be busy every single day. Sacrifice Day is Monday
for me, because I’m already energized from the weekend, and I usually spend Sunday night mentally preparing for the week to begin. Plus, I simply enjoy
easier Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.

Of course, I won’t know how this is going to work in grad school
next fall. It probably won’t. I know that I’ll need to be more
flexible, be willing to put in lots of work every day, and embrace the
busyness and hectic lifestyle of a grad student. But there’s nothing
that says I can’t try to use the thinking behind this system to build
my next one.

The best paragraph I've read in a few weeks comes from the introduction of Paul Loeb's Soul of a Citizen.

The dream of sanctuary is an illusion. It erodes our souls by eroding our sense of larger connection, whether to our fellow human beings or to that force that many of us call God. The walls we're building around ourselves, around those closest to us, and ultimately around our hearts may provide a temporary feeling of security. But they can't prevent the world from affecting us. Quite the opposite. The more we construct such barriers, the more private life, for most of us, will grow steadily more insecure. (pg. 7)

In applying Loeb's writing to my experience on a college campus, the first thing I think of is walking past those students who simply can't walk on campus without earphones on or a cell phone held to their ear. My sightings of these students have skyrocketed over the past three years, with iPods commonplace and cell phones becoming a staple. Each time I see a student say goodbye to a group of friends and then pull out a cell phone to call someone else, I wonder about the connection between this behavior and self-confidence.

The idea of a "larger connection," as Loeb labels it, seems lost on many of today's college students. Many students would seemingly rather keep listening to their music than say thank you to those holding a door open for them. It seems like they'd do anything possible to avoid having to decide whether or not to make eye contact with a stranger and utter one syllable. So what do they do? Whip out the cell phone to talk to someone that's within their "walls."

We've accomplished quite a bit last year, speaking in terms of civic engagement. College students showed an incredible amount of enthusiasm all over the country for the political process, and service-learning is playing a larger role in education across the nation. But perhaps we're looking too much at the forest instead of zeroing in on the trees.

I've resisted the notion that just because youth today engage in activism online and plan it online, the Millennial brand of activism is of a diminished quality. However, I do think that youth today can improve their efforts to create positive change by challenging themselves to tear down some of those walls so they can be expanded. A face-to-face interaction with a stranger isn't going to lead to a scolding anymore like it might if we Millennials were still trapped in your childhood. Loeb gets it right — the more we erect walls, the more insecure we get; the less walls we have surrounding us, the more confident we are.

Alexa Harrington wrote an interesting and thought-provoking post at her blog called Educated Nation, discussing the RA position and its increased popularity due to the great compensation in today's poor economy:

It’s amazing what starts to look enticing when the economy is sucking. Nationwide, colleges and universities have reported phenomenal increases in the number of applicants for RA positions. RAs (resident advisors) are the long-suffering, non-freshmen, adult(ish) folks who agree to live in vomit-splattered, high-volume dorms in exchange for free room and board at their institution of higher education.
[...]
During my freshman-year stint in the dorms, it was widely considered among the resident hall population that only an upperclassman with an extreme lack of tuition money would ever consider putting themselves in harm’s way (that would be in the way of a pack of newly-liberated-from-parental-control freshmen) for what is basically a non-paying job that totally wrecks your sleeping and studying schedules.
However, it was also considered by the lot of us that only someone with a higher degree of motivation to become educated than any of us college-fund-having kiddos had would accept such a job. So, while on the one hand we thought of our RAs as an especially cranky variety of fun-hating babysitter, we also had to admit that out of all of us, they were the most willing to do whatever it was going to take to earn a college degree—even put up with our played-out antics (which we thought were phenomenally original, but which the RAs and the janitors always knew exactly how to clean up, thereby calling into question our actual level of inventiveness).

From an insider's perspective, I find it interesting how outsiders — those college students who never contemplated the RA gig — view the position. I think with everything, there are always going to be a variety of opinions based on the personality of your RA. If your RA was a jerk, you're probably not going to think they're particularly valuable in on-campus living communities. On the other hand, if you had a high-energy, motivated RA, you're probably going to have a generally high opinion of the role. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing Alexa (at Educated Nation) wasn't one that had a life-changing relationship with her RA.

Alexa's description of the position is actually more hyperbole than it is fact. Some RAs are initially attracted to the position because of its financial benefits, and perhaps there are more candidates for the positions because of that interest. But as a residence life professional, it's very easy for us to sort out those who are solely motivated by material benefits from those who want to make a difference.

As the housing officer notes in Alexa's post, the RA is grossly underpaid in that the position's extensive compensation will be earned by the middle of the fall semester. It's not just vomit, either. Mediating roommate conflicts, confronting their peers' violations of policy, and the famous "other duties as assigned" are staples of the job, and if someone was hired only interested in reaping the financial reward, we know they'd probably walk out immediately.

One thing Alexa noted that I wholeheartedly agree with is the notion of grudging respect for RAs among students living in residence halls. A student might detest an RA for dispersing two of his/her parties in a semester and turning his/her name into the campus's judicial officer, but I find in my conversations with the student (which follows this referral process), most of these students acknowledge that the RA "was just doing their job," and we have a conversation about what that job entails. I usually come away from the conversation believing that while that student still might not have come to terms with his/her responsibility in a particular incident, he/she does grudgingly respect the RA for dealing with the "drama" that can accompany the gig.

One more comment regarding the output of the position — it's not just drama. Many candidates interviewing for the position, if not there for the room and board, naively proclaim they're there to "help people." (As someone respected in the higher ed field notes, "You can help people at a 7-11.") This is a better answer, though, than the material benefits line. Eventually, successful RAs do help people, but each does it a bit differently. They fine-tune their role with the help of residence life professionals, seizing the aspects of the position that amplify strengths, and challenging themselves to grow in areas of weakness. There are strong event-planners, and those strong with administrative tasks. They will understand at some point, though, that if they're particularly successful, they don't just help people; they change lives. They're the figurative (sometimes literal) arbiters of millions of minutes of life stories that intersect on a common hallway or wing. It might be automatic to focus on the negative aspects of that — illness, conflict, etc. But think about the potential there. The RA that recognizes the influence and opportunity they possess in that setting is the one who is the most successful, and the person who gets all that they can out of the position — not just the room and board.