The Student Affairs Collaborative » Tom Krieglstein

Hi My Name is Liz Van Lysal (@lvanlysal)

Tom Krieglstein — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:23:41 +0000

The newest member of our writing team is Liz Van Lysal (@lvanlysal). Liz is the Program Outreach Coordinator for UW-Milwaukee. While all our writers are in Student Affairs, there is immense diversity, so I asked Liz a few questions to get to know her better.

Bio:
My name is Liz Van Lysal, and I’m currently the Program Outreach Coordinator in University Housing at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. I oversee marketing and communication for five buildings housing over 4,000 residents, and help @keriduce in Neighborhood Housing with communication to off-campus students and community members whenever possible. I consider myself a social media nerd and I’m excited to be able to incorporate that interest into our communication with students and their families. I received my M.Ed. from Marquette University in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies and this summer I’m starting my doctoral studies in Leadership and Service in Higher Education at Cardinal Stritch University. Prior to working at UWM, I was the Student Organizations Coordinator at the National Communication Association in Washington, DC.

Now, on to more interesting information:

What’s the best advice you’ve received for your job?
After about three years in my position, I began to get bored. It was only when I started focusing on my career rather than my job that I was able to continually challenge myself, even if my job duties remained repetitive each academic year. I’m not sure if I actually got this advice from someone, but this recent blog post from www.higheredjobs.com summed it up well for me.

New Zealand, France, or Brazil?
France, strictly for food reasons. I’d like to experience the “French paradox” first-hand: eat copious amounts of butter and drink lots of wine, while remaining (or becoming?) super slim.

How do you de-stress?
Baseball. I’m a Milwaukee Brewers season ticket holder. I go to over 50 games a year. I like to keep score, and even a boring game can be stress-relieving as I track the outcome of every pitch. I’m also a strong believer in happy hour with my campus colleagues.

Why student affairs?
Student Affairs was the whole reason I got my first job out of college – I was President of an honor society that was hiring a coordinator. The skills I needed in that job—networking, event management, etc —were all gained in my co-curricular activities in college. Coursework taught me to think critically and write a coherent sentence, but student affairs taught me all the out-of-the-classroom skills that have become important to my professional development. I enjoy the chance to guide undergraduates as they develop those skills for themselves, and mentor them in their career path. Double bonus if they choose Student Affairs!

What one piece of advice would you give to a SA newbie?
Learn everything you can for your first 2-3 years. Then, start figuring out what you want your specialty to be. Once you figure that out, learn everything you can about that specialty, and begin contributing to the professional knowledgebase surrounding it.

The #sachat Introduction Video

Tom Krieglstein — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:20:48 +0000

We started the #sachat experiment in October 2009 and, more than anyone expected, the growth has been explosive. Each week, more and more student affairs professionals are connecting together and sharing their experience on a variety of topics from Job Expectations to Resident Hall Discipline. Inspired, and requested, by the #sachat community, here’s a video I hope captures the feeling many of us experience each week we participate in the #sachat.

Ready to join the conversation? Start here > http://bit.ly/4o6NKH

The Value of Integrating Social Media into Education

Tom Krieglstein — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:33:16 +0000

Dean Long, of LAUS, only needs two minutes to perfectly explain how every educator should be thinking about social media.

And if your life is too busy for a two minute interlude, here are the highlights:

Use SM (Social Media) to cultivate a community around the activities already being done on campus
Support student bloggers
Let students be the producers of the school’s content
Give students the capacity to think and reflect around their experiences
Schools benefit by showcasing what they do to a larger audience
Using SM will cultivate a larger community
Reflective learning is nothing new, the new challenge is translating the goal into a digital era

Private Communities and Engagement – The 90-9-1 Rule

Tom Krieglstein — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:04:31 +0000

Online community ninja, Jakob Nielsen, is one of the original brains behind the 90-9-1 rule. Stated simply, the rule goes…

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

Wikipedia is a classic example. 99% of Wikipedia users never contribute to the site. Of the 32 million Wikipedia unique visitors in the US, 68,000 are active contributors. In other words, only .02% of US Wikipedia users actually contribute to the site. Wikipedia isn’t alone in experiencing such inequality. The rule applies to almost any online community.

Engagement matters, and almost every online community would give a few fingers for more user participation. Lurkers make up a site’s largest set of eyeballs. Without lurkers, 90% of the possibility of new engagement is eliminated. Private platforms are often used in higher ed as a way to maintain control (both legally and mentally). By hiding content and contribution behind password protected areas, a community is eliminating 90% of it’s possibility of new engagement.

The Student Affairs Collaborative has been our experiment in an open, peer-to-peer, learning community. The SA Blog, The SA Forum, and The #SACHAT are all open systems that allow, and welcome with open arms, lurkers. Lurkers are learning, and often times come back to contribute.

Nelsen says that we can’t overcome participate inequality, we can only move the shape of the curve.

We’re experimenting with even more ways to create open communities in higher ed, because we believe open communities lead to increased engagement. Not to mention they are cheaper to build and maintain and are great for SEO.

Allow more lurkers in. Make participation easier for lurkers. Reward contributions. Publicly promote your 1%.

Introduction To The #SACHAT In More Than 140 Characters

Tom Krieglstein — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:05:11 +0000

Here’s a quick overview of how the #SACHAT works:

The #sachat happens on Twitter. Follow @the_sa_blog to get all the updates.
The chat happens weekly on Thursday with a DAYTIME chat from 12-1pm CST and an EVENING chat from 6-7pm CST.
12-1pm CST and 6-7pm CST are only guidelines and obviously you can engage in the #sachat whenever you want
Every Wednesday, the community will vote on a topic to discuss the next day. The topic will be the same for both the DAYTIME and the EVENING.
To Join, add #sachat somewhere in your status update
To Follow in real time, search Twitter for #sachat
To Catch up, use http://wthashtag.com/Sachat
Unanswered questions will be posted on The SA Forum
Moderators (using this term very loosely) for the #sachat will be The SA Bloggers
Anyone can participate (you don’t have to be in Student Affairs)
When the feeling moves you, do a post on your blog about that week’s #sachat to keep the conversation going
Learning and fun are mandatory and all those not learning and having fun will be asked to smile

The purpose of hosting a weekly #sachat is to give our community of knowledgeable professionals an opportunity to strengthen their personal learning networks within Student Affairs. Share some knowledge. Gain some knowledge. Make our entire profession better!

Tuesday Tally – Rank Which Days/Times Would Generally Work Best For #sachat For You?

Tom Krieglstein — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:34:09 +0000

Recognizing that our SA community has grown rather large and filled with many knowledgeable professionals, next week The SA Blog will begin facilitating a weekly Student Affairs Chat (#sachat) on Twitter based on the models already used by #edchat and #journchat. In my next post I’ll explain more about the #sachat outline and structure. But to start we need to know what week days/times work best for the most number of people.

If you cannot view this poll click here.

And here are the results from the last poll.

Better Get To Know A Student Affairs Professional 9/2/09

Tom Krieglstein — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:46:49 +0000

With a baby due on Sept 10th, Stacie Rowley of Gainesville State College – Oconee Campus paused her maternity to answer some non-baby related questions about her job for this edition of Better Get To Know A Student Affairs Professional. After watching the video, consider gifting Stacie something from here after she has her baby!

Tuesday Tally – Do You Keep A Personal Blog for Your Student Affairs Job?

Tom Krieglstein — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:08:10 +0000

If you cannot view this poll click here.

And here are the results from the last poll.

Tuesday Tally – How Long Does Your New Student Orientation Run?

Tom Krieglstein — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:40:01 +0000

If you cannot view this poll click here.

And here are the results from the last poll.

Schreiner University Student Activities Office Tour

Tom Krieglstein — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:47:50 +0000

Consider this the first in a series of tours of student activities and student affairs offices around the country. Along with our “Better Get To Know An SA Pro” series, the purpose is to give you a behind the scenes peek at how other schools and professionals operate. Without further ado, on with the tour of Schreiner University!

Pre Tour Stats

Name: Schreiner University
Type: Private not-for-profit, 4-year or above
Location: Kerrville, TX
Size: 971+

Tour Time

Several members of their program board led the tour. As you can see there are many happy faces to welcome us in. The entrance is adjacent to a lounge and food area.

When you first walk in the the student center you are met with an impressive visual display of stairs and extremely large hand made posters promoting various events. Though, interesting to note, they said 80% of event attendance comes from word of mouth and friends texting each other the day of the event.

The student activities front door has a list of upcoming events for the week as well as pictures and bios of each programming board member.

The office’s main room walls are covered with various signs and posters.

Including a whiteboard and calendar.

The always handy “Bucket-O-Robert’s Rules.”

A few years ago, the programming board decided to re-create the famous Breakfast Club poster, but it wasn’t without it’s controversy as not everyone at the school agreed with the values portrayed in the movie.

Another year the students decided to make their group photo be a Butt Sketch.

What office is complete with out their very own storage room?

Or War Room! I was told this is a work in progress and will soon be a place for group meetings.

The front door of the Director of Student Activities, Jennifer Hudson-Velazquez.

A quick peak inside Jennifer’s office. As they say in Student Affairs, this is where the magic happens!

Students showing off posters for upcoming events. The school’s graphic design department helps them make all their posters.

The story of Todd is sad and touching as he used to be a member of the crew, but then passed away from cancer. Before passing he used to collect teddy bears and pass them out at local hospitals. The current program board has since made the event an annual drive in honor of Todd. It’s great to see how some events have a deeper meaning.

Thanks for the great tour Schreiner!