The Student Affairs Collaborative » Announcements

Introducing #SAYR1

Brian Gallagher — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:30:53 +0000

What started as a question from Kelley McCarthy on Twitter asking if anyone would be interested in participating in her #52in52 project turned into a conversation about a lack of resources for new student affairs professionals. Student affairs graduate students have the support of their cohort, professors in their program, mentors through personal connections and programs like #saGROW, and special initiatives coordinated by professional associations. New professionals, though, are at a key transition point in their life and do not have a centralized support system. Our solution? #SAYR1 (Student Affairs Year One)!

The vision of #SAYR1 is to discuss the key issues facing new professionals in student affairs and provide avenues of support from the last year of graduate school through their third year as a professional. One of the ways we will be doing this is by creating support groups of approximately three individuals who will journey through these first few years together. With the small-sized groups, you will have the benefit of a consistent and tight-knit support system without the nearly impossible task of having to coordinate the schedules of a big group (we’ve all been there!). Groups can communicate in person, through phone calls, e-mails, Google + hangouts, Skype, on Twitter, or however your group decides works best for you! The #SAYR1 Core Team will be providing discussion questions, topics, and resources to get everyone started.

#SAYR1 will provide you with a group of people you can talk to about what’s going on without trying to explain (for the 4,534th time) what it is exactly that you do again. It will give you an avenue to discuss current issues and trends in the field and how they’re impacting your work. With #SAYR1, you will have a network that will support you in trying times, celebrate your successes with you, and continually encourage you to be the best version of you. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, please visit this link and complete the form. You can join a group that’s already been started or start your own. Groups can be by functional area, year, region, or just a pure hodge podge – it’s up to you! Please feel free to contact anyone from the Core Team should you have any questions. We are all excited to get this program started and hope you are too.

#SAYR1 Core Team:

Brian Gallagher (gallagb@gmail.com) Hall Director at Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Karen Schomaker (kschomaker@gmail.com) Coordinator for Community Service at California Lutheran University

Kelley McCarthy (kmccarthy1985@yahoo.com) 2nd Year Graduate Student and Graduate Assistant for Leadership Programs in the Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement at Nova Southeastern University

Melissa L. Brown (melissabrown47@gmail.com) Residence Hall Director for Moore Hall, University of North Carolina School of the Arts

Tricia Cesarino (tr.cesarino@gmail.com) Program Coordinator for Sorority and Fraternity Affairs at the University of Florida

Tracey Walterbusch (twalterbusch@gmail.com) Residential Life Coordinator at Ohio Wesleyan University

Brian Gallagher is a hall director at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Truly Leading: Lessons In Leadership

Del Suggs — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:07:47 +0000

Truly Leading: Lessons in Leadership was released on May 2, and I’m really proud to announce it here at the SABlog site. This book was written over the past three or four years, and several of the 21-chapters actually began as postings to this blog.
I wrote it as primer for campus leaders. It covers both basic and more advanced leadership skills, and the chapter titles lay it out. “Leading With Integrity,” “Effective Time Management,” “The Art of Delegation,” “Setting Organizational Goals,” and “Conflict Resolution” are good examples of the basic skills required to lead.

But Truly Leading goes beyond the basics, and addresses those skills that more advanced leaders need. “How to Inspire Others,” “Being a Better Leader,” “The Power of Ceremony” and “More Effective Meetings” are aimed at lifting an emerging leader into greater success.

I’ve also included chapters on some very important foundational needs, such as creating a mission statement and some advanced concepts in recruitment. Organizational training needs are addressed in chapters covering both planning and training retreats, along with presenting a full-blown campus leadership conference.

Truly Leading: Lessons in Leadership is chock full of leadership tips, suggestions, and guidance. It is brisk reading, written in a style that reflects the my personal experiences as a life-long leader.

If you’d like a copy, it’s available directly from my website store, or you can purchase it from Amazon.com. It’s also available as an eBook from the Kindle Store. It should be available at the Apple bookstore and Barnes & Nobles.com in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for letting me announce this here. Okay, Fellow Contributors: it’s time for you to write your new book!

Transcript Troubles in #SAchat Land

Stacy Oliver — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:44:30 +0000

As our faithful readers and chatters know, we provide a transcript of each week’s chat in this space on Friday mornings. Over the past weeks, it has become increasingly more difficult to create that transcript with the service we relied on, WTHashtag.com. This free service allowed us to easily generate the transcript from the scheduled chats, provided statistics and tracked our conversation. Unfortunately, this morning WTHashtag.com posted a notice on its site that it is no longer able to provide this service. Due to a combination of overwhelming their own servers and their interpretation of a change to Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS), they will no longer be able to provide us with the resources to create the #SAchat transcript.

All of that said, we would like the community’s input in how to move forward. Our loyal transcript creator, Seth Hagler, is researching other services that may meet our need. In the interim, I would love for you to share your thoughts on how to supplement chat should providing transcripts no longer be an option. A few of our ideas include gathering resources shared during the chat and posting those, highlighting a few tweets rather than the entire transcript, or posting a brief summary that others can comment on.

What ideas do you have? How can we leverage this as an opportunity to change and grow with our community?

The Future’s So Bright

Stacy Oliver — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:00:11 +0000

Yesterday afternoon in Chicago I sat down with Debra Sanborn and Tom Krieglstein, founders of #SAChat, to talk about the state of our hashtag. As we simultaneously reflected and looked forward, I took advantage of finally having the opportunity to articulate in person to Tom and Debra what I love about #SAChat – that we truly are a community.

There is limitless number of hashtags on Twitter. There are chats held for every possible professional field imaginable and functional areas within those fields. I keep an eye on several, mostly out of curiosity (#ChefChat is a favorite). What jumps at me is that when the scheduled chat ends, the conversation fades. Our hashtag thrives seven days a week and sometimes sees more use outside of scheduled chats depending on what is happening in the world of student affairs. We talk to each other about our personal lives as well as professional development. When I saw Jeff Jackson in Chicago, I felt as comfortable asking him about Titus, his five-month-old son, as I did about his work (and probably asked about the baby first). When I got together with Tom and Debra, we swapped stories of insomnia and sunsets as much as we talked shop. This hashtag has served as the catalyst to our discovery of mentors, job opportunities, friendships and more.

As other hashtags and chats have fallen by the wayside, #SAChat has remained steadfast. We are constantly reviewing and reformatting to better meet the needs of our community, from going on summer hiatus to jump-starting rogue chats in off-hours when we notice a topic seems to be bubbling. It’s a testament to the work we do in student affairs that we are able to use those same skills to build and sustain a community in this medium.

A very small crowd gathers for the State of the Hashtag address.

Over the next several weeks, you will see a series of blog posts about the behind the scenes operation of The Student Affairs Collaborative Blog and #SAChat. You will get to read about some bloopers that have happened behind the scenes as well (because, oh, we have our share of moments). You will learn how we share and trade responsibilities to better streamline our processes to create intentional professional development and community in one package. It is always our intention to be transparent and honest, solicit your feedback, and share our direction with you.

So, let’s start here – for those of you who don’t know, I have served as your chat moderator for the past year. I’m not always the voice behind the familiar orange avatar, but I’m the person most often in the hot seat on Thursdays firing the questions. The first time I moderated a session of afternoon chat, on March 11, 2010, I was out of town and moderated from three different venues in 35 minutes because I couldn’t find a location with a consistent, free wireless Internet signal. Now I moderate from my office, where I use three monitors to effectively keep an eye on hashtag feeds, my own feeds and messages being sent to @The_SA_Blog. I even have a Pandora station specially tweaked for moderating. I’ve always considered it a privilege to moderate chat, to facilitate the exchange of information and support, and to provide context for professional growth every week. If you have suggestions or ideas for chat, I hope you’ll let me know.

As I tweeted after my lunch with Tom and Debra, I’m wearing my sunglasses ((look closely at the picture above — they’re there) because the future of #SAChat is so bright, with all credit belonging to all of you.

Tis The Season To…Hire

Tom Krieglstein — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:11:06 +0000

With an amazing 2010 coming to a close for us at Red Rover and 2011 already looking like a landmark year, we're expanding the team and looking to recruit some amazing new people. Below are two roles we're hiring for in the next couple weeks. For both roles, they'd start off as trial contractual positions and if all goes well, move into full time positions within Red Rover within the first couple months of the new year. If interested, let us know, but know that creativity in submissions counts…

TITLE: Marketing / Sales Manager

OVERVIEW: The Marketing / Sales Manager populates and manages leads through the sales funnel to contract signed and payment received as well as renewing partners.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Lead Generation Setup / Logistics (Pre/Dur/Post) (Conf, Meetups, Mailings, etc)
Drive Leads through the sales funnel
Highrise CRM Management
Generate weekly, monthly, quarterly sales goals / reporting

SUCCESS CRITERIA:

Lead Generation
Deal Closings

IDEAL CANDIDATE (In order of importance):

Sales background/experience (better if was in education, best if was in Higher Ed)
NYC Based
Great/Hustle attitude
Understanding of the education market
Seen, experienced, or understand DFT
Skilled PookTre Artist…

TITLE: Community Manager

OVERVIEW: The Community Manager both grows and increases engagement within our community of “fans” and our "Rovers" (users).

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Managing engagement and growth of our Digital Identities (Wiki, FB, Twitter, UTube/Vimeo, Slideshare)
Managing engagement and growth of the community around our users (Our "Rovers") through activities, events, contests, etc…
Generate weekly, monthly, quarterly community goals / reporting

SUCCESS CRITERIA:

Adoption Metrics (# of new community members)
Engagement Metrics
User Happiness (Qualitative, Quantitative)
Lead Generation

IDEAL CANDIDATE (In order of importance):

Community organizing experience (you are the one who connects people together. It's not about you, it's about them.)
NYC Based
Great attitude / personable
Seen, experienced, or understand DFT
Analytical understanding of how engagement leads to retention
Skilled Bog Snorkeler…

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.

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!

8 Ways To Help Grow The Student Affairs Blog

Tom Krieglstein — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:01:33 +0000

Since its inception, The Student Affairs Blog has rapidly grown a dedicated community. Every day more Student Affairs professionals find their way here. Sometimes they find us from a random Google search, but most of the time it’s because a current community member (cough cough…you) told them about the site. So, to help you spread the word even further, try out these 8 tips and let’s see how many more of our peers we can reach.

1) Import the Blog’s RSS Into Your Facebook Account

A lot of traffic comes from people who share various posts with their Facebook friends. If you’d like to automate sharing via Facebook, here’s how to take this blog’s RSS feed and make it automatically import into Facebook as a Note. If you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out this video.

NOTE: Facebook only lets you import one RSS feed at a time. So, if you are already importing an RSS feed into Facebook, then you have to use a tool called FeedRise to merge two RSS feeds together into one. This way both RSS feeds will be imported into Facebook. If you have three or more RSS feeds, Feedrise will merge as many as you’d like. But beware that Facebook doesn’t like anyone posting too much stuff. Be active, just not too active

2) Import the Blog’s RSS Into Your Twitter

For our Tweople on Twitter, you can also automate blog post sharing via Twitter with a tool called Twitterfeed. It’s simple, fun and FREE!

3) Link Your Twitter and Facebook Statuses Together

Instead of remembering to update both your Facebook and your Twitter status with new blog posts, use the Twitter App on Facebook to automatically update your Facebook status every time you update your Twitter status.

NOTE: The Twitter App will only import Tweets that don’t start with an @reply. This way you can still carry on conversations in Twitter without overloading your Facebook friends with too many updates.

4) Subscribe To The Blog via RSS or Email

Have new posts sent to you instead of you having to check the website everyday (not that we don’t love you). Think of it like a free magazine subscription. You can either have your subscription sent to you via email or sent to you via RSS.

To subscribe via email click here.
To subscribe via RSS click here.

5) Add the SA Blog to Your Blog Roll

Have a blog? Add us to your blog roll. While you’re at it, give your blog some exposure love and add it to The SA Directory.

6) Email the Blog Link to Your Fellow SA Professionals

Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. You’ve heard it before and it’s true. Whether they’re in your office, your department or at another school, share the blog link ( www.thesabloggers.org ) with them.

Or, if they have a question related to Student Affairs, share The SA Forum link ( forum.thesabloggers.org ) with them.

7) Share the Blog at Conferences

According to one of our recent polls, 67% of you go to 1-2 conferences per year. A few people said they go to 7 conferences per year, but that’s another story! While at the conference, remember the blog URL ( www.thesabloggers.org ) and pass it on to new people you meet.

It can even make for a great ice breaker… “Hey didn’t I see you comment on The Student Affairs Collaborative Blog.”

NOTE: If you can, write down the URL for them as very few people tend to take action based on just memory.

Bookmark or Homepage The Blog

We know Yahoo, CNN, and Google are near and dear to your Homepage heart, but if you feel like changing it up, consider The Student Affairs Blog as your new Homepage! Ok, we’ll also be happy with you just bookmarking us

There you go. With these 8 tips, we’ll be able to reach out to even more Student Affairs Professionals and, collectively, we can all support each other.

NEW! At The Student Affairs Blog

Debra Sanborn — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:41:28 +0000

If you are a usual suspect (regular reader or subscriber) with The Student Affairs Blog (and if not you should be), you may notice some interesting new features for making connections at the top of this page. We have just added SA Forum, SA Jobs, and SA Blog Directory links for you.

The SA Forum is a place for all your questions, comments, and discussion on anything related to Student Affairs that isn't covered in The SA Blog. Create a quick Forum profile and join in the conversation, answer questions for others, or ask our blog community for feedback.

SA Jobs is a place to post your listings for free maximum exposure with our community. Seeking a job or have one to offer, this will be the site for you. After completing a Forum profile you can click right over to SA Jobs.

The SA Blog Directory is a place to share all of the wonderful resources that you read (and write) in the student affairs world. Add your favorite blogs here or add your own. Most of our SA Blog community also write personal or other community blogs and we want to share it all!

Thanks for being a part of The Student Affairs Blog. We are working hard to be your go-to place for the know-how of student affairs peers and professionals.

Pre-order Your School’s Unique Facebook Username

Tom Krieglstein — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:36:46 +0000

Starting at 12:01 am EDT on Saturday, June 13th, Facebook will open up registration for a new feature that allows people/organizations to own unique usernames (e.g. facebook.com/tom.krieglstein) but it’s on a first come first serve basis.

You can read more on the Facebook blog.

Schools and school departments will also be able to create unique usernames (e.g. facebook/columbia.college) for their Facebook Pages. To avoid another possible Facebook Gate in Higher Ed, usernames can be pre reserved here if the trademark registration number is furnished. Finding the registration number for your school’s name is easy with a quick Trademark seach.

A simple Facebook username for your school or school department will make for much cleaner marketing material. Consider this your PSA for the day and go reserve your name now!