Please consider how your campus can support the Oklahoma community. We are all connected. #sachat #highered

— SA Perks (@SAPerks) May 21, 2013

Woke up this morning at 6am ready to go. Bags packed, guitar restrung, out of office reply written, online check-in complete…

I am fortunate to travel for my work – I go to conferences and meetings, trainings and events. Every once and a while though, when I print out that lovely boarding pass, I do it 105% for me only. When the baggage is stowed, and seats are in their upright and locked positions, and the landing gear hits pavement in a new place, I am actually and truly on vacation.

As I write this I am sitting in the Portland airport waiting for my plane. I am splurging and getting a foot massage in a few minutes. The spa is dimly lit, and I have a complimentary glass of iced peppermint tea. I can see my polished toes peeking out from behind the top of my laptop. I am wearing a sundress – something I can’t wear to work. I feel relaxed. 9-day weekend, here I come.

But of course it is not that simple. I already know that I will have to check my email. I will have to connect with that colleague who needs me to book a room for the event we are putting on. I will have to log that new student employee into our timeclock system. I will need to call Wednesday night to see how the food pantry went. I will, I will, I will…and if I am not careful it will pile up until I am putting in what amounts to hours when I should be sitting in a hot tub, doing yoga, drinking wine. You know when you sign on for the life of a Student Affairs professional that you will work odd hours, lots of hours, just…well…hours.

I worked as a field guide for a wilderness therapy program before I arrived at Oregon State. When you work in the field you are ON 24-7 for the whole time you are out there. Student needs to use the faciliTREES at 2am? Yep – I am up and making sure they get back to camp in the dark. Lunch might not be until 5 because a kid ran away. I often found myself shivering by a fire at midnight, the kids FINALLY in bed, heating cocoa as the snow accumulates on my shoulders. It’s tough, but one thing I will say for it – when I was not at work, I was not working.

Why is it so hard to unplug? I am sure there are some of you who are thinking as you read this, “duh…I can do it, so can you,” and others who are thinking, “you will only do some email on your time away – lucky!” I think one thing that really contributes to it all for me is being in a world where I can connect all. the. time. My phone streams #SAlife to me second by second, and it is just all too easy for me to go with that flow. Not to mention that my friends are all #SApro, and so my personal life is dotted with reminders of the life. I was out with a friend who was skydiving on the weekend for her birthday. JUST before she hopped on the plane, she got a phone call for work. Another friend and I quickly stepped in to mitigate the situation so she could make the jump.

…and, I will say with pride that I am completing this blog post AFTER my vacation.

So yea, I did take the better part of one morning to take care of the most important bits – and when I think about it rationally, I am unsure how important they really are. I wonder what part of the “I must work, no matter what,” is ego. I had chat with a colleague yesterday about potentially going to school for a doctorate part time (I am leaning toward full-time), and wanted to hear about her experience. She worked 4 10′s and then went to school on Fridays. “I’m not sure I can do that…,” I mused. “Yes you can,” she said, “you have to remember that the work is not about you. If it has to get done, it will whether you are there or not.” It was a good point. I wonder what it would look like for us to truly unplug and see what happened. I imagine that the world would not come tumbling down. Yes, when I got back there were lots of things that were held for me by my students to take care of. There were also decisions made that I would have preferred to be run by me before they were made. In the end though all was well, and if there were issues, there was a strong team of colleagues who could have stepped in to help out.

Maybe next time I go on vacation I will reclaim my morning and go to the pool.

View transcript here (google doc).

What are some other topics you would like to see us cover? Please let us know your ideas and feedback to keep #sachat growing strong. Until next week, (if you haven’t already done so) please make sure to LIKE our Facebook Page. Thanks for your continued support!

This past Friday night we held our annual Club Leadership Awards.

For this event each Club advisor nominates one student to receive an award for outstanding leadership displayed through their role within the executive board throughout their term.

The assumption sometimes can be that the President of the Club wins the award 99.9% of the time, however, there are times where the vice president, treasurer, and/or secretary can even win the award. Why you ask? Well that’s simple to answer because sometimes the leader is only as strong as its team.

Undoubtedly, there were many awards given to various position holders from clubs however even when the President of the Club won he or she took the time to thank and call up their other executive board members to showcase the power of a team.

This award ceremony is always special to me, my fellow co-workers and my supervisor, but this year was extra special for me. Indeed, this years award winners held many of the students I have helped transition and guide through Bergen. These are the students I first began working with when I began my internship at Bergen. They have impacted my role at Bergen from intern to full time staff as much as I hope to say I’ve impacted them. This graduating class holds a special place in my heart as they are my first true graduating class.

I am not afraid to say that I will shed a tear or two of happiness and sadness, for me, on May 16th when they graduate.

However, as these students transition on I look forward to the next group of students that I get the honor and privilege to work with at Bergen.

How do you celebrate your students on campus?

One of my favorite SNL digital shorts is one titled “Like a Boss” which starts out with Seth Rogen giving Adam Samberg’s “boss” character a performance review.

Rogen: “Mr. Samberg Thanks for coming to your performance review”

Samberg: “No problem”

Rogen: “So you’re in charge around here, is that fair to say?”

Samberg: “Absolutely, I’m the boss “

Rogen: “Okay, so take us through a day in the life of the boss

Samberg: “Well the first thing I do is…”

Then Adam kicks into a long string of things that are boss like, and some that are not remotely boss like or otherwise. Every time I watch this short I think of my own boss list. One of the items that is always at the top of my boss list is supervision of my staff, or as Adam puts it in the short, “direct work flow”. We can agree that although a core function of most jobs, direct supervision and mentorship of our supervisees is something that we don’t spend as much time on as we would like. Yes we have one on ones, guide progress and help to extinguish fires but we don’t often set up our supervisees with a plan and help them create a clear vision of their development and what they want to accomplish under our supervision. Even in longstanding supervision relationships ease of communication and dialogue can take a backseat to actual structured development.

The book “It’s OK To Be The Boss” by Bruce Tulgan explores the topic of under management and how it impacts functionality, production and overall process in an organization.

Everyone knows what a micromanager is, but do you know what an under manager is? According to Tulgan, an undermanaging boss is someone who, “ doesn’t set expectations, doesn’t monitor and measure performance constantly, is quick to correct failure and slow to give praise”. In this type of managing there is little trust and the supervisor and the supervisee are both feeling lost in the relationship. Those that are in the management positions are often afraid to be labeled a micromanager so they back off actions that they perceived to be under this umbrella. However, providing feedback, guidance, direction and communicating a clear outcome are not unto themselves micromanaging, as with everything it’s the style in which something is delivered that makes the distinction. We as mangers control the delivery of the message even if we ourselves didn’t write the speech. When we build supervisory relationships where there is open dialogue and a bridge towards trust, it makes those speeches that we didn’t write easier to deliver and easier for our supervisees to hear and understand.

Building good supervision relationships often take time, more time than many busy schedules allow. There is the process of building trust between two people but it’s also a process of shared power and influence. Some might think that the power is mostly in the hands of the supervisor. I would say that the power dynamic in how a supervisee/supervisor relationship progresses can and should be one of an equal power exchange. The ideal process is that each person would bring in knowledge and are open to being developed by each other; -Tulgan calls this dynamic, a dyad. He states that a dyad is two individuals or units regarded as a pair being impacted by personality, style, identity and communication skills. To accomplish a successful dyad the following things must happen: there has to be transparency of expectations and boundaries, the dyad must be productive and evolving, supervisors need an awareness and acknowledgment of areas of growth and training, and feedback and motivation are both encouraged.

As we approach the end of the year we often use the time to both reflect and rationalize how well we supervised and how we were supervised ourselves. Sometimes the best thing to do is follow the advice of the lyrical genius of John Mayer “It’s better to say too much then never say what you need to say again. Even if your hands are shaking, and your faith is broken, even as the eyes are closing, do it with a heart wide open, say what you need to say” Don’t be afraid to be the boss-someone’s gotta do it!

View transcript here (google doc).

What are some other topics you would like to see us cover? Please let us know your ideas and feedback to keep #sachat growing strong. Until next week, (if you haven’t already done so) please make sure to LIKE our Facebook Page. Thanks for your continued support!

Image via Small_Realm

As an academic advisor, one of our many tasks is to be the information clearinghouse about campus resources to share with the students. A student needs help in math; “check out the Math Assistance Center”. Another student needs more time to take tests because of a medical order; “stop by Adaptive Education Services and talk to them about the process for obtaining educational accommodations”. Another student is a mother with young children; “did you know that we have a daycare on our campus?”. Yet another student has a question about their financial aid monies; “let’s call Financial Aid while you’re in my office and see what they say”. I love knowing so much about the campus and being able to share that with the students that darken my door for two reasons: 1) I like to provide as much one-stop-shopping information as I can and 2) because I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to “my” students and want to make sure they get all the information they need.

Well, this advisor started teaching sections of our Learning Community (Freshman Seminar) course last year. For the first couple of semesters I was telling students about the resources around campus in the “give a man a fish” type of way. It wasn’t until I taught my 3rd section did I discover and implement the “teach a man to fish” way of learning about our campus. I had the students sign up for a campus resource at random. Each week 5 students would present on their resource for what I call the Two Minute Briefing. In their two minute presentation, they were required to pull up the site’s main webpage, tell where it was physically located (Campus Center, 2nd floor), tell who the contact person/ director is and their contact information, and give us a summary of why students would go there or use that resource. The results of doing this were amazing! The outcomes were:

• The students practiced presenting in front of their peers
• The students learned about the resource by actively learning outside of class time
• The students practiced finding the answers to their own questions
• The students practiced navigating our school’s website
• The student giving the presentation became a mini-expert on the office/service

That 3rd result is something I then use the rest of the semester. Mid semester a student asks about scholarships and how to find out more about one. I then ask the student who gave the presentation about our Scholarship Office if they can answer their peer’s question; usually they can! At the end of the presentations I tell the class that if they don’t need to know about all the resources, if they have a friend or classmate that may need to know about one, to share the information as a citizen of our school. For example, the students who do NOT have children may not need to know about our daycare, but maybe someone in their math class mentions having small children and struggling with childcare; they could suggest to that student that there is a daycare on campus.

I still do this activity and have found that the students become empowered not only to learn about the campus, but also to share and help fellow classmates. Does this activity answer all questions? No. But, it starts the conversations and search process and that’s pretty great to watch happen! Hopefully this little tweak in information delivery will “feed” the students for a lifetime.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. -Chinese Proverb

This practice has crossed over into my advising practices, as well. I now ask them more questions to see what information they may already know (often times the students know more than they think they do). Now, I have the student navigate the school’s website to find information they may need while in my office. Students seem to like this because they have the comfort of me being right there for support and help to guide them through, and they have more confidence in themselves for having taken care of things. The best gift I can give the students is not the answers to all their questions, but the confidence to seek out their own answers. I feel great about the small role I play in the student development and success of my students, which keeps me coming back each morning ready to see how I can help the next student!