I just attended the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference here in Philadelphia. EDUCAUSE is the leading conference for higher education IT professionals. From teaching and learning, to new technology such as cloud and mobile applications, this conference has renewed and excited me for the potential technology has in enhancing learning. Some of it was way over my head and other sessions were right in tune with my philosophy and approach to education. The opening speaker was Seth Godin. He challenged us to think differently regarding our impact on the future and our profession. We are artists and must create and have the freedom to do so. I now have a long reading list with Seth’s books at the top. I enjoyed listening to Keith McIntosh, who talked about growing your staff, developing your staff and loving your staff. This theme came through other sessions as well such as one by Linda Cureton, the CIO of NASA. She spoke of failing. Not once, but over and over. The message? Take a risk and encourage your staff to do so.

Another great aspect of this conference was the exhibition hall. I have never seen a conference display like this one. 3D technology was everywhere, plus great food. Nearly every vendor had a drawing for an iPad. I didn’t win, but I think it says something about where we are headed as educators. It was great to learn about new technology and systems, but almost overwhelming for my mind. I spent most of the conference reflecting and mulling on the impact of technology, not only in my work but also in my life. EDUCAUSE has opened new doors and concepts to me and has shown me really what is necessary to truly impact learning.

I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to attend EDUCAUSE in the future, as it’s not the typical conference for student affairs professionals to attend, but I think everyone needs to attend a conference not directly related to their work. It allows you to be exposed to new thought processes and opens new ideas and possibilities. I surely got this and have new thoughts and methods on how to achieve my goals and aspirations.

The Journal of College and University Student Housing recently published a study by Gavin W. Henning, Kristan M. Cilente, Dean F. Kennedy and Tomecca M. Sloane titled, Professional Development Needs for New Residential Life Professionals. Participants of the study ranked competencies necessary for the professional growth and development of entry-level professionals in residential life. Briefly, the top seven competencies are as follows:

1. Understanding job expectations
2. Enhancing supervision skills
3. Moving up in the field of student affairs
4. Adequate support from supervisors, mentors, and colleagues
5. Fostering student learning
6. Developing multicultural competencies
7. Understanding the culture and facilities of the college/university

I think it is worth it to note that the top three competencies are not typically topics found in a student affairs graduate curriculum. I agree these competencies are important; if not the most important for a new professional to master quickly. If you cannot understand your job, meet job expectations, and manage the people you supervise efficiently; moving up in the field will be challenging.

The article also speaks to the fact that there is no real consensus on what competencies new professionals should master to progress through the field. I have noticed personally and through other colleagues, that we briefly start out as generalist and then begin to develop interests in areas that will give us “expertise.” Once we become an office-proclaimed guru, our new found expertise makes us more marketable for the jobs we want in the future.

Participants also ranked their preferred delivery method for professional development. In almost every category mentoring was the preferred method of professional development followed by workshops, self-teaching, and administrative shadowing. It is clear to me why mentoring is the preferred method of delivery. No surprises here; mentorships offer many benefits including an unbiased opinion, one-on-one consultation, and networking opportunities. I wish the study expounded more on methods of self-teaching, but I’m assuming this means new professionals are taking advantage of webinars, scholarly books and articles, etc.

This is a reoccurring topic in students affairs, typically under the heading, “What I Wish I Would Have Learned in Graduate School.” The article does state that while there are professional organizations that have outlined core competencies for professionals; there is limited data on whether graduate programs are using these core competencies in graduate curriculums.

I have been out of graduate school for a while, but have programs evolved to include more core competencies like staff supervision, management, workplace politics and human resource management? If not, shouldn’t they be doing so?

Carla Finklea Green is a residence hall director at Old Dominion University.

When I heard a student affairs administrator make this statement awhile back, it gave me pause.

She explained that big budget cuts at her institution a year or so ago meant she had had to find ways to accomplish the university’s mission with fewer staff members. She began the process by assessing employees’ strengths relative to their positions. As a result of her assessment, she kept some employees where they were, she moved a couple to positions she determined to be a better fit for their talents and skills, and she let others go (with several months’ notice and assistance with their job searches).

The competencies she displayed—building and maintaining trust, assessing people and situations well, and making difficult (even painful) decisions without pause—are invaluable.

“Releasing an employee troubles, disturbs, and unsettles every leader,” writes Phillip Clampitt and Robert DeKoch in Transforming Leaders Into Progressmakers: Leadership for the 21st Century (2011, p. 166).

Therefore “cutting your losses [is] . . . an act of judgment and courage,” they concluded.

In higher education, the phrase “cutting your losses” sounds insensitive and incongruent with our culture of learning. Instead, we teach, correct, guide, and motivate . . . sometimes indefinitely. We may convince ourselves that “if only I were a better supervisor, then he/she would be a better employee.” And so we try yet another approach and give the employee more time.

The costs of keeping marginal employees, of course, can be very high. Their actions (or inaction) can affect recruitment and retention of students, the learning environment, risk and liability, and customer service. They also can affect morale, as other employees compensate for deficits or create ways to work around them.

What does it take to be able to handle challenging personnel decisions well? How can we develop these traits and/or skills? What are your thoughts about the statement: “We cannot afford mediocre employees”?

Our students deserve our best, including courageous leadership. How are we building and sustaining our value to our campuses?

Lisa Tetzloff is the Director of the Office of Student Life at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

These days, you couldn’t swing a LOLCAT anywhere on the internet without banging kitty right into someone pitching themselves as a “guru” of something or other. I’ve become especially aware of this as a new business owner, because people call me to pitch this-and-that, and probably some of the other.

I’ve written a third post in my series “How to Tell a “Who-Do” from a “guru.” Originally, I cross-posted it here as well. That was at about 3 or 4 a.m this morning. Then I got up this morning, re-read it, and decided it didn’t really belong here. Not because it’s not relevant to this community (I think it is), but because it contains an affiliate link and some salty language. I can do that on my site, but thought after some consideration (and some coffee) that it didn’t belong here. I like writing here occasionally, and so I decided that it’s best to keep it clean and non-commercial. It’s the social contract we have here, so I don’t want to blur the lines. I didn’t come here to sell you anything but ideas.

If you’ve been reading the series, please feel free to visit HigherEdCareerCoach.Com today and read along. The post is about the value of engaging in communities to get where you are going in your life and career. And in part, it is a tribute to the great community I’ve found here as an occasional contributor to this blog, and as a participant in #sachat on Twitter.

For me, engaging with this unique community of professionals has broadened my perspectives, challenged me, inspired me, and encouraged me. I feel that as I get where I am going in my career, I’ve got a great group of colleagues not just cheering me on from the sidelines, but helping me run the plays, go long and head for the end zone.

Yesterday, I learned (quite by accident) that somehow, Higher Ed Career Coach got ranked #49 on the Technorati top blogs for small business. It wasn’t something I was even thinking about, but it’s a nice validation that something is going right. And I give credit to the awesome people and communities I’ve been a part of, especially this one.

How do you tell a “who-do” from a “guru?’ Look around you, read this blog, and participate in #sachat and all the other hashtag chats that have been spawned by this community’s synergy, and I think you’ll get the idea.

I have seen the “guru” and he is us.

In the words of the Hopi Elders: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Social media as a job search tool? Sure I’d heard about it but didn’t really put much faith into it beyond employer/employee fact checking and social background research.  By the time we had a position moving through our HR process in January I’d been contributing to studentbranding.com for a several months so I knew the networking expectations for both employers and candidates in the non-higher education arena.  As such, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose by sharing news of our process on twitter.

While I had been engaged in the #sachat community not much came of this tweet (note no #sachat hashtag) until we progressed as a community into discussions on job searches, of course triggered by Ed Cabellon.  Here is a sequence of tweets than ensued over the course of sixteen minutes.

As promised, when our position was finally approved right before #NASPA10 I sent a tweet sharing the news and our process from that point forward.  I didn’t have a live link yet so several people requested the job description as a result of these tweets:

Several members of the #sachat and twitter community requested a job description after these tweets.  Anyone who expressed interest in the position or had asked questions about the job, university and location via twitter was on the radar for us.  As we progressed through the search, all search committee members, including me, unfollowed all of the twitter candidates to maintain the integrity of our process.  Communication with candidates became more formal and traditional – email and phone – but by that point the networking had reaped its rewards.

Twitter can change the search process

While unexpected, twitter and the #sachat community fundamentally changed the search process by decreasing the size of an already small profession.  Certainly candidates still had to successfully navigate the gauntlet of our search process but our knowledge of them through social media outlets was very informative.

As an employer our engagement on twitter, whether individually or through our office account, helped us put information in the public domain that we wanted to share about the future direction of our office and our work environment.  Knowing that I was being followed by several candidates didn’t change how I interacted on twitter but it did reassure me that when we got to the point of fit questions that these candidates were probably better informed about us than those who were not accessing our information.

As a candidate you need to think through how you use twitter and what degree of access you want to provide.  It can be hugely beneficial for employers to triangulate your professional perspective and network connections.  On the other hand it can also be detrimental, particularly related to candidate authenticity and consistency in different settings if your interviews and application materials don’t align well with your presence in social media.

Social media expertise will be a required job criteria for all future searches

Our job description listed social media expertise as a preferred requirement.  It became a more prominent factor in our search every step of the way as our discussions to balance expertise and needs within our office became more focused.  In our next search social media engagement will be a required component.

In response to:

You may be asking:

Based on our candidate pool and how they identified their skill set as it related to our job description I would disagree that most people in gen-y have them in some form.  Facebook doesn’t cut it anymore.  That is now below the minimum – fan pages, connections, etc. Different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff. We were looking for someone who had the interest in and ability to give us traction in areas where we knew we needed to be engaged but were spinning our wheels – Facebook a bit, twitter, and blogs. (Again social media served as only two of thirteen criteria in our search process.)  In particular, we were looking for a solid knowledge base of how to use twitter and, ideally, high quality engagement in the student affairs community and #sachat in particular.

Very few candidates provided social media information on their resume or in their cover letter (the best approach for me – hyperlinked to your profile in a PDF resume).  Even some of the candidates we knew were on twitter didn’t identify that knowledge in their application materials.  If you are engaged in the #sachat community your knowledge base sets you apart from the general student affairs community and you need to market that knowledge.  Again, different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff but why make the hunt for that information difficult and allow employers to make inaccurate assumptions about your skill set?

In January I never would have guessed the impact social media would have on our search process.  I’m a believer now though.  Without getting into further details of our search I’d be glad to discuss your process as it relates to my perspective on social media and the role it can play in a successful search process for you.

What do you think?  Make it a good day.

Mike Severy is the Director of Student Involvement and Leadership at UNC Pembroke.  You can connect with Mike via Twitter.

Thanks to everyone who participated in today’s #SAchat focusing on Professional Staff Development Strategies.  Each week, we continue to grow our numbers and today’s chats produced 936 comments from 87 student affairs professionals,  graduate students and undergraduates interested in the Student Affairs field!

In case you missed it, below is a quick recap. If you haven’t yet participated in an #sachat, learn more here.

Full Transcripts
DAYTIME:
View as webpage
Download as PDF

EVENING:
View as webpage
Download as PDF

Today’s Top Contributors

@ARL275
@edcabellon
@debrasanborn
@tomkrieglstein
@jmayojr
@cindykane
@princeje
@pereirap80
@MikeBreitner
@AndreaHart

Here’s to another successful #sachat! How do you like the new additional daytime chat? 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 we next week, (if you haven’t already done so) please make sure to join our growing Facebook Page, currently over 1,400 and adding new #studentaffairs friends every day!  Thanks for your continued support!

OK, I'll admit it: it was better than I thought it would be!  The goal of organizing my own professional conference was built up in my head for the last 10 years, but living it last weekend far exceeded all that I had imagined (and there are few things in my life that have lived up to the picture that I had painted in my own head!)

Sunday ended the best professional experience I have had so far, chairing a Regional Conference for the Association of College Unions International (ACUI).  It was the Region's 60th Anniversary as well, so there were added expectations to deliver a quality conference for our 225 delegates (including 32 International delegates from Ireland, the UK, and Qatar) that joined us at Eastern Connecticut State University.  As I spoke at the closing brunch on Sunday, I shared three things that I learned through my experience:

1.  See Obstacles As Opportunities
As we began the planning process back in February, our world was in the midst of an economic meltdown.  There was a sense of uncertainty, doubt, and fear that very few people could come to our conference.  This was further fueled by the other ACUI regions experiencing downturns in conference registrations as well as sister Associations going through similar financial challenges.  However, we remained focused, came up with creative solutions, and used our obstacles to create opportunities.  We focused on our shared vision, made personal contacts, and were able to get a fantastic turnout.  How do you and your students turn obstacles into opportunities?

2. You're Only As Good As The People Around You
I was truly blessed to be surrounded by an amazing group of 22 professionals and 2 graduate students who came together and created a shared, exciting vision.  It was the largest Conference Planning Team ACUI Region 1 ever had, and some people questioned whether it would be effective.  With each meeting, they challenged the status-quo and thought BEYOND the box.  We complimented each other well, and it was their creativity, energy, and commitment that made the conference happen.  

3.  Success Favors the Prepared (and Opened) Mind
Steve Uzzell quoted Louis Pasteur during his opening keynote and it made me reflect on how our success didn't just come from preparation, but from opening our minds to new possibilities.  Without an open mind, preparation alone won't yield success.  For me, the best way to open my mind was to LET GO of control and let the them run with their ideas and support them anyway I could.  As someone who is a natural "do-er", this was my biggest challenge, but I learned so much more about myself when I just let go and trust their hard work.  As SA professionals, it is important to keep your mind opened to new possibilities and not get stuck doing the same thing over and over.

In the spirit of the holiday, I am extremely thankful for having had this opportunity.  I am a better professional today because of it and hope that you find this type of experience at least once in your Student Affairs career!

I’ve had my fair share of memberships to national
professional associations in my four+ years in student affairs, namely ACPA and
ACUHO-I.  I’ve had the privilege to
attend the national meeting of both organizations at least once.  Although I value what the national orgs
do for our profession (especially publications and job placement), I must confess that at the moment I’m getting more
professional development from my state association, WCPA.  Many of my colleagues belong to
UMR-ACUHO, and likely feel the same way.

Why I  No membership fee.  However, most
state/regional associations have membership fees that are significantly lower
than national associations.

Shared experience.  yes”>  We all have similar types of students, are working under the
same state budget (those of us in public institutions, anyway), and are
impacted by the same local events.

Small, powerful network of professionals.  The membership to my state association
is currently a little over 300. 
Although that pales in comparison to the thousands of people that belong
to national organizations, it’s a powerful group for me.  Should I try to get a job at any other
institution in this state, knowing just a few of those 300 may help me get my
foot in the door.

Involvement opportunities.  It took me approximately 30 seconds to
join the Professional Development Commission; all I had to do was walk into the
meeting.   Some of my
colleagues have been on the Executive Board since they were in grad school or
their first entry-level position. 
All it takes to become a leader in this association is to announce that
you’re willing.

Easy-to-attend conferences.  The conference is short (2 days) and
held in a central location each year. 
Also, it’s affordable. 
Registration was $150, which included 4 meals, and hotel rooms were well
under $100 per night.  The yearly
Professional Development Institute is always at a campus within driving
distance; this year it’s on my campus. 
That sure makes me likely to attend.

Positive, engaging membership.  This year I presented at the conference
for the first time, and I met a number of grad students and professionals eager
to talk about my area of interest. 
They provided lots of positive feedback, and ideas I could bring back to
my campus.

Are you a member of a state/regional association?  What types of experiences have you had?  How has it compared to your experience
with national associations?