Thanks to everyone who participated in our #SAchat focused on Setting Boundaries with Students. This week’s topic produced 560 tweets from several student affairs professionals, graduate students and undergraduates interested or working in the Student Affairs field!

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One night while I was trying to unwind and relax with my friends, I decided to repeat one of my favorite phrases from the movie Babe. “Baa-ram-ewe, sheep be true” needless to say laughs ensued and other funny movie quotes were thrown out there. One of them being “E.T phone home” in the classic E.T voice. This comedic exchange between my friends and I got me thinking, the E.T quote in particular got me thinking – If I were E.T how would I have phoned home?

I am the son of two deaf parents. Calling, or as E.T would say phoning, home has never really been an option for me. Thanks to technology there are wonderful ways that I can stay in communication with my family (Skype is a wonderful way for anyone to communicate with home). Yet this idea had me going in two directions, 1) our word choices are extremely powerful when relaying messages and 2) there are so many invisible aspects that may make up our students that we would never know unless they told us. How then do we serve our students? How do we serve a student population we have never worked with, who we have never learned a theory for, or don’t even really know are on our campus?

For me coming to college was eye-opening, it was the first time in my life that not everyone in town knew me as, “Ryan, he has deaf parents”, it was something that I had to disclose to people. Of course I shared, it’s a part of who I am, a part of what makes me, me! Now that I am in a Higher Ed/Student Affairs masters program and learning about theories for various student populations, I reflect back to my own development and am curious how much of my background affected my development. I had a great experience in my undergrad, and my mentors, advisors, and supervisors were able to help me exactly the way I needed, but I’m just one person – I wonder if there are other students like me and if we as a collective population have some special needs. This has had me thinking lately, what can we do to help those hidden populations of students? How can we bring awareness to them?

Our field places a huge focus on word choice and being sensitive to those words that may be offensive to populations. We have created buzzwords. Realizing that when I heard “E.T phone home” I immediately thought of the fact that I could not “phone” home in the traditional sense. I of course laughed that this is where my thoughts went because it is not a sad situation nor is it a difficult situation for me. Yet it highlighted the power of words. One simple word can influence thoughts, emotions, and actions. How then can we educate our students on the power of words? My opinion and philosophy is to correct them when appropriate, kindly explain to them how those words are impactful, and to be proactive and have the conversations that lead students to realize that what they say carries power. How do you educate your students on the power of words?

Ryan Bye is a graduate hall coordinator at Texas Tech University.

As a Student Affairs professional, we’re trained to develop a rapport with our students, to go beyond student ID numbers, case files, and isolated conversations to engage more meaningfully with the students.  We’re encouraged to look at students as individuals, rather than a mere part of the greater student body so that we can best meet their needs.  Many of us would likely admit to being innately altruistic individuals who are naturally drawn to a position that enables us to help students reach holistic measurements of development and success in the world of higher education.   But with all of the advocacy for developing all these connections with our students, are we opening ourselves up to taking on their hurts?

When you are working closely with students as a Residence Life professional, you’re likely to encounter student accounts of trouble at home, financial struggles, academic pressures, etc.  In fact, you hear about some particular issues so often that you run the risk of becoming desensitized and apathetic, which could render you ineffective in appropriately addressing these issues with students.  But if you are a naturally sensitive individual or sensitive to particular issues, it’s likely that there are some issues that really tug at your heart strings, which can be equally problematic. Because it could otherwise be an entire article in itself, I will assume that with your training and experiences you’re able to address these difficult issues professionally and effectively in the moment.  But once you’ve handled the situation appropriately with the level of concern and engagement demanded of you by the nature of the position, do you then carry those burdens with you?

My heart aches for the students who have to leave the halls and their friends because they can’t afford to pay for their housing anymore.  My blood boils for students who are faced with intolerance on the parts of other students, staff, or faculty.  And my mind is completely boggled by the issues of violence, hatred, and assault that face our students.  While I understand my professional role to intervene where there are violations of policy and to offer a safe place for students to go, I find these challenges to be a bigger issue at the end of the day when it’s time to go home, when I’m no longer bound by the guideline’s of professionalism.

So my question is: After a day, week, month, or semester of actively participating with students and assisting them with their challenges in an engaged way, how do you disengage and leave those burdens, hurts, and headaches behind without becoming callous in your relationships with the students?

Devon Purington is a Residence Life Coordinator at Penn State University-Hazleton.

The word “legacy” is thrown around often in student affairs and higher education. In my first professional position in 2004, I was asked during a performance appraisal what I wanted my legacy to be. I was unable to answer the question, but also unable to clearly explain why I couldn’t answer. The idea that I would leave a legacy, that something of my work might continue on, wasn’t entirely foreign to me. In 2008, as I prepared to depart that same institution, the university’s president readied for retirement. Throughout the academic year after he announced his retirement, people often spoke of what his legacy would be. On more than one occasion, he was asked to define his legacy. He articulated what I was unable to during my performance appraisal. He expressed that it was not up to us to determine our own legacies; that it would be most accurately defined by the people who followed us. He discussed the contributions that he felt were most meaningful to his own personal growth, but clarified that those same lessons may be meaningless to someone else in the university community.


So many of us enter this field believing we are going to change the lives of every student. If we are true to ourselves as professionals, we eventually come to understand that our students have the opportunity to change us as well. Amanda was the most exemplary student leader with whom I have had the opportunity to work and learn. Our social circles were concentric beginning in high school. We attended rival schools, both competed in forensic tournaments, and had mutual friends that kept us linked as we transitioned from high school to attending the same university. To list all of Amanda’s accomplishments and involvement would be a disservice to who she was as a person because, truly, she was so much more than her resume and co-curricular involvement. She understood leadership and engagement as an undergraduate student in ways many professionals will never achieve.

Shortly before the end of Fall Quarter of our first year of college, I ran into Amanda on the way home from class. It was the first time I’d seen her in weeks. We paused to catch up and I asked her about her quarter. She expressed her frustration with her experience, commenting on not feeling involved or engaged. She hadn’t found opportunities that suited what she had hoped to accomplish. She confided that she was considering transferring to another university.

Ultimately, Amanda chose not to transfer. Instead she sought experiences and opportunities that interested her. When they didn’t exist, she created them. She e-mailed the president of the university and invited him to share a meal in the dining hall with her and her roommates, explaining that if they were all going to be on campus together for four years, they should probably get to know each other. She sought leadership opportunities as a peer leadership consultant, within student government, and through a sorority on campus. Amanda defined her experience by paving her own path in college.

On May 3, 2003, Amanda was killed in a car accident in our hometown. Less than a month before she was going to speak at commencement as senior class president and receive her degree, she was gone. Over the next weeks, Amanda’s accomplishments and contributions were celebrated. A memorial service six days later reflected on all she had given to the university community, and also gave the university the opportunity to present her degree to her family. Two weeks later she was posthumously awarded the Outstanding Senior Leader Award at the Student Leadership Recognition Reception. Over and over again, I had the chance to hear stories from students and student affairs professionals about how Amanda changed their lives. Her legacy, it appeared, would not be in the design of the new student center for which she served on the committee or the structure of student government. Her legacy was giving back to the university and role modeling how one student can create a path that doesn’t yet exist if they simply want it to be their own.

How often do we fail our students by not supporting what they want to create, what they want to define? How often do we direct them to organizations that already exist or to established processes? How many opportunities do we miss to encourage them because we’re entangled in learning outcomes, assessment, and measurable goals? 

Amanda loved the movie Toy Story and often signed her e-mails, “To infinity and beyond…” Every time that message is unwittingly delivered to me through e-mail or in conversation, I smile thinking of her and how her legacy lives on in immeasurable ways. There is a leadership center in the new student center at our alma mater named for her. While many people naively consider that her legacy, I know that her legacy is bigger than that programming space.

It’s carried out daily in the work many of her friends now do as student affairs professionals. It’s a legacy that constantly pays forward — we encourage students to create opportunities that involve other students, who are then inspired to create their own experiences and opportunities or, better, become student affairs professionals themselves. To infinity and beyond indeed — there is no way of knowing how many people are touched by a legacy or how long it will continue to live on. 

May 3 is a hard day for me annually, particularly as the years go on and those of us who formed those concentric social circles are farther flung across the country. It is a day that I celebrate Amanda’s legacy by looking for opportunities to help students venture from a beaten path onto one that makes most sense for who they are and what they want to give back. It’s a day that I reflect as a student affairs professional on what it means to do this work. It’s a day that I remind myself that defining a legacy is related less to who I am and more to whom I help others become. 


When Lake Superior State University in Michigan announced earlier this year that the phrase “teachable moments” should be banned, it felt like an affront to the student affairs community. It’s a phrase we’ve embraced and made our own to describe the often difficult conversations that we have with students. Anyone can have a moment of educating someone else about facts, or as one submitter to LSSU wrote, “potty-training to politics.” What truly makes a moment teachable is the opportunity not only to educate, but also to be real in the eyes of our students. I think those who suggested the phrase be banned missed the benefit of the human side of teachable moments.

In an amazing feat of acrobatics, two of my student staff members managed to go simultaneously above my head and behind my back last week. When I found out what was going on via a conversation with my supervisor, I was disappointed in the decisions that they made. They violated our staff expectations; they were not honest with me about how they were feeling in regard to a mistake that I made, and in earlier conversation with them, had taken ownership of. I spent much of that morning with my office door shut debating how I wanted to proceed. Playing out a variety of scenarios in my head, I knew that I would not be doing any of us a favor to pretend like the situation had not happened. Later that afternoon when I found both of the staff members in the Community Building, I invited them to talk with me in my office.

As they sat across my desk from me, I asked them about their decision-making processes and to reflect on why they chose the path they did instead of the one that was established for handling these situations. Initially, they backpedaled until I stopped them and presented the information I knew. They admitted their mistake and recognized where they had made poor decisions in their handling the situation. Realistically the conversation could have stopped there, but I took it a step farther.

I candidly admitted to both of them that they had hurt my feelings through their actions. I even used feeling words, which is a huge feat for someone who is more comfortable thinking and processing. I told them how it felt to be on the receiving end of the information, how it felt to disappoint them, how it felt to not be trusted by them to repair the situation. When I finished, they sat quietly looking at me, not reacting.

Before they left my office, I assured them that we would move forward together from here, that this a small bump on a long road — as students, as staff members, as people who are supervised, and –most importantly — as people. In the days that followed, I saw a difference in how these staff members treated me in and out of the office. Instead of just telling me to have a good weekend, they asked if I had weekend plans. When I delivered food for their program on Friday night, they helped carry it in and then thanked me for going to pick it up. I can’t say it’s all traceable to my moment of being human, but that moment certainly didn’t hurt.

Teachable moments are about much more than facts and corrective action; they’re about the opportunity to build a connection and learn together with our students. The phrase may be banned by LSSU, but it’s alive and well in my daily discourse.

With both the DAYTIME #sachat and EVENING #sachat in full swing yesterday, it’s safe to declare Thursday as #sachat day! The topic yesterday was Connecting with Students on Facebook, and once again we set new records for conversing and learning. The conversation produced 581 comments from 87 student affairs professionals!

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:
*There was a tech error with the EVENING transcript. We’re working on getting the transcript.

Last Night’s Top Contributers
@edcabellon
@cindykane
@reyjunco
@debrasanborn
@pereirap80
@thestacyface
@brockter
@lvanlysal
@gballingerjr
@ediemccracken

Here’s to another successful #sachat. See you all next week! In the meantime, make sure to join our Facebook Page.

I officially love Twitter.  Over the summer, I dove into the Twittersphere and have fully adopted it into my professional life.  Even though I've been fortunate to gain a small following on my @edcabellon Twitter account, I've really wanted to grow our Campus Center Twitter account as well.  I still believe that students are out there on Twitter, I just needed to find them.  Well last night, I did just that.

I signed onto my "@BSCCampusCenter" Twitter account, knowing that First Year students had moved in and many returning students were about to make their trek back to campus.  I went through "http://search.twitter.com" and typed in "BSC".  As the search completed, many of the results turned in the tweets about the "Hertha BSC" German Football team, but a few turned back some Bridgewater State College commentary.  One student's tweets though, stood out:

So I started following her on Twitter, read a few more lines of her Twitter feed, and then started reading her Blog that was linked from her Twitter bio.  She had a video blog post up and some very insightful, and well written blog posts.  Within about 15 minutes, she started following our @BSCCampusCenter account and then Tweeted:

Well, that got my attention   So I read more of her Twitter feed and noticed some BSC references, but nothing too out of the ordinary, so I decided to send her a Direct Message (DM), which is a private message through Twitter that only she would be able to see:

Thinking nothing of it, I went along and continued my search for more BSC students.  Within minutes though, I got a DM back, that just blew me away…..

At that moment, it dawned on me.  That simple act of connecting and communicating from a BSC office made her feel more a part of the community.  Then, in her Twitter feed, I noticed that she had tweeted to everyone:

I was beyond excited!  Twitter had given us the opportunity to connect in such a unique way.  We hadn't even met in person, yet she felt more engaged with the college.  Her view of BSC changed in that one Tweet, at least enough to accept my invitation to come in and meet me and our staff to further our conversation.  Her reply?

I will continue to use Twitter to connect with more students in this way and encourage you to do the same!  Share this story with your colleagues who still may be weary about using Twitter to connect with students, because it can work!

Best wishes on a great opening for you all!

Posted by Kevin Prentiss – Swift Kick

I’m sitting in a hallway at the NACA Northern Plains conference talking with Katie Mraz, who is student Activities Chair for Homecoming at Coe College, in Cedar Rapids, IA.

Katie was in our Advisor Technology Round Up Ed Session this morning and had strong feelings. She said she “Wouldn’t be comfortable with professors or advisors messaging her through Facebook” and then afterwards she said that, through the session conversation, she felt like she wanted to clarify.

The best thing about these conferences, the thing that technology will never replace, is the sit down conversation to really understand someone and their thoughts. Katie is a thinker and articulate. She’s one of the students that can really dig into an issue. She had reflected more on her first comment and wanted to dig in. I was excited to hear it.

I asked her if she would be willing to discuss the matter and let me blog about it, because this issue – whether staff belong on Facebook or not and how they should act – is a big discussion across the country. Any advice she could give would be invaluable. She agreed, pulled up a chair, and we took this picture:

To the discussion . . .

We started with her clarification:

“I’m uncomfortable with the social aspect [of Facebook] being breached with attempts at professional conversations. . . I don’t think Facebook should be used for formal messages. That’s not something I’m comfortable with . . . yet.”

The “yet” seemed to be an undercurrent of our conversation, Katie had this feeling that technological “progress” was inevitable. She kept qualifying her statements with “I might be the only one” or “maybe I’m old fashioned. . .” She had a sense of futility – that she was alone trying to hold the line against insurmountable odds.

I love the students who are willing to stand up for themselves.

Katie made clear distinctions between her advisors and professors. Professors were more clearly in Katie’s “business” category and she was more hesitant with them on Facebook. Like technological progress in general though, she was resigned with that as well:

“I get that professors are going to eventually use Facebook, it’s a tool they are going to use. I accept that, though I don’t know of any professors who are on it now.”

“If they care . . “

She was more open to advisors though. “It’s good for advisors to see who we interact with, it’s good for them to know what’s happening with me, if they care.”

I love the distinction she is making here and think it is critical. In her words:

“Advisors decide how much more they care to know about their students. If they get on Facebook, they will see more about students than they would get to know on a normal basis. Then they have to decide if they want to care about that extra or not.

The advisors that I’m connected to on Facebook are the cool ones. They are the ones I want to be friends with, they are the ones that care. “Cool” is defined by the ones that really want to get to know the students, who are here for the students.”

It’s the words “cool” and “care” that I think are so confusing for advisors. (Let’s start by saying it’s certainly NOT the “care” that lawyers use in liability fear-flag terms like “duty of care.” Katie does not want or need advisors to take responsibility for her.)

In the conversation, this is where the rich experience of sitting across from someone comes into play. When Katie is explaining “cool” and “care”, she softens up, it’s all in the eyebrows (So much connotative meaning is lost with fast paced tech communication.) She means sincere interest, empathy and understanding (opposed to judgment). She means, simply, friends.

“I compartmentalize my communication. I check e-mail first, then I check Facebook. my e-mail is professional, that’s where my advisor talks to me about the NACA presentation, partially because of attachments. Then when I get on Facebook I’m looking for whose birthday it is and what is happening this weekend.

I’m comfortable with professors or staff being on facebook, but I will not be on my most professional in communication with them. I will be “LOL”-ing . . I wouldn’t be comfortable IMing either – if their expectation was professional.”

Katie’s first concern is the relationship. Like most of us, she compartmentalizes her communication and strives to relate appropriately in a variety of contexts. This is an emotionally intelligent and efficient system.

She’s right, I think, to protect her own system by saying she’s not comfortable with professional relationships through Facebook. But she is NOT saying to professionals stay off of Facebook. She is saying cool is good. Cool means you care. If you care enough to be friends with me show up in Facebook and it’s up to you to handle yourself as a “friend”.

I know not every advisor wants to be a friend. I can just hear someone arguing the goal of education should not be to be “cool”.

Right. Be authoritarian and lame, then try to influence at the college level. Try to dodge “care” and insist on not learning anything new yourself. Good luck.

I’m going to hang out with Katie on Facebook. We have lots more teach each other.

I’m sitting in a hallway at the NACA Northern Plains conference talking with Katie Mraz, who is student Activities Chair for Homecoming at Coe College, in Cedar Rapids, IA.

Katie was in our Advisor Technology Round Up Ed Session this morning and had strong feelings.  She said she "Wouldn’t be comfortable with professors or advisors messaging her through Facebook" and then afterwards she said that, through the session conversation, she felt like she wanted to clarify.

The best thing about these conferences, the thing that technology will never replace, is the sit down conversation to really understand someone and their thoughts.  Katie is a thinker and articulate.  She’s one of the students that can really dig into an issue.  She had reflected more on her first comment and wanted to dig in.  I was excited to hear it.

I asked her if she would be willing to discuss the matter and let me blog about it, because this issue – whether staff belong on Facebook or not and how they should act – is a big discussion across the country. Any advice she could give would be invaluable.  She agreed, pulled up a chair, and we took this picture:

To the discussion . . .

We started with her clarification:

"I’m uncomfortable with the social aspect [of Facebook] being breached with attempts at professional conversations. . . I don’t think Facebook should be used for formal messages. That’s not something I’m comfortable with . . . yet."

The "yet" seemed to be an undercurrent of our conversation, Katie had this feeling that technological "progress" was inevitable. She kept qualifying her statements with "I might be the only one" or "maybe I’m old fashioned. . ."  She had a sense of futility – that she was alone trying to hold the line against insurmountable odds.

I love the students who are willing to stand up for themselves.

Katie made clear distinctions between her advisors and professors.  Professors were more clearly in Katie’s "business" category and she was more hesitant with them on Facebook.  Like technological progress in general though, she was resigned with that as well:

"I get that professors are going to eventually use Facebook, it’s a tool they are going to use.  I accept that, though I don’t know of any professors who are on it now."

"If they care . . "

She was more open to advisors though. "It’s good for advisors to see who we interact with, it’s good for them to know what’s happening with me, if they care."

I love the distinction she is making here and think it is critical.  In her words:

"Advisors decide how much more they care to know about their students.  If they get on Facebook, they will see more about students than they would get to know on a normal basis.  Then they have to decide if they want to care about that extra or not. 

The advisors that I’m connected to on Facebook are the cool ones.  They are the ones I want to be friends with, they are the ones that care.  "Cool" is defined by the ones that really want to get to know the students, who are here for the students."

It’s the words "cool" and "care" that I think are so confusing for advisors.  (Let’s start by saying it’s certainly NOT the "care" that lawyers use in liability fear-flag terms like "duty of care." Katie does not want or need advisors to take responsibility for her.)

In the conversation, this is where the rich experience of sitting across from someone comes into play. When Katie is explaining "cool" and "care", she softens up, it’s all in the eyebrows (So much connotative meaning is lost with fast paced tech communication.)  She means sincere interest, empathy and understanding (opposed to judgment).  She means, simply, friends.

"I compartmentalize my communication.  I check e-mail first, then I check Facebook.  my e-mail is professional, that’s where my advisor talks to me about the NACA presentation, partially because of attachments.  Then when I get on Facebook I’m looking for whose birthday it is and what is happening this weekend.

I’m comfortable with professors or staff being on facebook, but I will not be on my most professional in communication with them. I will be "LOL"-ing  . . I wouldn’t be comfortable IMing either – if their expectation was professional."

Katie’s first concern is the relationship.  Like most of us, she compartmentalizes her communication and strives to relate appropriately in a variety of contexts.  This is an emotionally intelligent and efficient system.

She’s right, I think, to protect her own system by saying she’s not comfortable with professional relationships through Facebook.  But she is NOT saying to professionals stay off of Facebook.  She is saying cool is good.  Cool means you care.  If you care enough to be friends with me show up in Facebook and it’s up to you to handle yourself as a "friend".

I know not every advisor wants to be a friend.  I can just hear someone arguing the goal of education should not be to be "cool".

Right.  Be authoritarian and lame, then try to influence at the college level.  Try to dodge "care" and insist on not learning anything new yourself.  Good luck.

I’m going to hang out with Katie on Facebook.  We have lots more teach each other.