University of Southern Maine

Learning, Adapting and Growing with Students

The evolution of my approach has come about because of three significant factors. The first, simply put, is getting smarter about the topic myself. Informed increasingly by research and practice, I adapted new ways of doing my work. It has aided evolution and growth in my approach. Most importantly, I made mistakes along the way and I learned from those mistakes.

The second, is through the introduction of new technologies into the work. New tools in how to communicate, support, connect, mentor and aid students in their success have come along at a rapid pace, especially during the last decade. These new technologies have evolved the ways in which I support students and their success in both wonderful and, at times, challenging ways.

Finally, the evolution of my approach has been aided by the changing demographics and needs of the students themselves. The students I serve today are in many ways different than the students I served when I started. That has necessitated that the ways in which I serve them evolves along the journey so that I can remain effective and efficient in supporting them.

When Timing Makes the Difference

Data itself is not the issue, as long as it’s good data. The challenge right now is, during a period of belt tightening for many institutions, how to in a cost-effective manner assess the data, identify students that are in need of intervention and support and implement a response that positively influences the student’s experience helping them either remain on track for success or get back on track?

Of the two responses, at this stage in my career, I am far more interested in the proactive approach of helping students “remain on track”, keeping them from falling too deep into a hole to get back out in an efficient way which can do harm to their self-efficacy, their GPA, their financial aid and ultimately their journey overall.

“We need to invest what we have more wisely— our time, our intellectual labor and our budget on behalf of the students we serve.”

That’s where technology comes into play in assisting us. Gathering real-time information, from the students themselves, about their experience and assisting institutions in prioritizing earlier intervention to prevent or reduce harm to success. Technologies like Edsights, EAB and others have created tools that can give us valuable data and information, help us in analyzing that information and giving us a stronger idea of where we can invest our limited resources, both human and financial, to help our students succeed.

From Competition to Collaboration

They need to be unified by a shared purpose and think of themselves as a single unit, with parts playing different roles. I tell my staff all the time, “we all serve the same students”. Our role and place within the division, within the institution, is not to compete for limited financial resources, but to invest what we have more wisely—our time, our intellectual labor, our budget on behalf of the students we serve and do the work for. And it becomes easier, smarter, more fun, when we can do it together, in partnership. Aim to make the process more fun for the folks doing the work, more effective for the students we do the work for and the connectedness of the experience overall comes together through shared purpose, communication, planning, support and fun. It’s a simplistic way of thinking about it but, honestly, it’s served me well at numerous institutions and with numerous students.

Building Inclusion through Listening and Presence

The most important lesson that I’ve learned is to remain humble in the approach and to listen. The work of building inclusive campus environments starts first with building a more knowledgeable and inclusive team, the one’s doing the building. This team is not simply made up of professionals and experts, but must also empower and involve the students, the alumni and our partners.

The second most important thing that I’ve learned is that to build inclusive campus environments we must leave our offices and spaces and go into the environment among our students. Observe. Listen. Learn. Nothing gets done doing this work from simply behind a desk, computer or smartphone.  We need to invest the time in showing up and we must educate ourselves, first, so we have the ability to analyze the environment through multiple lenses, especially those that are not our own.

Preparing for a More Uncertain Student Affairs Landscape

A few challenges have been rolling around in my head lately:

1. The widening preparedness gap of our students coming out of high school is an issue that we need to figure out how to address?

2. I think a lot about the talent pipeline for the field of Student Affairs, how do we strengthen and maintain that pipeline, investing in our future?

3. Getting smarter about our ROI. We need to understand that what we invest and how we invest it is giving us a payoff that is worth our investment and if it’s not, we need to stop investing and we need to stop considering “ROI” only in terms of finances, both what we invest and what the return is.

4. Finally, navigating policy shifts. At times we are working on an eroding beach as the sand is shifting beneath us. We need to find ways to stabilize and create nimbleness in our work for when we need to adjust or shift to stay on more steady ground.

I think we strengthen our outcomes by building and maintaining a culture that is not afraid of change, that is not comfortable with stagnation, that is purposeful in decision making, that learns from shortcomings and that strives to do one percent better, today, than we did yesterday. That looks a lot of different ways depending on the campus, institution, students and needs; but the mindset is universal. We need to stop doing more work with less and identify things that we put down when we pick up something else. Finally, we need to remain student-centered. If it doesn’t come back to benefiting our student’s and their success, don’t prioritize it.