A Small Sign of a Big Legacy

On Saturday, I visited the place I went to college, Gonzaga University, for somewhat a final time in advance of my move to Los Angeles this August. Whenever I'm in/around Spokane, I love to drop by the campus, visit the bookstore, walk around to see what has changed and what has stayed the same, and reminisce about the "good old days." I graduated about seven years ago, so there definitely has been a lot of change over the years. Yet it still feels so familiar, trapped in time, where it can be 2004 again...

When I dropped by the residence hall where I lived my first two years, though, I was caught by a very touching surprise--through the front window, you could see the window of the RD's room right inside the hall entrance. And on that window, somewhat obscured by the glass and the fact the hall was dark, was a placard that I instantly recognized--a Safe Space placard.

Now, when I lived in this hall (2000-2002), I was just barely coming out. My first year I was able to come out to my friends, roommate, even RA, but I was still fairly cautious during my years in the hall. In fact, I had even heard a rumor my second year that someone in the hall knew there was a gay guy living there, and if he ever found out, he'd beat him up. So while I wasn't terribly "closeted" as you might say, I also felt a need to be on my guard to make sure I stayed safe while I lived there. My roommate was phenomenal, and I was a member of the gay-straight alliance on campus. I had a support network, but I also knew the reality of what life is like for an openly gay person in the world.

Now fast-forward to 2005. I'm a year into my position as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Gonzaga building up a brand-new LGBT Resource Center we successfully proposed just before I graduated. I got an email from a newer Philosophy faculty member to find out if we had a program like a Safe Space program, and how she could participate. Honestly, we did not. We wanted one when I was a student, but we never thought we could sway faculty and staff to participate in a training put together by us students. So she and I met several times, and I utilized the awesome network within the Consortium of LGBTQ Higher Education Resource Professionals, and we crafted a Safe Space program. I found a very simple symbol to use for our placards (the sign you post after you complete the session), a rainbow squiggle, and passed it along to a graphic designer friend of mine to clean it up and make it look professional. We were able to run the Safe Space program the summer just before I took off for graduate school, facilitating it for much of our Student Life staff. My faculty instigator continues to stay in touch and keep me informed on how the program has developed. She reassures me it has grown by leaps and bounds, becoming extremely successful and popular on campus.

But to see my old residence hall, where I was struggling with my own identity, and to imagine what it may have been like for a college student like me to see a Safe Space placard IN MY LIVING SPACE, I started to get a little choked up inside. It was a fantastic reminder of the role we all play in empowering our students to identify a need, advocate for a cause, and/or make a difference in their campus. My work led me toward an interest in the study of higher education, and the self-efficacy I developed from being a student leader has pushed me to seek more for myself and my accomplishments in life. And to think how quickly that could change for a student who may feel unwelcome or unsafe in their own campus living environment. Above all, nothing can be more meaningful for someone to realize that they left a positive legacy, no matter how small. It reminds me of our constantly repeated adage, "Leave a place better than you found it."

While it was great to see the campus again before I took off for my doctorate, what will leave the greatest impression on me--and continue to push me to seek more, to DEMAND (to use my one word for 2011) more from myself--is seeing that small sign of where I made a difference in the world, and to realize that there's still so much more to come.

Bryce
Follow me on Twitter: @BryceEHughes

What I've Learned from (Half-) Marathon Training So Far...

When you are training for a long-distance race, like my upcoming half-marathon, you find yourself with lots of time to think and reflect, especially upon the training process itself. Every other Saturday I ramp up my training and push myself to complete a progressively longer "long run" as Race Day approaches. This means I also get progressively longer periods of time to reflect as I run, typically thinking long and hard about the task at hand. And, first running 4 miles, and then 5 this past Saturday, I got to thinking about what I've been learning throughout this process--and how that might apply to other areas of my life.

First, I found I'm learning quite about persistence (or maybe it's tenacity?). On the mornings that I'm simply trying to put in 30 minutes of running, I've begun to look less and less forward to the tedium of running that same little bit as I just want it done, like a routine exercise. On the mornings that I'm pushing myself to do a longer run, I realize that the farther the distance I set out to complete, the much longer the time I spend in the activity of running. At a rate of 1 mile per 10 minutes, progressively pushing myself toward 13.1 miles means some days I will be running for longer than an hour--quite a bit of time for me to be engaged solely in one activity with ample time to daydream, and to think about how long it has been since I started. The real task in completing long distance is the mental task of not letting your psychology overtake your desire to complete your goal, and so I continually push myself to focus my thoughts toward keeping going, and not toward how much I'd like to be finished. I can see this sometimes with other tedious and routine tasks in my life--at work, at home (chores!), in my community involvement--and that a great deal of learning to persist toward one's goals involves learning how to love the journey--or at least of keeping your sight focused on the goal and continually committing yourself to getting there.

The most difficult aspect of my training regimen is the part where I get up, get dressed, and get out the door. I used to run in the evenings, but I've noticed that it's not as effective for me (mentally in particular) to try to train after a full day of work (and commuting). I have much better energy in the morning to complete a successful run, I feel much better throughout the day having run first thing in the morning, and I sleep a little better when I don't run as close to the end of the day. But that moment that my alarm goes off is a point in the day many of us dread--I'm not feeling the external pressure to leap out of bed to rush out the door to work, it's all an internal motivation to get out of bed as early as I do to ensure I get my run in before I start my day. But once I've pushed myself to get up, get dressed, and start my warm up walk, all of a sudden I'm raring to go. Getting started--taking that first step toward reaching a goal can be the most challenging aspect of the entire process--my life has been successful to this point; maybe it's not so bad if I don't achieve this one thing. But once you take that small first step--and for me, five minutes of walking to warm up for my run is a fantastic first step that I've learned gets me going--all of a sudden your major mental blocks start to clear and you're ready to continue your progress toward your goal. (This works with house-cleaning too; once you've accomplished one cleaning task you're ready to start another. It's weird.) And once you've overcome that one hurdle--in my case, finishing another successful 30 minute maintenance run--you feel ready to attack another. (Granted, in race training, it makes no sense to immediately start another 30 minute run. But for housecleaning, once you've loaded the dishwasher, wouldn't it feel great to wipe down the counters?) The biggest mental block in accomplishing something is at the start--but once you discipline yourself to start, clearing a small hurdle can motivate you to complete the major task at hand.

A well-laid plan toward achieving some goal can make that goal seem far more attainable. Sometimes we set goals for ourselves in areas we are already familiar, so we alter the path we used to reach a previous goal to fit our new plans. But more often than not, setting a goal means achieving something new, and in my case, the furthest I've ever run in my life was 3 miles on a track. When my fiancée approached me about setting a goal of running a marathon, I needed a) the confidence that I could realistically reach this goal in my life and b) some advice on the best way to prepare. Reading works very well for me, so immediately I went to a book store and picked up a copy of Marathoning for Mortals, on the bookstore staff member's recommendation. While I was reading, I focused on building up my running endurance (slowly) and took mental notes on items to remember when it came time to train for distance. After not too long I sat down and mapped out a training plan, and started tracking my progress. Often, when I'm not feeling motivated to run, all I have to do is convince myself to "make this week a good training week," and sure enough, come Saturday, it has been. Having a plan, breaking down larger goals into smaller parts, and keeping the deadline in sight are all crucial components of the goal-setting process. The other piece of advice from the book was to realize that one cannot expect a training plan to remain set in stone; as Stacy Oliver recently posted, life happens, and your plan will have to respond. One thing the book assured me--even if you have to skip one day, it will not throw off your overall goal, just get back on the schedule as soon as you can. And no single template fits all--you have to determine, to experiment, and see what type of plan will work for you to be successful.

I think the most significant thing I've learned (so far) from my half-marathon training is how I can push myself to do more than I ever thought I could. Perhaps I'm only now successfully training for the race because of other successes throughout my life, but I'm finding the little I push myself further every other Saturday to go farther the more 13.1 miles is feeling like an attainable distance for me. After I completed my 4 mile run a few weeks ago, I had the realization that 4 miles was officially the longest distance I've ever run at once in my entire life. I was very proud of what I accomplished, and started to look toward my next long run of 5 miles as a way of breaking my personal best. Sure enough, days before my 5-mile run I started to get anxious about completing that distance. "Well, I knew I could run 3 miles, so 4 was probably in reach, but I'm worried 5 might be beyond what I can accomplish." But I got up on that Saturday, got ready, and started my warm-up walk. There was a point in the middle of the run that I started to realize just how much further I was pushing myself, and with long-distance running it really means a much longer run duration; my training materials emphasized maintaining a pace where you don't tire yourself out. But as I persisted, overcame the obstacles of a longer run duration and a few hills, all of a sudden I rounded the corner toward the last few blocks, and realized that I had done it. Now 5 miles is now officially the longest I've ever run in my life, and with the experience of advancing from 4 to 5 miles behind me, I feel far more confident in being able to reach my next distance goal (which I believe is 6, close to half the distance I will eventually be racing).

One of the main reasons I've been thinking about all of this is a different upcoming transition in my life that will involve reaching a goal that very few people in the world ever will--starting my PhD program. For the most part, thinking about my doctorate has me extremely excited. This was within my plan from the beginning, and it feels great to be taking a next step in my professional and educational journey. And attending our commencement this year, looking at photos from other commencements, and Googling what the UC doctoral robes will look like have me daydreaming of what it will feel like to be at the end. But in the meantime, I begin thinking about all the work ahead, the classes, the research, the dissertation, the mental shift in how I approach my work, and it starts to feel a bit overwhelming. Starting the application process was a major first step--I'm sure many of you who have gone through the application process, whether for your Master's or your doctorate, feel the same way (asking for recommendations and writing a personal statement can take some energy!)--but now I've made a commitment to do this work, and at the doctoral level I set a great deal of my timetable for completion. As I work toward this half-marathon, a distance I don't think I ever imagined myself running, and possibly a marathon one day, I'm realizing that the self-efficacy I'm building in reaching these goals may help me persist through and complete my doctorate, on my time table, pushed by my own self-motivation.

How do you prepare for the half-marathons and marathons in your life? What sort of goal setting advice would you give others? How do you motivate yourself to achieve?

Bryce

Student Affairs in Multicultural Affairs

Back in April, Vijay Pendakur, Director of the Office of Multicultural Student Success at DePaul University, posed a few questions on his blog regarding the link between working in multicultural student affairs and student affairs professional preparation Master's programs. As a graduate of a student affairs preparation program (SDA '08, Seattle University) working in multicultural student affairs (Program Support Supervisor for Commencement Achievement Program in the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at Green River Community College), these questions caused me to reflect on my experience. How would I answer these questions? What kind of advice would I give current graduate students hoping to work in diversity and multicultural affairs after graduation?

(Vijay's words are italicized; my responses are not.)

1. How many masters programs in higher education, student development, or educational leadership offer one or more courses to prepare students to work in Multicultural Student Affairs? To be more specific, how many masters programs effectively teach graduate students about the key issues, theories, and practices that inform successful work in a Multicultural Affairs department? A best practice would be programs that interweave this knowledge throughout their core curriculum, rather than compartmentalizing this set of issues into one course. Have any of you attended a program that does this well? Let us know!

To begin, I want to clarify how I view the role of a Student Affairs or Higher Education Master's program in the professional preparation of student affairs practitioners. I do not believe that our Master's programs are specifically and exclusively designed to be a credential for working in student affairs. Otherwise, we may as well offer them as smaller certification programs instead. So to say that any would offer courses specifically designed to train students for work in multicultural student affairs would mean that we ought to provide a variety of courses that focus on the functions of student affairs and lead us back to whether our Master's programs should not simply be offered as credentialing programs and not full-fledged Master's degrees.

I also think it begs the question about how permeable the boundaries between student affairs functional areas should or should not be--how hard should it be for a professional wishing to work in a different functional area to break into that functional area? I think there are specific skills and content domains that are exclusive to each functional area, but I don't think our programs should delineate themselves into molding every student into one area or another (internships, assistantships, and practicums do allow students to specialize).

So I definitely agree with the latter point that a best practice would be a program that interweaves this information throughout. And a start would be a theory class that makes sure racial, sexual orientation, gender, and other identity development is a required theory to learn for successful course completion. Another would be a program that actively fosters the development of cultural competence. Many professionals successfully run diversity and multicultural affairs offices without student affairs degrees, so I wouldn't say that it should be a requirement, but a student affairs professional has to know there is a specific content domain for working in diversity and multicultural affairs and that person should be willing to be open to learning as much about diversity and equity as possible. (I would hope most people working in student affairs already are anyways.)

2. How many masters programs in higher education have structured graduate assistantships or practicums in their universities’ Multicultural Affairs or diversity-focused offices? Without this type of practical experience, it will be difficult for newly minted student affairs grads to compete for coordinator positions in Multicultural Affairs departments.

To me, assistantships, practicums, and internships are the best way for prospective multicultural student affairs professionals to learn about the relevant practices and issues facing these programs in higher education. As I mentioned earlier, learning key theories and developing important cultural competence skills, knowledge, and attitudes is within the domain of the classroom, but understanding how to do the work of a multicultural student affairs professional is the work of the apprentice. I took required classes in Social Justice and Multiculturalism for my Master's degree, but I learned a lot more about the practical side of working in multicultural student affairs by interning in Seattle University's Office of Multicultural Affairs.

To me, the real treasure of completing a student affairs preparation program is the opportunity to link theory to practice through having side-by-side experiences exploring college student development (and college administration) from an academic (theoretical) standpoint and from a practical standpoint. We are not simply learning about how to work with college students and how to work in a higher education environment--we are also learning to change the way we think about issues and the way we learn about the world around us. We develop new research skills for taking in and evaluating information, and we develop new perspectives for understanding systems from macro- and micro-levels. As I mentioned earlier, we call it a Master's program for a reason, but future professionals do need to understand what these concepts look like in practice.

It reminds me of a point my classmates would reiterate whenever asked about what topic would they want to learn more in the program. They would state time and again that they did not learn enough about budgeting. Yet I had this conversation with mentors of mine who had experience working as Directors and Vice Presidents in student affairs to see their perspective on the matter, and they always told me it was something they learned from experience, and it was very little different than managing a checkbook. There are just some topics--like managing a program budget--that would not be addressed well in the classroom but could be covered well through a practical experience. (On this note, one of my mentors mentioned learning how to budget is more about establishing priorities than it is managing money, which makes me think it would be a great topic for a Leadership and Governance class...)

3. What conferences should graduate students and new professionals attend to learn more about the core competencies and best practices in Multicultural Student Affairs? I hear from my colleagues in residential education that going to NASPA and ACPA is great for broad professional development, but that they get the most useful material for their work in residential education from the ACUHO conference (or their local CUHO conference). I often hear staff in orientation offices saying that they get enormous value out of NODA, similar to our conduct officers’ remarks about ASCA. This spring, I am going to the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) for the first time. Is NCORE the conference to advance the core competencies, best practices and skill-sets of our field? I’ll definitely let you know after I get back from the conference this June!

I've wondered the same thing myself--where are our functional area professional organizations? In Washington State, under our State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, we have a Student Services Commission that oversees a number of smaller councils. One of those is the Multicultural Student Services Directors' Council, made up of all the directors of diversity offices at our 34 community and technical colleges. Participation isn't limited to directors though, and there is an annual Students of Color Conference hosted by the council in which many folks from around the state participate. Each of the national student affairs organizations, NASPA and ACPA, have Standing Committees/Knowledge Communities for multicultural student affairs. (My favorite so far is ACPA's Commission for Social Justice Educators as they have a very active listserv that shares invaluable resources.) Yet there are no specially designated conferences or professional organizations for multicultural student affairs professionals (that I can identify). Vijay may be right on the role of NCORE in meeting this need--I've heard the same assertion myself--maybe he will have more insight posted to his blog on this matter as NCORE wrapped up this past weekend.

As someone who is interested in the education, training, and formation of student affairs practitioners (and soon to be Higher Education professor/researcher), I love discussing this topic with my colleagues. What are your thoughts on the matter? How did your Master's program play a part in your professional formation? What role should Master's preparation programs play in the formation of future student affairs practitioners? Feel free to leave your thoughts

Bryce
Follow me on Twitter: @BryceEHughes