What I'm reading right now: Mentor, by Laurent Daloz

I feel blessed that my Student Affairs position (and functional area) allows me the opportunity to maintain longer term relationships with the students I serve on campus. Compared to my colleagues at the community college where I work, this is a fairly rare opportunity as our student affairs are oriented more around Student Services, so many of them handle long lines of students requesting services, rather than providing prolonged support or mentorship.

I am currently reading Mentor by Laurent Daloz, and though I am only into the second chapter, the book has already given me enough to think about that I've been inspired to write. Lisa Endersby and I have been involved in a long-term conversation regarding mentorship within student affairs, including planning a presentation for the upcoming 2012 NASPA conference. As a greater proportion of the students we serve in the community college are adult learners (compared to my four-year counterparts), I'm finding the book extremely relevant and descriptive of how I conceptualize my work. Granted, I will only be in this position for another month and a half, but the book was purchased for departmental usage and my reading validates it as a valuable resource for our work.

Daloz is using mentorship as a framework for working with adult learners in reaching their educational goals. In particular, he uses the metaphor of journey to describe the educational path of adult learners, and he describes mentors as the guides on that journey. I've had many conversations about the role of mentors in the lives of underrepresented and underserved students as these mentors can provide the type of guidance traditional students receive before and through their college experiences, but I haven't given as much thought to this role in the journeys of adult learners. In particular, I love how he describes the role of a mentor as engendering trust, issuing a challenge, providing encouragement, and offering a vision (p. 31). (Anyone notice challenge and support there?) These themes are of particular importance to adult learners as it respects the life experience they bring to college but recognizes that they too are students who want to learn and are looking to maximize their time "out of life"--not immediately focused on family or work--that they are on campus, in college. My experience working with adult learners is that they simply need reassurance to rebuild their confidence as students--that they are on the right track--rather than the more intensive needs that traditional students bring as emerging adults trying to figure out what will happen next for them in life. Often when adult learners return to school they fear they no longer have the same energy/ability/capacity to be students again, and simply need to be shown that yes, they do, and moreso, their life experiences can provide even better preparation than those moving from one school to the next.

Daloz also does a fantastic job balancing the content of his book--application of developmental theory, framework for mentorship--with stories from his own experience as an educator. As I continue to read I may come across more blog inspiration, but for now all I can say is that I highly recommend this book. Check it out from the library, or convince your director to add it to your departmental resources!

Bryce
Follow me on Twitter: @BryceEHughes

Reference: Daloz, L.A. (1999). Mentor: Guiding the journey of adult learners (2nd Ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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

Faith in Student Affairs

One topic that is always of interest to me is religion. As someone who attended Catholic schools from 7th grade through my Master's program, and as a practicing Catholic, religion and spirituality play an important role in my life. I was thrilled to see the Blog Prompt Monday post on Student Affairs Women Talk Tech about talking about religion with students. It's a very tricky issue, particularly for those of us working/attending public schools. But it's a topic with important student development implications.

"Do you discuss religion and/or spirituality at your institution or ignore it? How do you think this affects students?" asked Kristen Abell.

Now, to clarify, I'm not talking about the type of religious discussions that we would normally characterize as proselytization. There are religious people for whom discussing religion is about converting their peers to follow their faith tradition, and (I suppose) there is a time and place and sphere for those conversations. The public sphere is not one of those. To me, the question is not asking people to promote their faith to potentially interested followers looking for something greater to believe in. To me, the question asks, how do we promote conversations with students--and with each other--where we share our values, our beliefs, and better understand what's important to each of us? How do we foster conversations about that which is greater--if we even believe there is something greater--and how that impacts our experiences of education, development, and life in general?

For me, continuing to practice Catholicism is no small thing. There was a point in my life when I could have easily abandoned my faith out of despair. When I was a freshman, I had a deep crisis of faith that coincided with my coming out process and openly acknowledging that I was (am) gay. I feared that as a gay man, I had no place in the Catholic Church--the Church would never accept all of who I am, and, in particular, the Church would never bless the loving relationship I knew I would eventually enter into. Yet in the years leading up to entering college, I had developed a deep appreciation for--devotion to--my religious beliefs, especially the Church's profound traditions, and it hurt to imagine I would have to separate myself from that love.

There are many things I never loved about the Catholic Church (keeping women out of the priesthood, too loud on abortion and not loud enough on human rights, dark history around sexual abuse), but I also saw the tremendous life-giving potential associated with religious faith and devotion. Luckily, due to my desire to attend a Catholic university, I landed at a Jesuit institution--Gonzaga University--where I met many Catholics, including Jesuit priests, who helped me negotiate these two seemingly disparate identities to engage the creative tension between them and reap the spiritual benefits thereafter. I always blame the Jesuits for keeping me in the Catholic Church, and I think I became even more devout after my college experience.

None of this would have been possible if it weren't for their willingness to discuss spiritual matters with students. And one could argue that it is somewhat expected both of a Catholic university and of spiritual leaders in the college setting to discuss matters of religion and spirituality with students. But I know many students who do not have the same access to private institutions such as Gonzaga, and many of these students are grappling with similar, to-the-core issues related to religion and spirituality that they bring with them to college. Some of these issues are best addressed with a person qualified for spiritual counseling, but I wonder if students might benefit from general discussions where they are allowed to provide some insight into the make up of their belief systems and how it has guided them in life to who they are today.

A recent study out of UCLA examined students' experiences of spirituality in higher education, and the findings showed students wanted to explore these issues further while in college. Often these matters drive students' passions in their studies and in their chosen career/vocational paths; perhaps it might behoove student affairs professionals to allow students to bring these experiences into their conversations to better help guide them through their educational journey. I don't necessarily make it a personal habit to discuss matters of religion and spirituality with others as I believe it to be intensely personal and I don't want to come across as someone looking for converts. But might it be to our students' benefit to open up discussions about religion and spirituality a little more often?

Bryce
Follow me on Twitter: @BryceEHughes

What not to wear

Kristen Abell posted about being able to wear jeans to work, and I replied how I was able to wear jeans any day. Kristen replied how the difference was likely due to the difference in our individual institutional settings and the expectations of our professional roles, which of course got me thinking about how diverse these expectations may be across student affairs at large.

What are your dress expectations for your professional role? How do they differ across our #SAchat community?

I remember it first came up for me when I transitioned from my undergrad institution (Gonzaga, GO ZAGS!) where I had been building up an LGBT Resource Center (as an AmeriCorps volunteer) to my Master's program at Seattle University. The people who worked in Student Development at SU seemed to be dressed "to the nines" every day. I know we were expected to dress professionally at Gonzaga, but it felt like the bar was noticeably raised in this new setting and I wanted to know why. I don't think there was a written or spoken rule about how well people needed to be dressed at work, but there was definitely a different feel. We assumed it was due to the number of people who had recently started working there who were transplants from the East Coast, so there definitely is a cultural aspect to it. And being in an urban environment, they probably interact with business and city leaders regularly which would dictate the need to look serious about your work.

After I graduated, I accepted a position a couple months later at a community college in a fairly rural suburb of Seattle. I remember interviewing for my current position. I was on campus for a few days in the process, and I wore a collared shirt, tie, and slacks each day I was there. When I finally got hired, taking a cue from what I observed about the college culture, I wore a sweater with a nice pair of jeans. The Dean saw me that day and told me, "It's nice to see you without a tie for a change."

How might institutional setting dictate norms? Do they look different at community colleges, four-year public universities, and private colleges and universities? How does the external setting play a role? Does an urban environment demand something different than rural, or suburban? We often say that there are a multitude of subcultures across the United States; do different regions have different norms? What cultural norms come into play in invisibly dictating dress expectations?

Kristen also suggested that one factor that played a role in determining her dress expectations is her job description. Her job requires her to interact with local business and community leaders, which obviously means demonstrating a similar level of seriousness in conducting external affairs. My job is very hands-on with students, and the external constituents I work with are community agencies which serve disadvantaged youth. We all keep our dress more casual. How are yours dictated by job title/duties?

Some institutions will have more explicit policies. I know mine does have a policy expecting professionalism, but it is not much more specific than that. Does your institution lay out an explicit policy? How are they communicated to you?

And dress expectations lead into a deeper conversation about the ways power and privilege dictate how society expects us to behave. Gender, sex, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, and a myriad of other social memberships draw fairly rigid lines around what people are expected to wear in a professional setting. There was recently a tweet (and I can't tell you where I read it) asking about what "professionalism" looks like in queer communities. What underlying expectations and assumptions factor in both spoken and unspoken codes for appopriate professional attire? How does privilege play a role? Do we consider what we display to our students in selecting clothing? Do we consider how we demonstrate our values in what we choose to wear? What about gender performance expectations? Would someone subverting gender performance expectations, or someone with a transgender identity, feel marginalized by our spoken and unspoken dress codes? How about people of color? People from different religious affiliations?

Share your thoughts on student affairs dress expectations, particularly what your experience has been like.

Bryce

Let the games begin!

"Let the games begin!" as some may believe the final bullet point on ACPA President Heidi Levine's Consolidation vote blog post may mean. She wrote, "Collaborate with NASPA when appropriate, and compete with NASPA when appropriate." While the tone of the overall post was a little on the self-righteous side, it was the latter half of that statement which elicited great response on the #NASPACPA Twitter conversation, especially the word "compete."

In student affairs, we know collaboration. We collaborate with our colleagues, we collaborate with faculty, and we collaborate with students. Student affairs as a profession adheres to the maxim, "Two heads (or more) are better than one." Our graduate preparation programs particularly promote this doctrine, claiming it sets us apart from other programs which are (as we see it) more competitive and foster less trust. And with that context, it was a huge surprise to see the word "compete" in a post by one of our association presidents.

To me, it was refreshing. While it feels countercultural to say it, deep down we already know that our associations compete. But someone finally acknowledged that fact publicly. And that's okay. I think it's even more healthy that this "bad word" has been brought out into the light. I think it's a concept to bring more openly and more often into our student affairs lexicon. One great outcome from the result of this consolidation vote could be a broader discussion of the role competition plays--and could play--in student affairs.

Another "bad word" which emerged from the conversation which ensued following the announcement of the results was "confrontation." This one was not expressed as openly, but it definitely happened through the #NASPACPA Twitter feed. Many people expressed exactly how they felt about the vote--often in uncensored, unrestrained, and uncompromising ways. To some, particularly Stacy Oliver, this was seen as unprofessional and antithetical to the values of our profession. To me, it was another rare--and refreshing--moment where we abandoned restraint and spoke our minds exactly the way we were feeling.

Our profession could use a huge, healthy dose of confrontation. Of raw, unadulterated, even uncensored emotion. Sometimes I think we work too hard to be people pleasers, to make everyone happy, often to our own (and our students') detriment. I can agree with Stacy that using insults (like "stupid" or "selfish") is not productive in discussion and can damage relationships. But I don't agree with her that voices were "marginalized" in this discussion.

Now that I've had a little time to reflect on this matter, I think I can articulate myself a little better than I attempted via Twitter in 140 characters or fewer. The main reason I don't agree with her that people were "marginalized" is that everyone did speak their minds through the vote. (Frankly, the only marginalized voices were those of graduate students in NASPA, but that's for another time.) What happened on Twitter was not a marginalization but rather an outnumbering. I can see how it might have been intimidating to jump into the conversation when your viewpoint is the distinct minority of your community. But, in this instance, it was that minority that was able to speak the loudest--38% of NASPA was all it took to block consolidation--those voices were hardly marginalized.

(Side note: I will state that I agreed with the process. I think for such a major change to take place we should have been expected to reach a higher hurdle than a simple majority. I was disappointed with the outcome, but that's separate.)

Competition and confrontation happen in our field all the time, and most often we try to mask that fact for the sake of the comfort of our colleagues. The job search is competitive, but we try to cover that up by talking about "best fit." Student conduct is confrontational, but we try to hide that behind "opportunity for growth." Maybe every now and then we could name these for what they are--and learn and grow from those moments!

As someone who works in multicultural affairs, it reminds of the "safe space" problem: are we trying to create a space where it's safe to speak your mind, or an emotionally safe space that's concerned more about participants' comfort? To me, a safe space is a space where you can speak your truth, even if it's a difficult truth to hear. One of the major problems with diversity trainings and workshops is that we get too concerned about "safety" for the sake of "going there" and having a truly transformative learning experience. Maybe we ought to be open as professionals to being uncomfortable and being called out more often in our training and development. It may look and feel ugly to begin with, but letting it out could lead to far more productive dialogues in our field than "safety" and "politeness" ever have.

To me, the major lesson from this vote is that we as a profession have a problem with conflict. Perhaps if we could invite more (healthy) competition and confrontation into our professional development (either structured or unstructured), and into our work, we will reap the benefits that come from the tremendous growth that follows conflict.

And as for #NASPACPA, it's coming. If 81% of ACPA and 62% of NASPA in 2011 believe in consolidation, those percentages are sure to increase. And the next time it comes to a vote, we will unite. Perhaps the lessons from this consolidation vote will make the actual consolidation that much greater.

Bryce

Learning to Earn

If you ask many students their reason for attending college, they'd tell you it was to get a good job and make more money than they would without. And it's true, one of the main ploys we use to entice young people to attend college is future earning potential. Self-improvement is simply icing on the cake to success and financial stability.

Yet with the job market as stagnant as it has been the past few years, and the proliferation of BAs competing for jobs that may not even require it, are we able to keep our promises of better employment and brighter futures?

The University of Regina in Saskatchewan is working hard to keep this promise. The university has started an employment guarantee program where students who fail to gain employment within six months of graduation can get another year of free tuition to pursue other certification and/or vocational training toward their chosen field.

Yet is more class time truly going to make someone more employable?

Paul Krugman discusses this in a recent column in The New York Times. He makes the argument that education cannot be the be-all, end-all to attaining livable, stable employment. Education is important, but can only be expected to do so much. The rest is up to us; if we value stable employment, affordable health care, and safe working conditions, we need to work as a society to make these greater changes. Providing more college degrees cannot directly solve greater market issues around labor and employment.

And there's the case for not attending college. Recently James Altucher, a well-known hedge fund manager and author, infamously implored parents not to send their children to college. He argued that entrepreneurial skills were far more important for young people to learn, that colleges were not teaching these marketable skills, and that the money parents spend on college could net much more if invested over their offsprings' lifetimes. While I am careful to take advice on matters of what to do with my life from a hedge fund manager, I do have to agree that the skills and attitudes learned through entrepreneurship--independence, self-motivation, confidence, to name a few--are extremely important for anyone looking to shape their own future to know.

So, if obtaining a college degree isn't about getting a better job, and a good argument can be made to not attend college, maybe we should be asking a different question. What is the purpose of getting a college degree?

This discussion about the purpose of college reminds me of conversations I used to have with classmates in my Master's program about the reason for our Master's degree. Many of my colleagues wanted more practical training in our grad program, such as budgeting, supervision, and other on-the-job skills, to be more marketable in searching for Student Affairs positions. I could appreciate my classmates' concern for a successful job search after graduation, but I also believed that if our program truly shifted in focus it would devolve into a professional certification program rather than a Master's degree level program of study. Much of this has gone into my reflection on why a Master's degree is important to our field--if it isn't about being "certified" to work in Student Affairs, it must serve some other greater purpose of relevance and importance to our field (see my earlier post on the matter).

Why did you go to college? If you pursued graduate study, why did you choose to continue your education?

Did you go to college to get a better job, or did you consider potential career fields because you wanted to get a college degree (and you wanted it to be relevant to your work)?

My answers to these questions may appear in future blog posts...

Bryce

Do you really need a Master's degree for that job?

As much as I love the field of Student Affairs, I would be willing to bet I'm not the only one in the field who can become cynical from time to time. The question which serves as the title of this post came back to mind as I was reading Stephanie Lynch's latest blog post. I loved her humorous cynicism as she recalled asking herself a similar question, toward the beginning of her foray into student affairs: "What? Why do I need a Master's degree to sing the fight song to new students?" I appreciated hearing it from a colleague this time as it echoed a feeling I've struggled with throughout the process of achieving my degree and getting my first job in the field. Do I really need a Master's degree for this job?

The main answer I hear from current grad students, and even some new professionals, is that in our programs we learn how to identify where students are in their development and how we can then cause them to grow through it. The reason hearing this statement causes the inner cynic I spoke of earlier to emerge is that, I think, many of us mistakenly believe that we need to buy that student development theory outlines very rigid, concrete stages of development--and that our goal as practitioners is to recognize these stages in our students in order to diagnose their development and prescribe an educational opportunity that pushes a student to the next level. I know finding ways to understand how theory translates into practice takes some work, but is the purpose of theory really diagnostic?

Honestly, I know most of us realize that it is not. Trying to make theory diagnostic would demonstrate the opposite of understanding how to put theory to practice, and we're taught to be critical of student development theory from the get go. Most student development theory emerged itself from critique of more foundational theories--most notably how Carol Gilligan's work on women's moral development emerged from her critique of her own professor William Perry's theory of intellectual and ethical development. Yet these questions still nagged me. Why do we learn theory? What is the purpose of all those classes we take? Why do we invest so much time and energy into papers, theses, and comprehensive exams? What is the purpose for our Master's degrees?

I don't think the answer lies in examining the question, "What have you done today that requires a degree in Student Affairs?" It does provide a great reflection on our work, but I don't think we're looking for particular moments throughout our workday or individual decisions we made where having the Master's degree would have made the difference. Taking the time to reflect on what what my role is on campus and the philosophy behind how I approach my work, looking at what I do from a broader perspective, led me to my answer as to why I need a Master's degree to do what I do.

The main conclusion I reached is that I am a better teacher in my role because of my education. Theory plays an important role in conceptualizing how we approach our work, so rather than being a direct diagnosis of how to help a student, it provides paradigms for framing our interactions. Steph hit the mark with her example of her former supervisor. She described how her supervisor's understanding of theory shaped how she worked with students, leading to more successful outcomes. While theory itself is not dogmatic nor prophetic with regard to how young adults develop, having engaged with research and study on that development provides us frameworks for leading students to learning and developmental outcomes, and causes us to approach our work as educators, rather than service providers. I do a better job teaching and facilitating learning because of my own education.

Bringing in student affairs staff with student affairs graduate degrees ensures the campus continues to be infused with scholars. The classroom does not need to be the only place students come into contact with people engaged in scholarly work. Co-curricular involvement has the opportunity to become more meaningful, educational, and impactful when grounded in research. A key component of a Master's degree is engagement with current, relevant research.

Having a Master's degree is also a way I express to my students how important I value my own education. Many of us know we become mentors to our students through our work with them; I would argue that having mentors who have achieved their goals and attained higher levels of education would foster in students a greater desire to do so themselves. I'm not trying to suggest we mentor all our students toward working in student affairs, but seeing how we reached our own goals might cause the spark which provides them the efficacy to establish and achieve their own. I can also advise them better in pursuing a higher education because I have done it and I understand how the system works.

Overall, I feel like I'm a better educator in my role due to my own education, which I think makes me more effective in my work. I've realized that someone, if needed, most likely could perform the essential duties of my job without a Master's degree, but I am more effective, my students achieve better outcomes, and our field is stronger as a whole because of the research and graduate preparation happening in Student Affairs.

Bryce

To Mentor...or to Navigate?

I posted on Twitter the other day that I had just presented to the student government budget committee asking for increased funding for the program I supervise. I work at Green River Community College where I oversee the Commencement Achievement Program, an initiative out of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs geared toward helping students independently navigate the college system. I received a response from Lisa Endersby, a student affairs guru out of our neighbor to the north, which led to an email conversation about mentorship. She asked me why we call my student staff Peer Navigators, rather than mentors, and how that structures the paradigm of their work.

Many of us work in some capacity supporting or supervising student mentors. This mentorship appears in various paradigms, such as student leadership, peer tutoring, or, quite often, explicitly defined mentorship. Each of these different titles describes the various roles and functions our students fill in our programs/departments/divisions/colleges/etc., yet each title was intentionally chosen to frame their work within a specific paradigm and provide them a framework for reflection on how they serve their peers. Our exchange got me thinking a little deeper about why our program chooses to call them "navigators" rather than something more common, like "mentors." It was a term I inherited, but my director and I built it explicitly into my program's mission statement. Why do we consider it such a unique and valuable title?

Over the past two years, I've worked with our Student Life graphic designer to come up with a graphic to use in our literature and our promotional materials. Because we call our students "Peer Navigators," and the program has a mission around college navigation, she recommended a compass. I loved the idea as it symbolizes navigation, and the concept of direction (North, South, East, and West) has cross-cultural meaning. It provides a conceptualization of the college environment as a stormy sea, and our program provides navigation and direction to help students keep afloat above the waves. We work with mostly first-generation, low income, and otherwise underserved students, for whom the college environment is terribly unfamiliar and very intimidating. Our students can become overwhelmed by the process of attending college itself, let alone their coursework to complete their degrees, and quickly feel strong feelings of isolation and the desire to return to "friendlier shore."

I train the Peer Navigators to be a mentor to their students, but also to guide their peers toward developing their own skills to independently navigate the college system. Since many of them had similar college experiences, they can empathize with the students who access our program and authentically guide them from that common understanding. Often if a student thinks a question she has is stupid, she begins to believe she is the only one with that question, and that college staff may belittle her for not having all the information needed to attend in the first place. Asking another student can be much more comfortable, especially if the response is, "Oh yeah, I had that same question. Let me show you how I got that information."

Transitioning from high school to college includes a huge cultural shift in how each institution functions. College requires a greater degree of independence and self-motivation on the part of the student, and also requires prior knowledge of the lingo and processes on which all the aspects of college attendance operate. For students who do not have access to this information prior to admission to college, the transition becomes a barrier to degree completion. The college becomes a stormy sea, and the student a solitary captain navigating the murky waters rising on all sides. We call our students Peer Navigators because they become a compass, map, and literal navigator to walk side-by-side with their peers relying on their own experiences to help navigate the storms toward calmer waters.

Bryce

Discussing Politics in the Office

Saturday was the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which made abortion legal in the United States. When I was an undergraduate at Gonzaga University, every year a group of pro-life students would place a cluster of small white crosses on one of our campus lawns to represent the number of abortions that have taken place since then. I was reminded of this as my Twitter timeline started to fill with posts regarding pro-choice blogging to mark the anniversary of this landmark decision. I remembered how much I tried as an undergraduate to help demonstrate that not only were there pro-choice voices at the university, but that there were many pro-choice Catholic voices both at the university and across the United States. Many of the students on our own campuses are just as active and passionate about controversial political issues, and perhaps as a student you even were yourself!

In my Master's program we were discussing whether or not we share our views on politics in the office around our students. As someone who was a student activist and spoke out often on controversial issues, I'm more inclined to share with those around me how I feel, but a classmate of mine disagreed. To her, it was important in a professional role to maintain a perception of neutrality, that taking sides would silence students who disagreed with you. Since you enjoy a position of authority and power in relation to the students with whom you work, you should strive to make sure all students feel safe and comfortable when working with you.

The two major professional roles I have had (which sandwich my time in my Master's program) have been in areas which engage controversial, political topics constantly. Before graduate school I ran an LGBT Resource Center at my alma mater, and since graduation I have worked in Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at a Seattle-area community college. I have worked with students from a wide diversity of backgrounds whose identities cross politics on a regular basis. For many of these students, their ability to attend college has been the result of political deliberation and legislation, which means for me, it is much harder to remain silent on how I feel about issues that directly impact my own students.

One example of this is immigration reform, particularly the DREAM Act. For those of you unfamiliar with this piece of legislation, its purpose is to create a path toward residency and citizenship for undocumented youth who were brought to this country at a very young age. In Washington State, undocumented students are legally allowed to attend state colleges and universities, and can claim state residency under specific guidelines to pay in-state tuition rates. We work with many of these students (whether they disclose to us or not), and the DREAM Act is a very important issue for them. As a fervent supporter of the DREAM Act myself, and a believer that involvement in political issues is an important piece of civic engagement (an important educational outcome from college), plus knowing that my support for this legislation shows my commitment to these students' success, I am more than happy to be open about my beliefs on the issue with my students.

How about when political issues impact our own identities? Recently, there was a proposed referendum in Washington State to vote on our expanded domestic partnership law that granted the same rights under state law to lesbian and gay couples as married heterosexual couples. Not only have I worked in LGBTQ student affairs before, I currently am an advisor to our Queer and Allies Club and am one of very few openly gay staff members at the college. I obviously cared deeply about the issue, and I engaged in many passionate conversations with students who wanted to know what they could do to support passing Referendum 71 (which would uphold the law). Again, I was more than happy to share my feelings on the issue, and as an openly gay role model felt it important to affirming many of our LGBTQ students for me to take a stance on an issue important to our community.

Now, there are obviously limitations to discussing politics with students. I work at a state-funded institution, and there are ethical guidelines around "promoting" political issues during the work day. As a state employee, I can not engage in activity on state time that is intended to impact a ballot issue one way or another. I knew I could not advocate voting on the referendum one way or another, but I could help students learn about the issue and find ways to express their voices on campus. The same applies to discussing the DREAM Act--while I could not do activist work on the issue while in my professional capacity, I can help students who want to learn about the issue find information, and I can educate my colleagues on the experiences of undocumented students achieving higher education. I also believe sharing my views on a matter is a completely different issue than trying to influence how my students think about said matter.

My classmate had an important point though--how can we make sure that other voices are not stifled if we are open about our political beliefs? How do we ensure that students who disagree with us know that their views are valued on campus and their beliefs validated? I would hope that someone who feels differently than I do knows that just because I, as a college staff member, may feel one way on an issue, does not mean I do not believe in their freedom to pursue higher education and their right to express their views. But I know there is a power dynamic at play when students hold views that differ from those with authority.

As a former student activist, I remember not being satisfied with the idea that a plurality of perspectives were all good and valid. I wanted everyone to agree with me! As I have matured (I hope) and grown into a student affairs professional, though, and as I have reflected back on my interactions with other students, I've realized that I need to do the self-work to allow other views to be true and valid. I need to be able to understand that a perspective different than mine is not wrong, just different--and that the viewpoint holder's experiences, beliefs, and values all played a role in shaping that perspective just as mine did for me. Some of my self-work in cultural competence, like understanding my background and discovering my lens, has made a tremendous impact on my ability to tolerate--even appreciate--the tension of uncertainty, of holding various and often contradictory viewpoints as equally valid. Yet at the same time that same work has helped me hold stronger to my own values and beliefs.

The most important skill a student affairs practitioner would need to utilize to discuss politics with students is empathic listening when students express their views. We need to remember the education taking place is the student's process, and that our focus is on the student's growth as a result of the conversation. It's okay to share our perspective to either validate a student's opinion or to help a student examine her or his views more deeply. It's not okay to use our opinions on topics to shut other students down or to establish "acceptable" points of view in our offices.

One model/theory that I think should become a more integral part of student affairs work is Patricia King and Karen Kitchener's Model of Reflective Judgment (King & Kitchener, 1994). Their model looks at cognitive development in college and how young adults learn determine what it means "to know" something. Reflective judgment deals with ill-structured problems--often the root of contemporary political issues--that have no clear solution and the ways we develop our beliefs on how to address those problems. If we plan to discuss the important issues of our times with our students, we need to make sure we're giving them the tools to truly analyze the complexity and synthesize their opinions on the matter. This model is a great tool for structuring these learning opportunities.

How do you feel about this issue? Are you open about your political beliefs with your students? Why or why not?

Reference: King, P.M. & Kitchener, K.S. (1994). Developing reflective judgment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

What do you demand from yourself?

"The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself." -- James Baldwin

This was the content of my 2000th tweet on Twitter. I decided to follow the lead of many of my #SAchat colleagues and try to post a substantive tweet for this milestone in my usage of the social networking site. And it did warrant a couple of mentions and RTs! I was thrilled that indeed, my 2000th tweet was "epic."

Immediately after posting the quote, as happens to many of my #SAchat colleagues, a blog post started to formulate in my head. All I really had done was use a Quotionary to look for a nice inspirational quote, and in fact, the topic "hope" was the third or fourth topic under which I was looking for a quote. Yet as I began to ponder the implications of Mr. Baldwin's statement, there was so much more that could be said about it.

One of my goals for 2011 (besides this blog) is to run the Walt Disney World Marathon in January 2012. My partner suggested it in December as he is always looking for an excuse to visit Disney, but for me, I have always been looking for a good excuse to get active. For some reason, for me, it's difficult to simply be motivated to be active by the sheer enjoyment of activity; I do a much better job when I'm reaching a goal. And working with someone I care about keeps me that much more motivated. Plus, I know this is a goal that very few people reach--which makes it all the more enticing for me to be able to say, "I've done that." But, as I'm prone to do, I needed to read a up a little first to make sure this is a realistic goal and that I could actually accomplish it.

I purchased a copy of Marathoning for Mortals. I mainly needed to know what it took to be ready for a marathon--and if a year would be a reasonable amount of time to train. So far, I'm about four chapters into the book, and it looks like we've given ourselves more than enough time to build up our endurance and train for what seems to be a fairly "easy" marathon. (Not that 26.2 miles is ever easy, but running a course that is near sea level and is fairly flat is much easier than something high in the mountains that is uphill the whole way.) The book explains that if you can take account of your ability before training, commit to completing the training as prescribed, and make sure you arrive at the starting line prior to the start time prepared as best you can, you will complete your race. But you can't expect anyone else to do the work for you--you have to require that commitment and persistence from yourself. We all have the same physiology--but what are you demanding out of yourself to be competitive, determined, and confident?

That same "demand" that you need of yourself to sustain your commitment to finish a marathon is the same "demand" you should have of yourself on a daily basis. This is a crucial piece to goal-setting--that raw, uninhibited desire to do great things. I've seen it in many of my colleagues: classmates from graduate school, coworkers at the college, acquaintances I've met through #SAchat, out in the world doing amazing work with students from every walk of life. We strive to foster that "demand" within our students as well, particularly our student leaders whose eagerness to serve their peers so resembles our own which brought us into the field from the start. Why not celebrate the fact that we want so much more out of life on a daily basis?

There is a lot more that goes into training for a marathon besides wanting to finish the race. There's the schedule and regimen you put yourself on to enhance your abilities, and there's the rest and recovery your body needs in order to adjust to expanding its physical limitations. I'll probably come back to "discipline" and "self care" at some point in the future, especially if my training continues successfully. But in the meantime, ask yourself, "What do I demand of myself? How am I setting ambitious goals by demanding so much of myself? What am I demanding of myself that will also contribute to the overall common good around me?"

I think I may have my "one word" for 2011...

Bryce

Student Affairs as Vocation

Last week, after the tragedy in Omaha and the campus shooting episode of Grey's Anatomy, I considered writing a post reflecting on my reactions to such incidents. But with Saturday morning's tragedy in Arizona as well, I don't think I have it in me right now. Plus I'd still want to focus on campus incidents rather than making a broader statement which may seem odd if I didn't mention it. That post may still be forthcoming, but not just yet.

Instead, I thought I would launch into the subject I wanted to write about most--how my decision to work in the field of student affairs (and possibly higher education in general) was not just a career decision, or even a lifestyle choice (as many Residence Life professionals may attest), but a vocational discernment. Allow me to unpack that phrase for you, at least as I understand it.

For many, the word "vocation" refers specifically to religious life, and for me, coming from my Catholic background, whenever my church hosted a "Vocation Talk," it was to foster an interest in the priesthood among us youth (read: young men; women are still not allowed to be ordained). The context in which we use the word is almost always religious--yet as I've come to understand the definition of "vocation," also speaks closely to the commitment those of us in higher education (especially student affairs) have made to our chosen field of work.

One of the meanings of the word vocation, from the Latin vocare (meaning "to call"), according to Dictionary.com, is "a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career; a calling." When you speak to people who work in student affairs about what they do for a living, while you may never fully understand exactly what they do (and some of us are still figuring that out!), you will notice the intense passion they have for their work. And often that passion is contagious!

For me, my decision to become a student affairs professional was both unintentional and intentional. Like many of my colleagues, I did not graduate high school hoping to enter student affairs after finishing my undergraduate degree. I actually have a Bachelor's in engineering! But it was my campus involvement that led me to realize my passions and interests lay elsewhere--and the opportunity to establish an LGBT Resource Center at my alma mater (Gonzaga University) cemented that epiphany.

At the same time, though, my decision was also very intentional. While I was running the center, I took part in the Spiritual Exercises, essentially a long "retreat" that was created by the founder of the Jesuit order of Catholic priests, St. Ignatius of Loyola. (Gonzaga is a Jesuit university, and one of the religious studies classes I took was on Ignatian spirituality, so I knew what I was getting into.) While the Jesuits will go into a full month of silence to engage with the exercises, I opted for the less-intensive but just-as-fulfilling Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Living (affectionately known as SEEL). Instead of one month, participants engage over the course of nine months and only spend time twice a day in quiet reflection. It was during this time that I had the chance to deeply reflect on what I was doing for a career and how that spoke to me as a person.

And so to me, it began to feel more like a "calling" than a career choice. Granted, ultimately I plan not to become a senior student affairs officer (SSAO)--I plan to research and teach in Higher Education and Student Affairs--but higher education speaks deeply to who I am as a person, especially the developmental impact it has on students. Perhaps within your framework you may call this integrity, the synchronization of the external and internal worlds, but to me it feels like answering a voice speaking from deep within. And that is the basis of discernment--listening to those inner movements and seeing the path that you are being led toward (by God, in my case, or through whatever means with which you connect to the greater around you).

I plan to come back to this topic in future posts, particularly in how reading Parker Palmer has reinforced my belief that this truly is a vocation for me, and not just a career. In the meantime, do you see your work in student affairs as a job? Or is it also something bigger for you?

Bryce