Advising and Helping

Infusing Daring Greatly into our Practice of Caring Greatly

Dan

There’s a lot of talk about transforming student affairs practice – we need to move the needle from routine to impactful. At the recent ACPA conference we were challenged to dare greatly  – a concept I believe in and feel compelled to act on. While our field has been taught to CARE greatly – convey a sense of compassion and empathy for the students with whom we work – I’m not sure the general field of student affairs is ready to DARE greatly. Collectively, I believe:

We’re not doing enough to demonstrate our contributions.

We’re not doing enough to end negative behaviors.

We’re not doing enough to create a work/life balance that makes sense.

I wonder what needs to happen to move the needle. What would make student affairs practitioners capture the moment and dare greatly?

Don’t get me wrong. Lots of people are doing amazing things: Changing lives and influencing students. People are trying to make a difference. This isn’t a condemnation, but rather an examination of what could change if we aim to dare greatly versus only care greatly.

Daring greatly might mean taking some of the following risks to become better professionals in this important field:

Using assessment to influence our work and infusing tactics to collect evidence of our contributions. We’d spend less time on hoping we’re making an impact and more time on finding ways to determine so as a natural part of our work. Our advising and helping tactics would infuse assessment into them, asking common questions, documenting our answers, using themes to determine strategies for improvement. We would take the leap to transform our work, all the while still conveying care and commitment.

Using different approaches to issues of alcohol, drugs, hazing, etc. Students know it’s against the law – who cares. How about we get more creative and talk about the way these things undermine our relationships. Students seem to like each other by and large – there is some level of care there – maybe appealing to a sense of compassion for others might move the needle to end extreme and negative behaviors. We’d teach students how to take the risk. We’d support them through their enactment of the interventions we developed together.

Being more intentional with how we approach our work. We don’t need to be everything to every student. We need to convey care and concern. We need to handle their needs, but we do not need to lose ourselves as we seek to help them find the answers. Most life/work balance issues I’ve seen come as a result of caring greatly – certainly not a bad quality in a human being – but when we dare greatly, the way we demonstrate care may change.

So many good people work in student affairs. There is such a commitment to helping students. However, for us to dare greatly, we must be clear that our frameworks for practice must change. We must make progress on the things that we continue to push to the margins and we have to figure out ways to move the needle from routine to extraordinary. As we focus on change of our environment, we too will change. We’ll become more competent at demonstrating care while also daring students and ourselves to be all that we can be.

The Ongoing Search for Student Affairs Competence: Becoming the Well-Rounded Student Affairs Professional

Dan

The search for competence: it’s the framework I have used for this blog since its inception just over a year ago. The ongoing quest to be our best is a part of a career in student affairs. Through the simple search for competence we actually can become better and more confident in our work.When we become better we are more equipped to serve our students. The best student affairs professionals I know put students first, but they don’t sacrifice their own learning: they are deeply committed to ongoing professional engagement and development.

However, I believe that the majority of student affairs professionals do not focus on developing the entire set of skills and prefer often to focus on only a few at a time (and possibly only a few at all). I am convinced that our pursuit to be really good at one thing will ultimately be a downfall in modern-day student affairs work. We can’t afford for you to rock at advising when your understanding of legal issues is dismal. We can’t afford for you to be a great supervisor but have zero concern with assessment of your programs.

Student affairs is an ironic field: those who come into the field through a student affairs preparation program, are typically taught to be generalists but new professionals often go into functional area positions that are specialists such as residence life, advising, fraternity/sorority life, and career development. While our generalist skills might come in handy now and then, we default to what defines us as specialists: advising residents in your learning community, helping students schedule their classes, aiding leaders in managing complex organizations, and counseling students as they determine potential career paths. We focus so much on specific skills that those we don’t (or choose not to) use routinely just go by the wayside. The best athletes practice all parts of their game and work all parts of their bodies – therefore, shouldn’t the best student affairs professionals practice every part of ours?

Enhancing our competence in all areas of student affairs work requires an intention that many student affairs professionals lack: as we are so responsive to the demands of our students, we often forget to take the time to determine pathways for strengthening our competence and confidence in all the skills necessary to student affairs work. We are not bad professionals for this, in fact if the metrics that people around us care about is how accessible we are to students, then you might be perceived well; however, are you truly developing the competence you need to interact with all of those students? What skills would make you even better at serving your students?

Well-rounded student affairs professionals are important to our field. We have to create environments in which all staff are clear that expertise in an area is good but some level of understanding in all areas is expected.

At the University of Memphis, we have been intentional about creating a framework for ongoing professional development. All training sessions tie back to the ACPA/NASPA Professional Competency areas. Next week we will have our annual Spring Break Professional Development Challenge; participants are encouraged to take part in as many sessions as they can fit into their week (it is spring break) and each session addresses at least one of the 10 professional competencies. I love this week and almost 40 of our staff must also appreciate the opportunity because they have signed up for at least one training!

It’s our hope that this intention will help our staff realize what they know now, what they need to know, and how they can fill the gaps between what they are expected to do and their current skill set. To help others, I have highlighted those I find to be most engaged in their work and ongoing professional development in our weekly newsletter. We can all learn from examples and aspire to be like those who are the most focused on high levels of professional engagement and ongoing development.

We also have developed an individualized professional development plan, using the Competency areas, that can be used to help staff figure out how to accomplish their professional goals. The value of professional development has become an ethos here: coming down from our VPSA, through her AVPs and permeating the director/associate dean level.

Personally, I believe we can do even more! I’d love to see all staff be held accountable for demonstrating at least the basic level of the ACPA/NASPA Competency areas. What if we had to prove annually that we worked on one attribute within the  basic level of each competency area? What if our work was evaluated on our demonstration of each competency level? It would require a high level of intentionality and we’d be laser focused on being the best we can be in order to make a difference in the lives of students. We have to be more intentional to become the well-rounded student affairs professional we are needed in modern day higher education.

What are your professional goals? What competencies do you need to work on to reach your goals? How would you rate yourself in each of the 10 Professional Competencies?

Rethinking our Expectations of Students

Dan

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to a colleague about her frustrations after working for six years in the field: “they still don’t get it” she said referring to the challenges she had with ending hazing on her campus.

Sadly, “they” will never get it. “They”, as a term we use to generalize a population, is all too encompassing and far reaching for any student affairs professionals – even the best out there! Particularly for traditional aged students (though possibly applicable to many adult students), the developmental challenges of life and the dynamics of engagement in a campus community renders most students not quite ready to have some of the discussions we need to have in order to affect change. These students have ways of knowing that have been informed by years and years of other influences before they come to our campus. “They” are bigger and stronger than any one of us. It’s not impossible to influence a “they” but spending all of our time beating ourselves up because we haven’t been successful is not a good strategy.

So then how do we implement and sustain change? We have the conversations with students that help them develop the skills they need, including interpersonal development, critical thinking, practical competence, etc, so that when they have the opportunity to make decisions they make ones that are in the best interest of others, not just themselves. These conversations likely don’t happen in masses. They tend to happen one on one or a few on one. They also tend to happen only with the leaders or the worst students out there, disregarding many of the students “in the middle” who need to have the conversations the most.

So, maybe it’s time to rethink our expectations that “they” should get it. What does this mean?

It means rethinking how we educate the masses. It means developing the competence and confidence to have the conversations needed to affect and sustain positive change. It means making sure those conversations are tailored to the audience. It’s going to mean rethinking concepts of advising and helping and the time we spend with students. It also means that we have to realize that this is not personal, it’s not about us and that we are not failures when things don’t change drastically. We are only failures if we continue to tackle the same issues in the same ways and hope for better results. They’re going to stay the same age, you’re going to get older and frustrated. “They” will win.

 

What does it mean to be “authentic” in student affairs work?

Dan

A lot has been written about authenticity in student affairs work. In the ACPA and NASPA Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Practitioners, the Personal Foundations competency states that at the intermediate level one should be able to “identify the effect between one’s personal and professional lives, and develop plans to manage any related concerns”. Ultimately, we have been asked to bring our “authentic selves” to our work with students.

I believe the concept of authenticity has a ton of baggage that comes along with it: as the concept exists somewhere within the parameters of what YOU think is appropriate and what OTHERS in the profession think is appropriate. You have to be ready to know just how much of the REAL you is appropriate to share. You also have to know when your work and professional selves intersect and when they are separate. Ultimately, you have to reconcile to what extent your approach to authenticity aligns or counters with the perspectives of others and the expectations of the field. It is for you to reconcile and if you can come away saying “I am authentic” then that’s great. If you come away thinking that you have a hidden or contradictory self then you might consider what needs to give. Either way, a harsh reality is that you will be asked to explain yourself. Just have your response ready and prepare to disagree with someone that your idea of authenticity and theirs may differ.

What issues do you think place your authenticity into question?

To what extent does our walk and talk need to be synonymous?

What can you do to “manage related concerns” and strengthen your personal foundation?

 

 

Having Conversations to Help Students Hold Up The Sky

Dan

I’ve become familiar with the “Half the Sky” thanks to my familiarity with the Circle of Sisterhood initiative. I love the initiative but hadn’t read the book or watched the movie until this week.

What I watched has affected me. Stories of sex trafficking, rape, and depriving education for girls and women across the world. I felt helpless.

And not to mention all the crap that we’re dealing with in our own country. I want to help, but where do I start? It’s more than me helping with money – it’s about me helping others to care for the cause. Part of my responsibility is to get better at having those conversations, particularly with the students with whom I work.

But am I really ready?

25 year old entering student affairs Dan could have told a student the value of the cause – almost asking them to adopt my passion. But could he have helped the student understand how they can work to put her/his own interests to the side in order to prioritize others over self? That would have required much more intentional conversations than I typically had.

40 year old, 15 years in student affairs, Dan still struggles with this. Why do I feel so unprepared?

It’s even harder when young adult development basically tells us that our college students aren’t necessarily prepared to place their own (immediate) interests above themselves. Also, there are social structures that can inhibit the kind of development we need and the environment in which it needs to happen. A lot of things are working against me.

For example, I find it problematic that sorority women on college campuses often place the interests of their male counterparts ahead of their own. But it’s my job to have the conversations to help them move closer to owning their space, standing up for their rights, and then standing up for the rights of women everywhere. Not to mention that some of the things which with they are preoccupied matter little when they are possibly the students with the most resources to do something more than just be a stereotype. I also need to help men understand why they should care about issues that have been historically viewed as women’s issues.

I know I have to get better at this, because I want the world to get better. What kinds of things are you doing to increase your competence to have conversations with students about these topics? What kinds of things do you do to move students along the developmental and social goals that student affairs educators should be working toward?

 

 

Advising and Helping Competency: Supporting Students and Organizations

Dan

The Advising and Helping competency “addresses skills related to providing counseling and advising support, direction, feedback, critique, referral, and guidance to individuals and groups” (p. 6).

For example, in the beginner level of advising and helping, an attribute of this competency indicates professionals “know and use referral services (e.g. other offices, outside agencies, knowledge sources) and exhibit referral skills in seeking expert advice” (p. 6).

So, what if a student came to you with a roommate challenge? A potential mental health issue? Could you properly direct students to the services they need?

In the intermediate level, this competency demands that professionals “demonstrate culturally appropriate advising, helping, coaching and counseling strategies” (p. 7). This in mind, you might consider how you’d advise students in organizations with a large number of people from different backgrounds/countries.

The advanced level has a significant focus on counseling and crisis intervention. To develop skills in this area you might consider to what extent you feel confident talking a student through a difficult time in her/his life such as a family member passing, a friend’s suicide or a disaster or crisis in their hometown.

What do you need to do to increase your skill set in the advising and helping competency?