The Higher Ed Career Coach Show with Sean Cook returns today with a “freenote” (free keynote) for student affairs professionals. Suitable for using in training meetings or team development, if you don’t have the time or money to hire me or another speaker to kick off your fall training. Look for a video version and downloadable handouts and script soon here at the site.
Based on parting thoughts I shared with colleagues in Residence Life upon my departure in Fall 2009, the “FreeNote” gives a dozen brief lessons culled from over 15 years working in student affairs.
Professionals (new and not-so-new) will appreciate the perspectives and hopefully the humor herein. If not, they may at least find something worth disagreeing with.
This episode features pre-recorded content. The live show will return later in July or early August.
Notice: This episode is best suited to adult listeners and contains a couple of instances of mildly coarse language. Nothing too crazy, but it’s probably best to listen yourself before playing for the whole staff.
A Note From the Author:
Hello Student Affairs Colleagues. Right now many of you are either planning or starting your professional staff training, depending on your institution’s academic calendar. I remember how tough it was to fill the schedule with worthwhile activities, so over the next month or so, I’m going to share content on my website and podcast that you can hopefully use in staff training. The first piece is this week’s podcast, which I am calling a “FreeNote” (free keynote), where I share some thoughts and perspectives on working in Student Affairs. I also plan to post outlines for some of the better staff discussions I had during training, and maybe even later, I might share some RA training and orientation activities. I hope you can use this stuff. I’ll be making some downloads available soon, and possibly a brief video of this same talk.(Length: 10 minutes)
I spent 14 years of my life working at Penn State, 12 for the Office of Residence Life, and 2 for the Smeal College of Business. It was my home and I am still proud of my former colleagues, my old students, and of the many good things that Penn State has contributed to the world. So this week, I am heartsick, angry, shocked, disappointed and like many, I am not sure what to do with all the various thoughts and feelings.
There are no easy answers, but something good must come of this, so this week, I am doing a two-hour podcast on the topic, and hopefully taking calls and comments about the situation.
While sharing your thoughts and feelings are part of this, I am hoping to hear some thoughts on how this case can provide lessons and ways to improve the handling of similar incidents in the future.
Please listen live from 11 am until 1 pm ET this Friday, and call in to (347) 989-0055 to share your thoughts and advice.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”–Edmund Burke, Irish orator, philosopher, and politician.
If there ever was a situation where the 18th century philosopher’s famous quotation applied, it is certainly the sordid tale that came out of Happy Valley at the end of last week. Like many in the nation, I was shocked and heartbroken to hear the sexual abuse accusations against Penn State’s former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, and the allegations made that the athletic director, Tim Curley, and the vice president for finance and business, Gary Schultz, may have participated in covering for Sandusky, and lying to a grand jury.
For nearly 14 years, I was a member of the administration at Penn State, as an employee of the Office of Residence Life. For part of that time–my first three years–I was the live-in residence life coordinator for Nittany Apartments, the on-campus apartment complex that houses many of the upperclassman on the Nittany Lions football team. In this capacity, I had the opportunity to interact with athletes, members of the athletic staff, university police, and colleagues from across the University. So this week has been somewhat surreal for me, as I read the news about people I’ve met, and familiar places on campus and in the community that I called home for almost a generation.
To say that the men involved in this scenario were well-respected is an understatement. Jerry Sandusky, the man at the center of this firestorm, was once lauded as the heir apparent to legendary coach Joe Paterno, and has been celebrated in the community as a champion for underprivileged boys, as the founder and lead fundraiser for his charity, the Second Mile.
Tim Curley, as athletic director for a Division I sports program, has weathered many storms in the past, and like many athletic directors, he is liked and respected by some, and reviled and ridiculed by others. Gary Schultz was a long-serving and admired member of the community, and has been referred to in the press as a man with strong family values. Penn State even named a new child care center after him. On different occasions, I heard both these men speak about the accomplishments of their programs, and my impressions of both men were that they were likable, good people, with serious levels of commitment toward improving their departments and maintaining the high standards of integrity, pride, and respect that many associate with the Pennsylvania State University. In fact, until I read the news the other day, I had never heard anyone say anything bad about Gary Schultz–ever.
Though I was shocked to hear the allegations against Sandusky, and heartsick over the responses of people within the administration who failed miserably in their attempts to get to the truth and do the right thing, I wasn’t surprised. Unfortunately, I did understand how such things could happen. They are the result of bureaucratic leanings toward policies and procedures over common sense, coupled with poor communication, and an intense need for self-preservation.
As a member of the residence life staff, I was responsible for following up on many situations involving personal conflict, violence, and illegal behavior. When you help run residence halls, you get to know the true nature of student life and the complexities of human behavior and interaction like no one else at the University. There is an underbelly to any campus, and ugly things happen. Sometimes good people do bad things. Sometimes bad people take advantage of the system.
No matter what, each person deserves to be accorded some basic rights to fairness and due process. Processes take time, and procedures have to be followed, because you can’t just act against someone without reason. You would also be a fool, indeed, to act against powerful, well-respected community heroes, without solid evidence and a solid commitment to follow-through. This is where policies and procedures get in the way, and where self-interest and self-preservation often trump common sense and common decency.
Maintaining confidentiality is an important part of the equation, but it must be weighed against a sense of responsibility, and carried through with a serious commitment toward doing what is right, what is just, and what is good for the community. Actions can be taken confidentially while processes play out. The trick is that you have to take the right actions, and to do so, you need the right information in the first place. To get the right information, you have to create a culture where doing the right thing and telling the truth are valued more than perceptions and reputations grown out of pride and a shared mythology.
To truly maintain a commitment to doing the right thing, one must also set aside some other enduring principles: the CYA principle (“cover your ass” at all costs), and not pissing off the “powers that be.” But the cost of doing so in a bureaucracy may be loss of position, loss of influence, and loss of further opportunity. When people are afraid, the tendency is to protect oneself. It takes personal courage and steadfast determination to follow through, because the really ugly situations that occur in bureaucratic organizations usually get plugged into processes that drag on so long that, in the end, even serious sanctions are diminished by the time that has passed between the action and the consequence, no one learns anything, and the witnesses and victims have endured stress, hardship and maybe even further victimization while they wait for a resolution.
What can institutions and administrators do to change things? First and foremost, we need discussion about how power and privilege play out in the University community, and second, we need policies and procedures that clearly protect persons from reprisals when reporting unseemly behavior by persons in positions of authority and influence.Third, we need good training and administrative support to ensure that people know what to do, and that situations are handled properly.
As the situation continues to play out in public, there must be serious and sustained efforts behind the scenes to deconstruct not only the situation and to understand the errors and omissions of persons involved, but to understand the impact of unclear policies, ill-defined roles, and a lack of protections, checks and balances, and common sense in how this particular situation played out, so that things like this can be responded to properly, if and when they happen again.
I wish it could be as easy as installing some universal moral compass in those people we trust, so they do the right things each time, and without question. Lacking that, we need to make it easier for others who witness wrongdoing to know what options they have to respond, and to create environments where people can come forward without fear of reprisal.
Article first published as When Good Men Do Nothing on Technorati.
It has been just over a year since I left Penn State University, which had been my home for nearly 15 years. There are many things that I miss about being at Penn State, especially at the end of each semester.
Traditions are a funny thing. We value them as rites of passage to joining new community, and as part of the institutional history. Some traditions come and go, as student leaders try to define their unique legacies on campus. So every year, around exam time, there would be study breaks, and programs with food, and stress busters, and door decorating contests, and special dinners in the dining halls.
My favorite program among these was booking a massage therapist to give students five–minute stress buster massages on one evening of the exam week. We worked with the same massage therapist every year. Her name was Angie, and I got to know quite a bit about her during these events. We would talk about campus events, news in town, and our kids. Angie is a single mother, and a Penn State grad. She was always pleasant to work with and loved talking with all the students. In some of the areas where we would book her, the staff would simply greet her, make sure she was able to set up, and then leave. I would always stay around and visit, drink coffee and smoothies from the coffee bar in the commons, and just have a good time joking with her and the students who came by.
Now that I am down South and on my own, I find that I really do miss the traditions that I helped establish and maintain at my old school. And at times around the holidays, I feel down and a little bit alone and I really miss the sense of home those traditions gave me.
But last week was different. I have a part-time career coach position at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, and was invited to help host a table at their annual holiday banquet.
Anderson Dining Hall is much smaller and less modern than the fancy facilities I was used to at Penn State. In this great Georgian style room’s with high cathedral type ceilings and huge fireplace mantels at each end of the hall, with appropriately historic paintings mounted above them, teams of faculty and staff set 24 tables and decorated them for the students.
It was my first time in a college dining hall since leaving Penn State, and I realized quickly how much I missed being a part of the campus community. It’s clearly an event that faculty and staff enjoy just as much as the students. Tables are hosted by teams of two faculty or staff members, and each table has a theme. Since I volunteered last-minute and was matched with a faculty member I have yet to meet, our theme was “Christmas.” Really original, huh? we had very simple decorations, bought hastily at Wal-Mart about an hour or two before the event–little clear candy bags with penguins on them, wearing Santa hats; filled with cookies and candy, and finished off with a novelty swirly straw that had either Santa or a polar bear on them. Other than that, we had cardboard Christmas trees and glittery stuff.
I met my faculty partner, Dr. Karen Huber, a professor of history. Our table was basically assigned to students who had not registered early enough to be assigned another table. We went about assembling the candy bags and decorating our table and then joined the other faculty and staff to eat dinner in another dining room. At the end of the meal, we received our aprons and returned Anderson Dining Hall, as they opened the doors to receive students.
We were eventually joined by seven students and joined the rush of other faculty and staff to the kitchen for platters of turkey, dressing, squash, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and bread. We served each student personally and made conversation with them about school, their interests, and their holiday plans. After clearing the main course from the table, the lights were darkened in the hall, and the foodservice staff rolled out carts loaded with the desert for the evening, Bananas Foster, over vanilla ice cream. All in attendance watched with eager anticipation as the bananas were flash caramelized with burning rum, and the glow of bluish flame lit the room.
It was a festive end to my first semester of contract work for this small women’s liberal arts college, which had welcomed me and made me finally feel at home again. Penn State had been my home for nearly 15 years, and I had known the comfort that comes with familiarity and tradition. There have been times over the last year when I have questioned whether I would ever have that feeling of belonging again.
I think that this is the feeling that many students come to campus with–a loss of home, friends, connections, and belonging. It serves as a great reminder that student affairs professionals and other members of the faculty and staff play key roles in creating a sense of belonging on campus. It’s no wonder, then, that many students return to their families in December, enjoy their vacation time, and return to the halls in January, saying “it’s good to be home!”
What traditions have you helped establish on your campus?
What role do you play in making your students feel at home?
And what traditions have helped you feel at home on your campus?
Please share your thoughts in the comments section. I’d love to hear what others are doing around the country. Happy holidays to all, no matter your personal traditions, beliefs, or hopes for the new year.
Bryan Koval recently transitioned to a new position at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Transition is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. In the past 3 weeks, I have resigned from an old job, started a new job, moved from rural central Pennsylvania to the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and begun living apart from my partner (with whom I have been living for the past 7 years). It has been a very up-and-down few weeks. The excitement of new opportunities at Carnegie Mellon University and in Pittsburgh has been tempered with the anxiety that goes along with opening up a new chapter in my career and personal life.
In a roundabout way, thinking about my current transition has helped me to reflect on our students and the important transitions that they experience while living matriculating through higher education. In many ways the business of higher education is all about transition. Each semester sees new students arriving on campus while others depart. During their time with us students choose majors, study abroad, take on leadership opportunities and learn more about who it is that they are, and who they hope to become. We are constantly surrounded by transition.
As you think about your role in higher education, how do you see yourself being a resource to your residents as they experience the many transitions that are a part of the college experience? Schlossberg (1995) defines transition as “any event, or non-event, that results in changed relationships, routines, assumptions, and roles.” By that definition, transitions are happening all of the time! Schlossberg identified four major sets of factors that influence how well a person can cope with transition (Evans, Forney, & Guido-DeBrito, 1998). Let’s identify those factors, and reflect on how we can help our students to manage transition effectively.
Situation: Important factors include the timing of the transition, the duration of the transition, and previous experiences with similar transitions. During a major change, individuals will also be dealing with concurrent stresses and questions about whether or not they feel in control during the transitions. Working closely with students on campus, we may have some real insight that our students would benefit from. We also function within the situation . . . but as someone on the periphery of the situation we may have some unique perspective on the situation.
Self: During transition, we think about who we are in terms of demographic characteristics (socioeconomic status, gender, etc.) and psychological resources. How has our background prepared us to manage this transition? As higher education professionals, we can play a role in helping students to know more about who they are through programming, conversation, and our relationships with each other.
Support: To manage a transition, individuals need to feel a sense of support. A supportive community is one of my favorite aspects of the work I do with students in residence halls and apartments. What can we do as higher education professionals to make sure that everyone in our community feels that they will receive affirmation, assistance, and honest feedback when they need it?
Strategies: To manage transition, you need a plan in order to proceed. When we talk to our students about their transitions (or when they come to use for mentoring and guidance), how can we help them to move forward in productive ways, while leaving it up to the student to decide how best to move forward?
As I come to the end of this blog post, it dawns on me that I have described Schlossberg’s theory meerly as advice for helping students. In reality, this would be a great theory to review if you supervise new staff members or are staying connected with individuals who are leaving your organization and moving on to new positions elsewhere. Best of luck as you transition for Fall 2010, with whichever events (or non-events) come along with that!
References:
Evans, N. J., Forney, D. S., & Guido-DiBrito, F. (1998). Schlossberg’s transition thoery. In Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 107-122). San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Schlossberg, N.K., Waters, E.B., & Goodman, J. (1995). Counseling adults in transition (2nd ed.). New York: Springer.
Interested in reading more? This title is available at Amazon.Com. Purchase through the affiliate link below to support this site.
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The Higher Ed Career Coach Show with Sean Cook returns today with a “freenote” (free keynote) for student affairs professionals. Suitable for using in training meetings or team development, if you don’t have the time or money to hire me or another speaker to kick off your fall training. Look for a video version and downloadable handouts and script soon here at the site.
