by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 8, 2011 | Higher Education
“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.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Sep 8, 2011 | Career Skills, Higher Education, Workplace
Rajashi Ghosh (Photo provided.)
Incivility in the workplace can take many forms, from verbal abuse and harassment, to manipulation to acts of violence. 1.4 million employees experience it each year.
It has tremendous costs, as well. According to Dr. Rajashi Ghosh, an Assistant Professor of Human Resource Development for the School of Education at Drexel University, incivility costs the U.S. economy $23.8 billion each year. And academic environments are not immune.
On this week’s podcast, I will air an interview with Dr. Ghosh , who was the author of a recent article on the “incivility spiral” in mentoring relationships, which was published in a special issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources, which she also co-edited. In this article, Ghosh examined how different acts of incivility between mentors and mentees can devolve into negative relationships.
With mentoring programs being one of the popular ways that we seek to develop up-and-coming professionals, Ghosh recommends that institutions (and their Human Resource Officers) provide structured approaches, including codes of conduct for mentors and mentees, better orientations for both sides of the relationship about roles, boundaries, and conduct, formal processes for reporting inappropriate behavior, and better follow-up from HR and management.
Drexel will host a Human Resource Development Symposium September 17, “HRD’s Role in Addressing Workplace Incivility and Violence. Online registration is now closed, but if you are interested in attending e-mail Dr. Ghosh at rg429@drexel.edu expressing your interest in being on the waitlist.
We’ll also talk about my upcoming webinar on Creating a Killer Résumé on BigMarker, a new free webinar service, Hiring for Hope events, and I’ll take your comments and questions on dealing with incivility in the workplace.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Aug 25, 2011 | Career Skills, Higher Education, Podcast, Workplace
Developing positive relationships is one of the biggest challenges professionals face when starting a new role or moving into a new work environment. When you are new, you don’t know what norms have been established, who will be helpful (or who won’t), and you’ll likely find yourself wondering when to share information and perspectives, when to keep your mouth shut, and how to evaluate potential relationships.
Since many new faculty and staff are beginning to test the potentially treacherous waters as “new fish” in the ponds of academia, the timing seemed right to get some tips and perspectives on how to establish positive working relationships and keep from being eaten alive.
Andy Curran, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati’s Clermont College, encourages new staff to make themselves available, ask for advice from senior employees, and avoid being confrontational. He credits his ability to get along with others for his success in getting promotions and tenure during his 11 year career.
Getting information and perspectives from new colleagues may require some trial and error, so Joe O’Connell, Coordinator of New Student Programs at Arizona State University tries to tailor his conversations with people to their likes and dislikes. “For example,” O’ Connell explains, “if someone likes short, direct e-mails, then send them short, direct e-mails. They will be more receptive to your communications.”
Marlene Caroselli, a corporate trainer, keynoter, and author of 61 books, teaches a course on developing relationships at work. She advises new staff to “invite collaborative, cooperative dialogue. “This may be difficult,” she says, ” But it almost always works. Invite the person who is overly critical of your plan to join you in making it better. It’s natural to be defensive, but we’re asking you to put defenses and fences aside. Instead, form a partnership with your biggest critic and work together to strengthen your plan.”
Dr. Laurel Clark, President of the College of MetaPhysics, tells people to be “self-reflective” in their approaches to conflict. “Instead of blaming a co-worker for a conflict, look to see the part that you play in it and how YOU can cause change,” implores Clark. “If only one person changes, (and that person can always be YOU), then the dynamics of the relationship change even if the other person doesn’t.”
Please join us and call in with your tips, questions and comments at 11 am ET this Friday, August 26, tweet them to @hiedcareercoach or e-mail sean@higheredcareercoach.com The call-in number is (347) 989-0055. I’ll be tweeting additional quotes and advice from our guests on Friday as well.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Aug 22, 2011 | Higher Education, hiring, Job Search, Student Affairs
In higher education, as in any industry, credentials and certifications are sought after by professionals hoping to get an advantage over their competition. In an interesting post that entered my tweet stream on Friday, Kenny Silva explored the weight we often place on credentials in the hiring process, in contrast to potential. This is especially pertinent at this time of year, when the academic year is beginning, and the hiring season slows to a crawl.
Back when I was working at Penn State, I often found myself in the awkward position of filling a vacancy or two late in the summer. In part, this was due to the area being mostly populated by upper-class students and returning staff. The priority spots in our large residence hall system were to make sure that the first-year areas were adequately staffed first. When approximately half of your 14,000 students are first-year students, and about 4500 of those live in one area, you must have priorities.
Working with first-year students is, in general, more exciting to many staff, because, well...they need you in a different way. It's more validating. Upperclassmen don't get in nearly as much trouble, and mostly, they want to be left alone to do their own thing. So there were several occasions when someone left or was transferred to a new area or got promoted when we had to fill a vacancy post-haste and pronto, and many of the more highly credentialed new hires had already been placed. These are the times when it is especially important to look for potential.
In my time as Assistant Director, I cared more about potential than credentials, and honestly, I still do, because, for the most part, my least credentialed staff were easiest to work with, related better to students, and were more motivated to prove themselves. I always appreciated that perspective, because I have always had to prove myself.
I was the last male resident assistant hired at Clemson during my junior year, and they put me on the top floor of a building where no one ever went unless they had a reason to be there. I went in knowing they expected me to fail and that I had a lot to prove. I made the most of it and went on to win programming awards and have a generally good reputation on campus. Eventually, I made Student Affairs my life's work. Along the way, I met different mentors and colleagues who kept giving me chances. Like a "diamond in the rough," polishing up my portfolio and earning credentials took some time.
When I decided to leave the university setting, I had to sort through the value of becoming credentialed as a certified coach, and recently, as a professional résumé writer. I worked with college students for 15 years, had a master's degree already, and had been coaching young professionals and colleagues on their job search materials and strategy the whole time. I didn't really think I needed a couple more pieces of paper to prove I could do this, but I got them anyway. I did so because that is the way our field works for some people, and I felt that the credentialing would remove some potential obstacles from my path.
Oddly enough, I can't remember a single time I've been practicing when a client even asked about my credentials. Instead, they ask, "How can you help me?" and "What benefits will I see from working with you?" And they weigh these against other options, many of which are free or available at a lower cost. I end up working with many of people who inquire, and when I don't, I know that I haven't distinguished myself in the right way, or shown the value of the relationship. When I do get a new client, it's because they believe I can help them, and because we connected as people who potentially could work well together.
As Silva points out:
"Our ability to succeed in any endeavor, whether it's a business or non-profit, is dictated by potential, not credential. It is only potential energy that can be tapped into in order for us to push forward. If you don’t hire the right people to bring that potential energy into your business, you will not move forward."
I've always told my student leaders aspiring to go straight into student affairs that the time period we are currently in, from mid-August to the end of September, is a great time to look for a job, if you work hard to show your potential. Time and again, this worked for me as a supervisor, and I got some great staff members out of the deal.
If you still have staff vacancies, do yourself and the universe a favor: take a chance on a candidate you have a good gut feeling about. Look for the "diamonds in the rough" and help them learn to shine!
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jul 1, 2011 | Career Skills, Higher Education, interviews, Job Search, Student Affairs, transferable skills
Understanding how skills you have gained in Student Affairs will benefit you in any position is critical if you plan to advance in your career. I serve on the steering committee for AthFest, a non-profit organization that plans the local music and arts festival each summer, the Athens GA Half-Marathon in the Fall, and year-round art and music education events for local children. The festival was last week and I put many of the skills I gained working in Student Affairs to good use.
Candidates will often be asked to give examples of times when they planned a program, dealt with a difficult person or situation, or responded to a crisis. This week, I will give some examples from my recent experiences during AthFest. I will do my best to explain them in a loose P-A-R (Problem-Action-Resolution) style, to emulate the way that candidates should use in their interviews.
Part 3: Crisis Management
One of my favorite questions to ask Residence Life candidates is related to crisis management. Sure, Residence Life is a "generalist" role in many ways, but if we specialize in anything, it's crisis management. The ability to respond quickly and calmly to potentially dangerous situations and ensure the safety of students and staff supersedes everything else. This was a running theme throughout my career. I dealt with suicidal students, guns in the residence halls, a riot, drug dealers, sexual assaults, suicide attempts and completed suicides, power outages, bats in the residence halls, and multiple facility issues. I was trained by the Red Cross in Emergency Shelter Operations and for a while, I was responsible for oversight of Residence Life's Emergency Plan and related training for all the professional staff and RAs. As a result, handling crises comes as a second nature to me.
Good thing, too, because emergencies come on their own schedule, and they don't usually announce themselves ahead of time. This was the case last Friday, when lightning struck a column on the corner of the Trappeze Pub on Washington Street, and rained bricks onto the street and three people below: the manager of the pub, a man on the patio of the neighboring pub, and one of our business vendors.
People were screaming and running away through the rain, and I heard one lady yell to me "You've gotta call the festival! You've gotta call it!' She kept running away, but like most people who handle emergencies, I ran toward the commotion. First, I went to the volunteer area to see if other staff knew what had happened, because it wasn't clear where the lightning had struck. Someone said they heard it had struck Trappeze, so I rushed back, to find gawkers looking up at loose bricks that might fall at any minute, and scavengers (some adult, some children, some drunk, and some just curious) collecting the bricks. I went in and asked Aaron, the Trappeze manager, if he was aware of the situation (he looked confused, which I later learned from him was the result of him being one of the people bricks rained on. We laughed about that, and he asked why I hadn't noticed the cement dust in his hair.) I then told him I would like to barricade the area off, and would try to keep scavengers from stealing bricks. He agreed it was a good idea and thanked me. I went out, got one volunteer to stand in the area and shoo people away, and two others to help me get barricades.
We returned, and I ordered onlookers away, telling them the area was unsafe, and worked with staff and police to secure the area and later, to get signs posted. I made two newspapers, talked to a nice reporter from the Red and Black, and as is common when talking to student reporters, got slightly misquoted, but not badly enough to ask for a retraction. Then I spent the next three hours talking to the bar owner, the people hit by bricks, Athfest central staff and the Police.
Student Affairs Skills Used:
- The ability to remain calm and move quickly into assessing the situation and taking action to ensure safety of people and security of the area first.
- Thinking on my feet about who should know about a situation, and reporting the details to proper authorities.
- Following up about the safety of those involved.
- Answering questions when approached by the media and referring them to the proper persons.
- Having a sense of humor after the fact, and appreciating that the situation could have been worse, but that the response was the best one available at the time.
- Looking forward, I plan to ask the steering committee to debrief the incident and to consider writing up an emergency plan (which I will offer to coordinate.)
Questions for Your Consideration
- Do you have a good example of a time when you handled a crisis?
- What did you do to respond?
- How was the problem resolved?
- What questions are important to ask yourself, when deciding how to respond to a crisis?
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 30, 2011 | Career Skills, Higher Education, Job Search, Student Affairs, transferable skills
Applying transferable skills you have gained in Student Affairs will benefit you in any position as you advance in your career. I serve on the steering committee for AthFest, a non-profit organization that plans the local music and arts festival each summer, the Athens GA Half-Marathon in the Fall, and year-round art and music education events for local children. The festival was last week and I applied many of the skills I gained working in Student Affairs.
Candidates are often asked to give examples of times when they planned a program, dealt with a difficult person or situation, or responded to a crisis. This week, I will give some examples from my recent experiences during AthFest. I will do my best to explain them in a loose P-A-R (Problem-Action-Resolution) style, to emulate the way that candidates should approach describing their transferable skills in their interviews.
Part 2: Dealing with Difficult People and Situations
It probably won't surprise anyone that I encountered the most difficult situations (and the most difficult people) during artist and vendor arrival and departure. The first area I addressed in planning the artist market was to introduce barricade passes for all artists, vendors, and staff, and to explain the rules, and have all of these people fill out a brief web form saying they understood and would comply with the rules before sending them the passes. Barricade duty was a major logjam in the past. This year, it wasn't, and things went very smoothly. I borrowed this idea from the Welcome Week Committee at Penn State, which started doing something similar a few years back to help sort out traffic and help filter it to the appropriate zones and residence halls. I knew everyone wouldn't follow instructions but that many would. The result: smooth move-in and move out for all but a few vendors. (The difficult people were the ones that didn't follow instructions.) Here are a couple of situations I dealt with and how the problems were resolved.
People Parking in the Wrong Area
There are a few universal truths to any parking equation. First, parking is always limited to an amount below the expectation of the people parking. Second, for most event planners, it's also beyond our control, so we get put in the awkward position of apologizing for how things are, because we can't apologize to the person complaining for how unrealistic their expectations are, and even if we could, they would find it insulting.
Some problems I dealt with during the festival:
- People parking in someone else's spot while unloading. In these cases, it wasn't that there wasn't another place for the other person to park. On several occasions, people parked in the assigned booth space of another artist. Imagine the complaints you'd get during arrival if some student went into their room and found someone had parked their VW Beetle on one side of the room while setting up the other side (invariably the one with the bigger closet, or nearer to the window.) Just like I would do when I was in Residence Life, I gently pointed out the issue and asked the offender to move as soon as possible, and the offended party to be patient as the problem was really just a result of congestion, and not of intentional ill-will or a desire to take over their territory.
- People blocking the main entry and fire lane, and abandoning their cars, thereby causing a logjam of angry people. For the most part, people had the barricade passes in their windows and were easy to find, so I found them and asked them to move, or enlisted other staff to help do so. The result: no major delays in loading and unloading, once inside the festival area.
People confused about or unhappy with their booth assignment
Anyone who ever worked in Residence Life can tell you that the most stressful and time-consuming situations that happen on arrival day have to do with assignments. This is also true for festivals. Some examples:
- People being confused about their assignment. I dealt with several artists who couldn't find their spaces, or who moved into the wrong space. Some of these were accidents, due to people misreading the painted and chalked-in lines on the pavement. In these cases, I offered the parties involved the option to trade spots or to have assistance moving their tent, displays and art to the correct location.
- People unhappy about their assignment. One artist was upset about another accidentally taking her spot, and even more unhappy that the other artist's spot was by the porta-potties. Her answer? Pick another spot altogether, and express frustration at our intern. I was called in to speak with her and offered her help to move to either of the assigned spots. She asked why she couldn't move to the third spot, and I told her that I wasn't bringing an uninvolved third party into the scenario. She unhappily accepted help moving, and expressed her frustrations toward me. I explained that I had offered her help, and that if she was unhappy with the options I could give her, I would happily refund her money and help her pack up and leave. This is one of the great differences from Residence Life, where I would have had to refer difficult people like her to my supervisor. How nice would it have been if I'd been able to tell every student who tried to game the system over my 15 years in Residence Life that I'd help them pack and give them a refund for the pleasure of not having to deal with bad behavior and insults? The artist relented and later I apologized anyway, and gave her some free beer tickets, and we were copacetic. You can't do that in Residence Life, either. (But wouldn't it be great?)
Some Take-Aways
- Most people will try to follow directions if you give them ahead of time and make it convenient and easy. The barricade passes were the best example of this. Almost every artist and vendor had theirs and passed through smoothly. Those who didn't were apologetic. This was a nice change from previous years, when artists and vendors got in frequent arguments with the barricade worker. We didn't have a single incident like that this year.
- No matter how much you plan ahead of time and explain something, there will be difficult people who ignore it, don't understand what to do, or simply decide to do their own thing. You can't control what other people do, only how you respond. Those who ignored directions were the cause of most of the issues we experienced. Most of these situations were resolved easily and quickly once I explained them. Those that weren't were resolved later with beer tickets and apologies for the inconvenience (not for the issue itself.)
- It's nice when you can resolve a difficult situation at the lowest possible level of an organization. Remember this during fall arrival and give your student staff and entry-level professionals some latitude. You'll probably be pleased with the results.
Questions for Your Consideration
- Do you have any good examples of times you dealt with difficult people or situations?
- What did you do to resolve these issues?
- What were the results? How was the issue was resolved?
- How do you relate your transferable skills when applying for new positions?
(Amazon aff. link), Dr. Laurel Smith, President of the 
