Brian Arao: I really think it’s time for us from. A field wide perspective and from a leadership perspective to say that’s not an acceptable stance, , because it is going to lead to all kinds of, of problems down the line. , it’s, it’s, there’s no way to do our work in a way that is values aligned if we are, you know, trying to squeeze everything that we can out of people, right?

That’s how we get into, you know, not just burnout, but, burn through. Right. . You know, and I really just really appreciate, you know, our Kirk Anderson for bringing that language into our, , in, in, into the, the vocabulary of higher education and recognizing that kind of a mentality, right?

And participating in that mentality of somehow we’ll do more with less, right? , I would just, I would encourage, right, these managers who are perhaps feeling a pull, understandably. To say something like that or to do something like that is to really think about this idea of burn through, right?

Glenn DeGuzman: Hello, and welcome to a special edition of Student Affairs NOW episode. Today I’m recording from Baltimore, Maryland, and we acknowledge that we are meeting in the ancestral and seated lands to honor all indigenous nations who have cared for and held relationships with this region across generations, even when those relationships were disrupted by colonization.

Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside and adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes multiple days a week now. Find details about this episode or browser archives at studentaffairsnow.com.

I’m your host for today’s episode, Dr. Glenn DeGuzman, and I’m excited to be here to talk with you to introduce this panel and to have them share their perspective on today’s topic. Which is really how are student affairs leaders fostering high performing teams in an era of shrinking budgets and increased cost of living organizational shifts that are occurring in both academic and student affairs side of the house.

This panel will share their advice on how you, as student affairs practitioners can lead with psychological safety, maintaining effectiveness, and inclusion. This episode is sponsored by the Evolve Institute for Higher Education Leadership, courageous Leadership to reimagine the future of higher education.

Brian, Donna, you know a little about this institute just a little bit, right? So let’s meet the panel. I’m gonna have them introduce themselves. I’m gonna start with Helena. Hello, I’m Helena Gardner, and I serve as the Director of Residence Education and Housing Services at Michigan State University.

Dawn Lee: Hey everybody. So excited to be here with my fellow panelists in Glenn and for all of you out there, hello. Thank you for joining us.

My name is Dawn Lee. They pronouns. I’m the founder and principal of Abundance Strategies Collective. Also a consulting partner with Evolve Institute for Higher Education, which I’ll talk about in a second. As a change management consultant in higher education, I do a lot of work with senior leaders and organizations who are dealing with and trying to manage really hard change right now.

And I help organizations. Create plans that don’t forget about the human beings that are being impacted by change. Lots of really good work right now happening and do a lot of also executive coaching and interim roles with Brian. We are part of Evolve Institute for Higher Education, where we offer leadership coaching journeys for senior leaders, emerging senior leaders, and anybody aspiring for leadership and.

We’ll probably talk more about that later.

Glenn DeGuzman: Yeah. I’m gonna talk about you as a as a sponsor later too. Yes. You’re gonna get like double, triple coverage in this episode. Yes. That’s awesome.

Brian Arao: We did not dye these seats in this podcast. I promise. I promise. Yes. We didn’t. Hi everyone. My name’s Brian Arao.

He, him his pronouns. I am the president and founder of Brave Space Leadership. And through that company I work with very talented, very accomplished leaders of diverse teams who have hit some kind of tension, right? Hit some kind of a obstacle in their success. And as a coach, as a consultant, as a facilitator, first of all, I help them figure out what the heck is going on here what are the actual roots of the challenges you’re experiencing?

And then together we design solutions. And strategies that are aligned to overcoming those obstacles, to getting back to that place of positive relationships, high trust and high performance for their organizations. And I came to that work through a 23 year career in higher education. Campus-based higher education leader.

I’m still in higher education. And but now I’m really happy to get to partner with leaders at many different campuses as well as outside of higher education who are interested in these same kinds of leadership challenges.

Helena Gardener: Great.

Glenn DeGuzman: All right, let’s dive into these questions, and if you can pass the fuzzy little mic to Helene.

I’m gonna have you start with our first question. For those of you are listening and not watching this on YouTube, we have lavalier mics, which should come across clearly as we look at like the the little monitor there. So hopefully, when we, when you hear us saying, oh, pass the mic, we’re passing around two little lavalier mics.

So Felina, let’s talk about Evolv talks about courageous leaders, and we need a lot of that these days, right? Yes. I think for me personally and for many colleagues I’ve spoken to departments are just facing some serious changes and cuts. So when the department, for example is facing like a huge budget cut or a staffing cut.

What is the first audit a department or divisional leader should conduct to ensure the core mission remains intact while managing the expectations of their people? Thank you for this question. ’cause I do think it takes a lot of courage. It just absolutely takes a lot of courage to think this through.

Where I’m at right now, fortunately we are not experiencing budget cuts, but we are being asked to be really good stewards because the money is low, the funds are tied and we have a lot more. That we need to put out, then we bring in. But I think something to really think about with what’s core to your mission is what can you afford not to lose?

And to think about it from that angle. I’m learning today, like as a campus space higher ed practitioner. Thank you for that language. One of the most signif significant things we do is we create the life of the mission. So we’re responsible for what the students are asking for from these institutions, and that’s where you start.

What don’t you wanna lose? Because you need to keep that good name, you need to keep that good energy. And then you think about, what do you need to operate? And unfortunately, depending on how your budget is set up, you might look at it, it’d say you’re looking at a pie graph, and you’ll see that the most significant part is your staffing.

And thinking critically about the impact of a cut to an operation. What it does to the mission, and then what is it gonna do to the people, because they’re gonna start feeling that, and that feels like life security.

And unfortunately, sometimes that’s where we first go to think to cut, if that’s the biggest part of your pie the needle doesn’t swing.

The needle doesn’t swing if you don’t do that. So it becomes difficult to look at what do we sacrifice? And for me, I think that looks like it’s a hard call, but it looks like redesigning. I think more now than ever, it is a critical time for us to partner, to be collaborative, to look across campus, to see, where are we doing and similar things, and how do we do those things together so we can stretch those dollars.

We need to look at, I don’t know I had a journey with a residential curricular program. What parts of that adjust? So we keep the main elements out of it, but what do we change? We joked earlier, before you saw us really cute on camera to know that it can be really easy to nickel and dime and look for $5.

Let’s pretend $5 here, $5 there, and think that’s gonna add up to the significant cut, and that’s not gonna sustain you for a long time. And so really it comes down to what can you afford not to lose? How does that focus on people? How does that focus on your experience? Because you wanna be found whole.

When the cuts mellow back out. Yeah. That’s real. I think that some of the things you’ve mentioned, making those tough decisions Yeah. Sometimes structurally I know that I’ve seen including my own department going through reorganization and changes and shifts. Yes. And so it happens. Yes. And I, and to do that, sometimes we’re looking at adding new positions or changing new positions, and that starts to impact your human resource.

And you also need that. Through this journey. And that’s a perfect lead into the next question. Yeah. I’d like to direct it to Brian. So yeah, so you have these changes and shifts at a structural organization level, but then there’s the people part, right? And how do you coach managers and supervisors to move away from the, we hear this all the time, but doing more with less mantra, which, which we know is gonna lead the burnout. And how do we get ’em to go to doing less, but maybe a better approach or like how would you interpret that or how would you approach that?

Brian Arao: Yeah. First thing, I think it’s really just important to name right. And I I can do this a little more freedom now as a not campus-based, higher education practitioner, right?

But it just really isn’t acceptable to ask people to do more with less or to do the same, even with less, right? That’s really literally not possible. And it has been the ethos of our field for a long time. Ever since I’ve been a part of it. To have that kind of approach in the ebbs and the flows of budget.

But I really think it’s time for us from. A field wide perspective and from a leadership perspective to say that’s not an acceptable stance because it is going to lead to all kinds of problems down the line. It’s, there’s no way to do our work in a way that is values aligned if we are, trying to squeeze everything that we can out of people, right?

That’s how we get into, not just burnout, but burn through. And I really just really appreciate our Kirk Anderson for bringing that language into our in, in, into the vocabulary of higher education and recognizing that, that kind of a mentality, right?

And participating in that mentality of somehow we’ll do more with less, right? I would just, I would encourage these managers who are perhaps feeling a pull, understandably. To say something like that or to do something like that is to really think about this idea of burn through, right?

Which asks us to think not just about the individual experience of burnout but also to say what are the practices and the policies and the cultures that we perpetuate that burn through people, right? And this is one of them, right? And when we say it, when we just shrug our shoulders and say we’re just gonna have to figure out how to do all the same mission critical things we were doing before, both less resources.

Yeah. So I think keeping that perspective in mind will be helpful in terms of keeping the long term view of, there’s no way for me to ask people to do that and have it pan out. It might seem that might work, but it really won’t, right? Yeah. All the evidence is there that what will actually happen, right?

Is that people will leave people won’t stay in the field. They don’t have to stay in this field, right? And so if we continue to treat people in this way, that the ultimately sends a message that they are disposable, that’s where we’re gonna end up. So I, so in some ways I’m just, I’m really encouraging people to lean into this idea more of, what Hena was talking about earlier of, let’s be really clear about what things we’re gonna stop doing.

And, and I don’t, I’m not saying that ’cause that’s easy to do necessarily. But you must do it right. You must ask yourself the hard question and you must be also prepared as a leader to talk upward and laterally to people about this is why we’re gonna stop doing this.

Because we cannot actually sustain the same thing we were doing before. We’re gonna prioritize as much as possible. Yeah. The things that are most important, right? But in this time, right where our resources are constrained in this way. We have to make some hard choices about what we’re not gonna do so that we can continue to be here doing what is most important.

Glenn DeGuzman: And that, that makes a lot of sense. How often we use it, like we ask people to just grind it out. Or then we just, like you mentioned, burn through them. And I think that, and we have people who, for whatever, for, why they came to the field, their passions, their love.

They just want to just keep giving and giving. And it. Plays out in teams. And so Don, if I can, we can pass the fuzzy mic to Don ’cause Yeah. The question I have for you is, how do we work with teams to create, rituals or workflows where and if you’ve experienced or seen teams that are just been resilient to the, to what oftentimes is a longer period of time multi, multi-year, multi semester periods of just financial constraints, which does impact.

The type of resources and the type of things that, that leaders and managers can provide their teams to help sustain the, their morale or to sustain their wellness or balance. What can we do?

Dawn Lee: Yeah. You know what? My two colleagues here have already offered so much wisdom, right? So folks at home, you can play it back and apply a lot of what they said to teams already in addition to what they shared.

I would say let’s not forget that the folks who are in teams are the folks who are on ground doing this work. They know what it takes to do this work. So if there’s going to be any. Reductions in resources, any changes at all? The change needs to include them. They are the experts in their own work.

And then the folks who are doing the on ground work, do the best you can, I would say, to understand what’s being asked of you, if you are being included or tapped to give your opinion on budget reductions reprioritization and things like that. I think that basic thing really gives teams a sense of, say it reminds ’em of their agency in the work and above everything else.

It helps them feel like their voice, their opinion, and their work is seen and it matters, and their work is visible and people actually care about them on a very human basis Now, in terms of morale, right? This is where hard decisions have to be made. For managers who are working with teams to make these changes, be the manager and help them reprioritize what is most important, help them understand and articulate that the work isn’t just gonna spread and you’re just gonna work harder and longer.

There are things that are gonna need to be put on the back burner just for now. But this is again, an opportunity to create a plan with them. And one final piece to morale is that we are seeing a lot of burn through with leadership transitions for vacancies, for people who are lead, leaving at the leadership levels, and then also people who are just leaving.

Teams because the work’s been too great. That’s also a really great opportunity to do some shared planning, to talk about how the work is just gonna temporarily shift, and if you missed it, a lot of that just grounded and open communication. Really open and authentic communication.

Glenn DeGuzman: Don, I’m gonna stay with you, so hold on to that little mic.

Okay. I think one of the things that you mentioned in the beginning of your your response was including. The frontline, including them in these conversations. And oftentimes budget cuts can disproportionately affect entry level staff. And that often comes means those with marginalized identities, what are structural safeguards leaders can put in place to ensure that lean doesn’t become exclusionary.

Yeah.

Dawn Lee: Yeah. So that’s a really great question. And I just came from nhe, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. And we talked about a lot of this, the impact of these cuts, right? And people are definitely feeling it. And I think a big pain point that people, I think, have was talking about is not only the not being included in these decisions, but these decisions being made without an understanding of how these decisions are in connection to the values, the mission of the organization.

One big aspect when you’re talking about making reductions in these areas is that you have to make sure that you’re continuing to fulfill the mission and the goals of the organization as they relate to our disproportionately impacted and our historically marginalized students. There’s no way you’re gonna meet your institutional goals.

Even if you have to pull back on DEI programs, there’s no way in general, because this impacts students across the board. So we can’t look at these cuts just as disproportionately impacting these marginalized student populations. These cuts are actually going to impact all students, whether students recognize it or not.

So in making these decisions that have to be aligned with institutional goals, institutional mission, and institutional values.

Glenn DeGuzman: Outstanding. I’m gonna direct the next question about mentoring in connection to Helena when I was talking to some peers and colleagues at a department level. So I’m in residential life and I talked to some residential life departments across the board.

It seems like pd, professional development seems to be the first thing that gets cut. How can managers creatively continue to provide growth and mentorship opportunities? Yeah. For their student staff, for their early career professionals, mid-level managers, and so far Yeah. It’s interesting ’cause when that professional development is cut, that’s like that bonus add you get, right?

That’s what we get to give our staff, if you will, to allow them to continue development, to develop and pour back in. And when that’s missing. It feels like you’re there for labor. You’re just there for labor. I think if you have to cut financially, you have to do that. But I think some key things we learned.

A few difficult years ago when we just had to do work differently was to think about one. I think professional organizations did a fine job and continue to do, offering virtual opportunities or opportunities where many folks can be in space. For shared learning. I think that’s just really important.

I’m so glad we ever did that, but how can we do that more and. As a leader, how are we looking for that to pour back into our team? I think a lot of times we put our staff on a journey to find their own professional development, but at this point if it’s gonna be a financial cut and we still want to pour in and we still want it to be poured back, we need to be finding those opportunities.

Small things like book clubs, right? If we know that there, there’s like scholarly work out there. That is really gonna help folks grow and understand the times, the work so that when we come out of these things, ’cause I’m hopeful, then we can still be ready to move forward. That’s there, we’re right here and there’s people all around us making the time to have personal conversations, one-on-one conversations to connect.

You all didn’t see it, but I got some really good help from Brian just a bit ago. And just in the three to four seconds of that conversation, making the time to see people.

To hear people, professional development doesn’t have to look like packing up and traveling. That, and that’s what’s most important.

Yeah, I like to talk about it. It’s really cheesy, but opportunities like, here’s the story. Become a great professional development journey to listen to. The, it’s the whole gamut. Sage professionals, incoming professionals. But we do that podcast as a way to hear stories of the work. Yeah. So that we can continue to help inspire, to continue to help reflect, because that’s professional development.

And I would offer in trying times, any one of us, sometimes me twice on Tuesdays. We’re ready to walk away. Can I ask you to, yeah. So I love what you just said. Yeah. Because I think that here’s the story is a phenomenal way to just hear a different perspective and take from some phenomenal people. Thank you. It also ties into psychological safety. Yes. And I wanna go back and lean on this a little because psych psychological safety for teams. Is critical. It’s really critical. It’s so important, and especially during these times. Yes. And so how can a supervisor maintain.

A safe and transparent team culture. Yeah. When they themselves sometimes don’t have all the answers. Yeah. And Dawn hinted at it, but it’s that collaboration.

It’s really important to bring folks to the table. Think about where, how far you can go. There’s a whole continuum. How far can you go when you collaborate?

How much manager, how much team do you engage? But when we think about psychological safety, I do this training. Twice in three times a month within our division, and it’s based on Timothy Clark’s work where there’s stages to psychological safety and I’ll just name ’em quickly, including includer learner, contribute and challenge, and the image we use in the training steps.

And one folks feel included. They can take that next step to be in the space. They can learn in the space. They can think in the space. They can be in the space. Oftentimes when we’re talking about this collaboration, somebody knows it all. And if you don’t know how to do it, and if you don’t have the tips, you’re not actually engaging.

Folks need the opportunity to feel like they can challenge and they can contribute. All of us are dealing with what’s happening in the real world. We’re dealing what’s happening in our workspaces, and if we can’t trust in the space that we have a, the belonging that our expertise, that our wisdom and our voice are safe, then we’re just withdrawing.

And that can change, right? As something new comes along, you slide in and out. But anytime you’re taking that walk down the step, you’re moving further and further away from feeling safe where you are. And as I said earlier, if we wanna be found whole on the other side, we need to be ensuring that collaboration is happening.

That wisdom that you speak to, that knowledge that people have, we need that. And I tie that right into professional development because that’s a part of helping folks grow, is reminding them that they’re safe. To engage. They’re safe to do the work. They’re safe to contribute their talents. And when they don’t wanna do that is exactly what we said.

They pack up and take their business elsewhere. Sometimes we see that passion leave the field and in a very scary way. I think if we look across our organizations, our national organizations, and see how leadership is changing that’s not a criticism. But we’re starting to see the movement.

Out of the field. Because I would offer folks aren’t feeling psychologically safe to do this work in these times. So it goes hand in hand if you don’t have the money and you don’t have the people. I’m just not sure. I’m just not sure.

Dawn Lee: Yeah. I’ll just offer two things. And I think what you said is so critical for senior leaders.

To pay attention to. In addition to that I was an interim a VP and Dean of students.

And I was hired to create a new portfolio also during a time of leadership transition. All of those departments I came into that area, they were incredibly, change fatigue. Yes. Exhausted from internal vacancies.

Really afraid of what was gonna happen with all of the change. And my job was exactly what you said, right? Was to make sure that. There was psychological safety, that there was plenty of time, that I put in to hear their concerns. Not to reassure them not to over promise, but being there with ’em is incredibly helpful.

That was incredibly helpful. The other thing that I got really feedback on that I’ll also, add was this is where being very strategic about communicating more frequently was also very helpful. Yes. So you don’t have to have a whole list of changes or decisions down the line before you communicate with your teams.

I took it upon myself at the end of every week on a Friday. I would leave a voice note on in Google. Chat. We had a team, in Google Chat just to give them just small updates of what’s going on and then to also let them know ways that their work was continuously being recognized through the transition and the change and all of that was part of even recognizing the professional development that they were doing during the time many of ’em led.

Training sessions within the institution. Even small things like that really help create psychological safety and keep morale up with teams during times of transition.

Glenn DeGuzman: Yeah. And just add this thought that I, it just lives in my mind, rent free. It’s a little cheesy, but humans just wanna be right.

Humans wanna be found being, that’s all. And so it’s so important to connect and remember through any crisis that. We know people exist. And it, and if they’re not feeling loved and cared for, the budget cut is, the money’s not the only thing you’re losing. Yeah. Yeah. I want to take advantage of the fact that we have some really smart people on this panel.

So I’m gonna direct this to like for all of you, and I’m gonna have Brian go ahead and start and kick this question off. But from a, when you’re consulting, when you’re providing consultation to colleagues and to leaders in particular. From an external perspective, what is the most common blind spot student affairs departments miss when they are trying to reorganize or trying to shift framework or with their teams, particularly with all this pressure.

Brian Arao: It’s an excellent question, and my answer actually goes back to what my colleagues are talking about in the last, in their last back and forth here.

And I think a lot of it has to do with communication and transparency. I think. Most people would listen to what my colleagues shared, right? And say, oh yeah, absolutely. Of course. Yeah. You’ve gotta do all these things. You’ve gotta talk with your people, you’ve gotta communicate, right?

It is much easier said than done. And in part because so much of the messaging that we will often get in leadership roles is you can’t actually tell people a lot of this stuff. I know certainly there are many points in my career as a campus-based practitioner in really senior roles where the message I was getting from others in my organization was, you can’t tell people what you’re working on here.

Yeah. And I believed it. And what I wanna offer to people who are watching this right now is be careful with that. Maybe slow down maybe really think about, is it possible for me to to say, wait, I don’t, I’m not so sure about that. Particularly if you’re feeling like there’s a clear values rub here, right?

We can’t say that we value transparency and communication, but then say that we’re not gonna do it, or, oh, only so far, right? And I think there’s a real need as a leader to trust more that our teams actually can hold a lot more than we will often give them credit for, right? I don’t think that there’s any new professional in higher education right now who’s paying any attention, who is saying, oh yeah, there’s no budget problems.

Our leaders have no budget problems to deal with. They know, they, they know exactly what the, like yes, there’s big budget problems and we’re like, gosh, we really are relying on our leaders to make good decisions here. And so I think right when we don’t. Then engage, right? These folks in part, as part of the process of saying, listen, we’ve got some real problems we’re trying to resolve here, right?

And to be able to say, sometimes, we need to make some difficult decisions, right? So we’re not gonna be able to do things the same way we did them before. That’s gonna be hard. And, and to engage them as thought partners in that conversation. I think one of the biggest blind spots truly is that’s just a these are kinds of engagement that we somehow don’t think that we have access to.

And actually it’s really important for us to create that space, to do that because that’s really what’s going to what’s gonna be the difference between saying we want a psychologically safe environment. And actually having one. Where we can demonstrate. We’re gonna, really be in communication about stuff, right? Where you can tell me like the concerns and critiques you have about maybe where I’m landing on, this is where I think we need to be in terms of some of these decisions that I need to make based on my role.

And to be able to hold frustration from that and not take it on. So personally that your response is to lash out. Or to explain to them this is why you’re wrong, or these are all the pressures that I’m under. Or to shut down. And just take it all into oneself.

I think that we focus so often, and again, thinking about this idea of blind spots, we focus so often on constraints. And constraints are real. I’m not suggesting we pretend that they’re not there. But when we are. Hyperfocused on them instead of just being conscious of them. Then all we think about is we can’t do this, we can’t do that.

We can’t do this other thing. Instead of course, there are some limits to what we can do. And even with these constraints in place. What else is possible? What else could we do? What haven’t we done before that we might need to do now given that these constraints are in place, very different things can emerge when you ask yourself those kinds of questions.

And so I think you really have to create the space by not having that hyper focus, right? Only on the, what you can’t do in order to be able to really create the spaciousness to imagine what you could. Yeah.

Glenn DeGuzman: That’s so good.

Brian Arao: That’s

Glenn DeGuzman: so good. Wow. Other blind spots you can think of? Go ahead and

Helena Gardener: go.

Glenn DeGuzman: I started this with not having budget cuts within our unit, but there definitely happening across the institution and it becomes moments to listen. To be of service. I think that’s one of the glories of an auxiliary unit is how can we be of service? Where can we swoop in? How can we help?

Like we, we do it with, when asked, we support many departments, but what it’s a great opportunity is to, oh, that was, that came to me so cheesy is to hear the stories, right? Like you, you wanna hear the stories and look for opportunities and sometimes, like I reflected upon that answer because a blind spot can be, it’s not happening to you.

So like that is the reflection I was having as you were speaking. And so immediately what that means is it’s happening to someone else. So again, like being of service, being in partnership, being in community I definitely think collaborating is more important now than it has ever been.

We are all doing the same work for students. All of us are doing that. So if my partners across the way need something, how can I be helpful in that? If I have experienced or experienced from another campus or different institution, bringing that in to be helpful with, opening up creativity as you speak to what is the can, how could it look?

It’s fascinating because some of the things either need to be skilled up or scaled up.

And it may seem like it’s impossible, but what do you take from this nugget to be able to do it this way?

Helena Gardener: Yeah.

Glenn DeGuzman: And then what are some lessons learned That you don’t have to reinvent the awful wheel.

You don’t have to try it if you know that it doesn’t work, like it’s awful wheel, you don’t have to do that again. But it comes from, I think, that blind spot that comes with the inability to listen or the inability to realize it’s not the first time. And I think what we’re seeing in particular.

With DEI programs it’s sometimes even pausing long enough to know that this isn’t the first time marginalized beings have been under attack, and it won’t be the last time, unfortunately. We may wake up one day and I’m, I learned something different, but what do we learn from experience? Yeah.

I’ll even add personally, I think, one of the things I have found to help me and I obviously have the privilege of having connected with so many people just through this podcast, for example. Absolutely. Absolutely. People naturally, so I’ve oftentimes to help figure out my blind spots is just to talk to my peers and colleagues, not just within the ucs.

Also maybe across the PAC 12. Yeah. Or people who I’ve interviewed Yes. Or have done panels with Hey, I know that, you need thoughts on this. Yes. And like I hear some nuggets, some really beautiful nuggets of oh, it’s something I didn’t think about. So I know that helps me with some of my blind spots as well.

Yeah. Like we’re a massive housing program in Michigan State. And I have a luxury of having colleagues all over the nation that I’ve interfaced with. And even if it may on the surface appear that their are programs smaller. If they had the ability to do something, then that’s where the skill and scale up comes from.

What did you do there that now I can imagine how to do it here. So I think that’s really important. I think that’s really important. Any other action, actual advice for, let’s say mid-level managers or folks who are leading smaller teams? Is there like a one high, this is a really interesting question, but one high impact, zero cost action they can take like this week or this month to help their teams.

Yeah.

Dawn Lee: Can do you want? Okay. Yeah. I’ll connect it to our last question in terms of blind spot, right? There’s a no cost way. Yeah. To determine what’s needed for change. This is both for individuals, senior leaders teams. Oh, okay. Alright. In the change management arena, there’s a notion called change readiness.

Okay. And all that is asking yourself. Yourself and thinking about others. Are people ready for change? Are teams ready for change? Is the institution ready for change? And there’s, if you Google change readiness, there’s a lot of different tools out there. For me, it’s really simple, right?

Do folks have the awareness? That change needs to happen. Knowledge of what needs to change and how needs to change, how things need to change, right as it pertains to their areas, right? The resources for property change to happen, and then the actual skills it takes to do the actual change. You can do this at any time, especially folks out there, senior leaders, where you’re like, I think it’s a good idea if you sit yourself down.

Just take a moment. Sit yourself down and ask yourself, are you ready for that change? And then think about. Are your teams ready for that change? What is it gonna take? This is also when you do change readiness, self-assessment and you combine that with scenario planning, all the different kinds of change you wanna see happen, right?

You prevent yourself from making very bad decisions. And you also get your teams ready, right? And you begin to see what your blind spots are. Takes you no money. No cost. It, it’s helpful when you hire a consultant, but you know what? You can do that yourself too.

Glenn DeGuzman: That’s amazing. We are believe it or not, we’re almost out of time and this is Jennifer first now. So after every conversation, I always like to ask the panel. We ask this to all panels, and you’ve got this question before. What are your final thoughts after having this conversation?

What are you thinking? What’s troubling you? Or still pondering or just whatever. Anything that you want to talk about as it relates to just today. We’re in Baltimore, we’re at a CPA 2026, so I’ll do popcorn here. Does everyone wanna go first?

Brian Arao: I’m like, I’m full up, right? There’s so many great ideas that are like brimming right now, right? I’d, I think the thing that I’m really left with this conversation that I’ll continue to think about right is just really the importance I think in this moment of of creating new ways of being and doing and leading in higher education in particular in this moment.

I think you could make the argument that old ways of leading and being, and. Weren’t very good either, right? Or they had their limitations, but those limitations weren’t felt quite so acutely as they are in this moment. And 2026 is rough, right? It hits different. And so I think where I’m, left with is I’m thinking again as we often do in the Evolve Institute about the words of two amazing leaders, right? Uni Ko Chiama and Grace Lee Boggs Koyama, who told us Tomorrow’s world is yours to build. And Gracely Boggs who told us, we are the leaders we’ve been waiting for, right?

And they sound good. Everybody loves them, and they’re really poignant for me right now. And because I think right that a lot of what we’re talking about today is we’re really inviting leaders to say, be the leaders that you’re waiting for, right? Tomorrow’s what is yours to build, right?

So there’s not going to be some force outside of you that tells you this is the right answer, right? You and everyone around you right are the ones who are gonna figure that out. And you can do it. You really can do it, right? And there’s folks out there and, internal to your own organizations who can help you with that.

So I just really I wanna invite people to really lean into that idea of what is next, right? For our field hasn’t been invented yet. It’s up to us to do that and to view that as an opportunity.

Glenn DeGuzman: Thank you.

I’m so encouraged, so I understand like that feeling you’re having and I think when I think about, we’re here today in Baltimore, and when Glen and I approached each other just a bit ago a former staff person IS. Came up to me. It was a great moment having seen them since I left the campus I was on and we instantly engaged in a how are you conversation that went into a mentoring conversation.

Where are things that what advice do I have? And I think something that we can always do, which is again, why I love doing here, the story so much, is to pause and listen. That is with those, we lead with those we have led in the past. With someone in the bathroom.

Pause and listen to where people are.

I think I’m a heart leader and that sometimes can feel like it’s not focused on the operational pieces of it, but I think now more than ever, we all need to be cared on and loved on. And so really it’s pausing and listening and being comfortable. And uncomfortable with what you hear because all of its assessment, it’s all a story.

If I’m learning what someone is experiencing on a different campus, is an opportunity for me to think about what I might be doing, how I might be impacting someone as a leader, or what might be happening around me because we’re all going through this season that we’re in, and so I just, I really, I don’t think that we give enough credit to how we can.

Consequently help each other. I think we, that, that’s it for me is what I’m leaving with, is just the pause long enough to listen and hear and to mean it, just to be present in it.

It’s so busy, it’s so hard and there is no outcomes. We’re not gonna get any ROIs on that. Yeah. We’re not gonna be able to do quantitative assessment on what it looked like to pause and listen.

But what I would want for me in having someone pause and listen is that, that, that keeps me one more step from burn through.

It’s just one more step. Even if it’s just a slight pullback, it’s an opportunity for me to remember who I am, that there are people out here doing it. That there are people out here who care and then we’re not alone.

And so like that to me is where wisdom comes from. It is from those personal interactions that we pause and we sit still with, because the busyness of our work. We learned that the natural parts of us are here to be in community, nothing less, nothing more. And all of us here made a conscious choice to make our earnings, our livings off of being in community.

And so we gotta sit with that, right? Like it moves so fast, we think it’s work and get it done. But what we are here to do, this is people work. This is hard work. We are taking care of thousands of people.

Thousands of people in this building are being cared for right now. That shapes the future.

And ultimately for me, that’s how generations that come from my being have an opportunity to exist differently. And so when I do this work, it’s really for the people and all this stuff is what it takes to do that. I don’t know, that’s what I’m sitting with right now is, learning in my sessions, but to listen and to really walk past people and say hello, just walk past ’em and say hello.

Dawn Lee: Yes. Yeah, I just have something really quick and I’m just gonna look into the camera to say this, right? So all of us I know, for those of you who are feeling like your work does not matter, I wanna say to you directly, your work matters. Your work matters, and I’m saying this to you because right now you’re getting all kinds of messages about how your work doesn’t matter.

Resources being taken away, your work matters, and. I’ve been in higher education now for about, about 23 years. And we are in a season of change. And I just encourage you to seek the wisdom of those who came before you, who have survived seasons of change, right? And also to read and be in community and listen to podcasts, read books, things like that of folks who are thinking about.

Using their imagination and imagining a different higher education.

This is the time to do that. But your work matters. And I just wanna say that to you. Your work matters. And those of us, we see you. We see you.

Glenn DeGuzman: Wow. That’s really good. That’s really good. Huge thank you to the panelists today, Dr.

Helena Gardner. Dr. Brian Ra, Dr. Don Lee. Thank you for joining me and just sharing your wisdom. I know you have busy conference schedule, so I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day. Thank you, Glen. That

Helena Gardener: was a thank you.

Glenn DeGuzman: This was great. Was

Helena Gardener: an amazing facilitator. Yeah.

Glenn DeGuzman: Oh my goodness. Yeah, these conversations are important to all of us, and so to the viewers on YouTube and to listeners online, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I wanna thank of course Nan Ambrosey, our excellent producer who puts us all together seriously I know. We, she is an amazing person. Our sponsor, two hap half this panel is our sponsor, right? The Evolve Institute for Higher Education Learning.

Doctors, Brian Arao, Dawn Lee and Keith Edwards are incredible and seasoned experts. And lead the Evolve Institute for Higher Education, which offers leadership coaching journeys for executives, emerging executives, and emerging leaders, as well as specific leading for equity focused cohort. If you are ready to evolve your leadership team or invest in your own personal leadership, connect with them.

Talk about in-person, hybrid or online modalities to evolve your leadership. Lastly, I just wanna say I just wanna close really about, as a member of the Student Affairs team along with Alina here. We are very honored to be here in Baltimore this year. We received one of the greatest surprises when we were told that we were gonna be the recipients of the 2026 A CPA contribution to higher education award.

Yeah, that’s, who would’ve thought, who would’ve thought that when we started this in October of 2020 it was a passion project. It really was a passion project and we just watched this grow and then all of a sudden, here’s our story emerge. And that to me celebrates the heart and the soul of what it means to be a student affairs professional and to just hear those stories.

And then, and now current campus context, which has become so real and so important, it’s like real time platform to analyze. The stuff that is happening in our country and impacting higher education. And I, it’s so important and critical for higher education leaders, student affairs leaders to pay attention to these issues because we have to make decisions and tough decisions.

Yeah. So again, thank you for listening. If you are out there, thank you for helping us grow our subscriber list. We have, I’m just. It’s mind boggling to see how many downloads and how many people are watching us. Yes. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know I enjoyed facilitating it, so this is great.

Thank you again and I’ll see you next time. Take care everybody.

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