So I, so I’m a student athlete, for example. My institution has a, a definition. Mmy team o- ma- has a definition maybe, but my sport does, so there’s three. My state does. Mm-hmm. And all of those may disagree. And not, not necessarily disagree, but some may be very specific, some may be very vague. And then on top of that, now we have a federal definition. Now, uh, that’s not an argument that we shouldn’t have, uh, things spelled out in, in, in different ways, but it, it certainly can create confusion. And I think what’s that, uh, that has, has created and, and has been challenging for us in the hazing prevention space is that- It’s led to a, um, how do we make sure that we’re meeting the letter of the law? How do we make sure that we’re sort of checking this box through what compliance is, and not moving towards commitment as a prevention system, uh, to be able to cr- actually create cultural change? So the way we frame prevention, um, through Charge for Change is it’s about changing the condition that allows the behaviors to continue.

Keith Edwards: Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Keith Edwards. Hazing has claimed at least one student life nearly every year since 1959. Today’s guests have spent years asking a harder question, not why does it happen, but why do our responses keep failing? They are authors of Charge for Change, a new report from Penn State’s Timothy J.

Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research, and they bring together decades of scholarship, new national data, and a clear-eyed framework for what it actually takes to move from compliance to commitment. I’m so glad each of you are here. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in, alongside, or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs.

We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse the archives at studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is sponsored by Evolve. Evolve offers four leadership coaching journeys designed to expand capacity and build capabilities, empowering courageous leadership to transform institutions and reimagine the future of higher education.

Let’s get to this conversation today and each of our guests. Patrick, let’s begin with you. Tell us a little bit about you and your work in this area.

Patrick Biddix: Thanks. My name is Patrick Bittix. I’ve been in student affairs since, oh gosh 2003 at Washington University. I’ve taken a few turns since then and have landed at the University of Tennessee.

I’ve been here for 15 years mostly as a faculty member, most recently transitioned to staff. I work in analytics here now. Relative to this work, I’ve focused, most of my career is focused res- as a researcher on student success and assessment more recently now in organizational change. So I largely look at how people use data and in this case, prevention strategies to improve student outcomes and create more effective, in this case, safer, but more largely more effective learning environments.

Keith Edwards: Janae, how about you?

Jhenai Chander: Awesome. I’m glad to be here with you. Janae Chandler. I currently serve as the vice president for research policy and student success here at NASPA, the student affairs administrators in higher education. So we’re the home association for those are in, who in, who are in student affairs.

I started my higher ed career in academic advising, so working with students as actually an academic advisor for upper division students at Florida State University, and I was really intrigued about the experiences of our transfer students and the ways we did or did not support them. And so I pivoted to the community college space in advising, and that led me into state policy, which led me then into federal policy work.

And so now I’m here bringing my practitioner, my research and policy lenses here at NASPA to help all of our student affairs professionals in the field.

Keith Edwards: Awesome. Glad you’re here. And Stevan

Stevan Veldkamp: All right. Janae’s introduction had me thinking, rethinking my introduction ’cause I’m a transfer student-

and a community college grad and a first-generation college student, all those things. But Steve Vellekamp twenty-five years of working and developing our students in the co-curricular space, advising student organizations, and then more recently, a deep dive into the prevention research. And with a definitely a practical lens and that practitioner lens for those years of working with students and student organizations.

And excited to be here and excited for this exact conversation ’cause I think it’s extremely timely with the passing of the Stop Campus Hazing Act and then all the major opportunities that we have. So thank you, Keith.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. Welcome. The Charge for Change is the project that kind of is the impetus for this and the work that is coming off of that.

So how did this project come to be? And Stevan, we’re gonna have you take the lead on this.

Stevan Veldkamp: Yeah. So in the wake of tragedies, especially the twenty seventeen tragedies, the series of hazing deaths that occurred. And then from that, I would say some national conversations sprung up some nationwide and three in particular, that kind of presidents provosts, trustees, closed-door meetings a major NASPA initiative with the Association of Fraternity and Sorority Advisors in twenty nineteen, the fall of twenty nineteen.

And a lot of great opinions and a lot of great important conversations. But we thought to, and that we needed to approach this through an empirical lens and dig into what the research has stated. And and so we did a deep dive and actually a repeating cycle of a monograph and a deep dive into the literature, and then we produced a new direction series out of that in twenty twenty-four.

And then from that we kept honing that and really looking at from an empirical space, what is going to prevent hazing deaths. And then from that, just hazing and not just the aggravated and serious hazing, but all forms of hazing that we’ve dug ourselves into. And so that liter- that repeating cycle of literature reviews really identified the approach that we wanted to take.

And and so– And then secondly, the a-and we really need to honor the work of NIAAA’s two thousand and two Call to Action report. It is the model for the Charge for Change. And in fact, we we did it twenty-four years to the date that it was authored to honor that work. And so all those researchers and those fantastic thinkers of what happened in twenty…

two thousand and two for hazardous drinking and again, that’s the charge being honoring that work and extending that work really. And so that’s the story behind the project.

Keith Edwards: And Patrick, what would you wanna add to this origin story?

Patrick Biddix: I, a little bit of everything, I think which is how I come at most problems from the-

from the start. So I, one part of it is just working with the Piazza Center. I’d had some exposure with a couple of researchers that, whose work I’d encountered many times. Rob Turrisi, Jason Kilmer, Dolores Samini, Nicole Scaglioni, like folks that I just had worked with in a variety of different spaces or at least engaged with their research or, assigned it to my students or something.

And the more we kept tackling this problem or this recurring problem of hazing came up, the more I just couldn’t get away from this is a bigger problem than a singular thing that we should really be tackling. There’s gotta be models out here in reframing this. And I have three children, and I was steeped at one point in some of the bullying literature, and it felt really it felt really aligned with this work.

And then the alcohol research felt really aligned with this work, and then what’s the common denominator? It’s, it really was prevention research. And as I dug deeper into it, I realized in the hazing space, we are having the same conversations now that we’ve been having for, 20, 20-plus years since I was a fraternity, sorority professional and then had worked in some other spaces on campus as well.

We pass laws we improve reporting, we increase awareness. We’re beginning to really generate some good research, but it’s just, it’s not changing. So it was time to say, “Let’s… How, what can we do to put it together?” Here’s this framework that kind of fell into my lap thanks to Steve and the connections he has and the ability to really be able to engage in a community of scholars and say this really is a prevention framework.”

Steve brings this great aspect of leadership framework to it as well. We put those two things together, and then Charge for Change almost wrote itself from there.

Keith Edwards: Wonderful. Yeah. And now, Janáe, tell us how did NASPA get involved?

Jhenai Chander: Yeah, I, when I first got the email, I get a lot of requests to endorse or review- I bet you

Reports and, research projects. And what really stood out to me about this particular report, Charge for Change was that it just didn’t talk about one-off incidents. It was really about, like, how do we create and sustain a culture, campus cultures where students, one, can feel like they belong and are safe and where they can thrive?

And I think from a NASPA perspective, Th- that’s what’s important for us. We have a commitment to student health, safety, and wellbeing, and student success. And one of the initiatives I keep telling my team this too, is I wanna make sure that we are producing tools and resources that members can use as a blueprint or a framework, and that’s exactly what this report did.

So like it provides policy, it prov- updates on policy, gives you exemplars on like how you can implement this in your, on your campus. And we really appreciated the focus on the culture change because compliance is not enough. And so we need to make sure that the entire campus community is on board on creating an environment where, again, where students can come feel safe and parents can be comfortable to know that everyone on this campus is equipped to be able to make sure my student is safe and successful.

Keith Edwards: Yeah I think that’s a great point. And a lot of these reports are written by scholarly nerds for other scholarly nerds, right? This one is really written by some scholarly nerds, but for practitioners to put it into practice and create the kind of culture change- Yeah … in many different ways. And so I really appreciate about this is very implementable as we go- while still being informed by theory, empirical data, and so much more.

Patrick Biddix: There’s a couple- and Keith, I will own being a scholarly nerd who writes for other scholarly nerds.

Keith Edwards: I was gonna mention you, but I think, I’m glad you did it so I didn’t have to. Yeah, so- No, I’ll

Patrick Biddix: call myself out on this one.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. And I think it’s interesting is we’ve got, Stevan, who’s an executive director in this leadership sp- space, Patrick the data role that you have, and scholarship and Jhenai Chander  policy, right? And so bringing all three of those things together is really super helpful. A couple of takeaways include that 55% of students in our organization experience hazing, but only 10% of them call it hazing.

And this happens not only in fraternities and sororities, which I think is where the Biaza Center is focused but also in athletics, in marching bands, in ROTC, and more. And as I was thinking about this how do you i- identify and acknowledge and tackle a problem that even those being negatively impacted by it don’t even see about that?

Patrick, maybe you can help us begin to sort some of this out.

Patrick Biddix: Yeah. I’d say that’s one of the initial bigger challenges folks have. Their s- students come to us with I, I’m just b- being honest through the conversation. What we found is that students come to us meaning higher education organizations writ large.

They come to us with some beliefs and expectations and some real desire to belong. And I think sometimes the perceptions and prior experiences that they’ve had have, in some ways, socialized them to not view as an experience as problematic. It’s really just part of what it, what belonging means.

Belonging means I agree to these terms to be able to be part of your organization. And I think that’s part of it. I think there is some glory day stories that have persisted for, 100 years of organizations that continue to persist as well, thinking about, “My uncle did this, and it was fun, and he had a great time.”

What your uncle didn’t tell you is all the other stuff that- … that he’s suffering from as a continuation of those things. What he’s telling you is about the, the silliness that was involved in it. I think too, one thing that gets lost in all of this, and I’m sure we’ll touch on it a little bit later as well that we really, I think it, the research helped us enlighten in some different ways is that hazing behaviors tend to exist on a spectrum, right?

And- What starts as a low-level agreement to do something escalates a lot faster than you think it does. So if I can tell you just a quick version of that. A- an example might be let’s see Todd Shelton came to visit town the other day. He’s he’s in the hazing prevention space as well, if you don’t know him.

And we went and had coffee together, and I was showing him a couple places around Knoxville, and I said, this is old great s- Old Gray Cemetery. When I was a student here, it was a big deal to come do…” One of the things that they they ask you to do is go do rubbings off of the cemetery, and you had to go collect that, and it was part of a scavenger hunt.

That’s, it was a great scavenger hunt until somebody got caught trespassing. Somebody went to jail. It just, it escalates that fast. So students will say things like it’s just a scavenger hunt.” Yeah, but the next gu- the next person that asks you to do it moves it to something else.

And then it’s now, need, then it’s the involvement of alcohol. Then it’s let’s call you at 4:00 in the morning and have you go do it. So it’s not just the thing they can’t identify from the beginning, it’s the escalation of that thing as well. And I, for me, that was one of the bigger pieces of understanding the whole culture around hazing, was it wasn’t just a that definitely, most people can point to the thing that seems like it’s hazing, but a lot of folks don’t understand that the escalation and how fast it can happen within the system that already exists, the culture around it.

Keith Edwards: Janae, what would you add here? How do we tackle this broad problem that so many are experiencing in so many different organizations, and even those who experience it don’t see it as hazing?

Jhenai Chander: Yeah, I, this data point was intriguing to me because one I think, I asked my daughter about it and the way she drew it up for me was, like, what she sees in, on, in movies, right?

And there’s subtle things that lead up to more harmful and dangerous experience, and students need to be aware of how to recognize those those building blocks per se, for lack of a better word. But I think we have an opportunity to provide more education around it. I, my daughter’s going to college this year, and in her portal, her pre-orientation work, there’s just a anti-hazing statement that, it’s a click of a button.

So now I’m curious to see okay how are we gonna help them understand what hazing is, the forms that it, it may come in and how to how to address it, right? And so that’s something as a parent that I’m, like, really intrigued about right now. But I also think that this, that our students come seeking connection, right?

Like they’re seeking to Patrick’s point, they wanna belong and they wanna be in their groups. But we have to help them when we are doing our student development work with them, we have to help them think about the risk and that you don’t have to risk your life or your safety to feel connected and a part of a group.

But I do think there’s some cultural pieces. I went to an HBCU and I was in classrooms with students, and then the next morning they were on the news, they were on the headline. And so I do think we have to talk about what community means, what belonging means, and the decisions you have to make to not suffer or to risk your life or your peer’s life just for connection and belonging.

Campuses are so large I think you can find your people, but I do think there’s also another layer around the cultural piece about being a part of X group or even the band or athletics that we also have to unpack, but that requires us having honest conversations. And I think, again, having dialogue like this and resources available, I think we can distinguish, de-stigmatize the conversations just as professionals on, like- Being honest of where we can improve and do a better job at educating our students on what hazing is and how it might appear

Stevan Veldkamp: Keith my response to what Janeé and Patrick are, the all agreement around what they’ve said so far. I think they, for our students, it’s the, again, that normalization factor that they’re not identifying these things ’cause they’re just so normalized. So that’s I’d say one big point which then makes it more challenging for us administrators to really cut through that and that explanation and more rich descriptions that are in the student voice, and not in not in policy speak and legal speak.

And that’s also that’s the other part of it. We as administrators can read some of our policies around this, and we don’t understand it

What it looks like and what it means. And/or is also, I would say the dual cha- Hello.

Jhenai Chander: Oh, no

Keith Edwards: We’ll have to put this in one that we edit. Stevan, we’re gonna have to interrupt you

Stevan Veldkamp: Any complex definitions around this?

Keith Edwards: Stephen, can we interrupt you?

Stevan Veldkamp: The… Yeah, please. I’m trying to get back.

Keith Edwards: Yeah, no, we just… your internet lagged there- Yeah … quite a bit. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about

Stevan Veldkamp: that. Yeah. It just, I think, is a weather might be moving in.

Keith Edwards: Oh, okay. Okay.

Stevan Veldkamp: Hopefully it doesn’t happen again.

Can you-

Keith Edwards: Okay. Yeah.

Stevan Veldkamp: You’re clearing now. It’s colder too. Dang it.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. It looks like it’s much better now. So we’ll just sneak that. All right.

Stevan Veldkamp: Yeah …

Keith Edwards: any way you could go back to your very beginning where you said, “What I wanna add.” Keith, what I wanna add to Janae and Patrick here is this

Stevan Veldkamp: Keith, what I would add to what Jhenai Chander  and Patrick have just said is the normalization factor that when we have students that have those mindsets that are coming into college with those preconceived experiences that they’ve been hazed, they’ve been bullied and that normalization is one part where they’re not labeling this as hazing.

The other part is we created really complex definitions. And I would say definitions that are more legalistic more and not in the student speak. And so I would say it’s even challenging for administrators to understand some of those definitions of hazing. A distilled moment here.

When you have power differential and when you have mission drift from the stated values of an organization those, I would say, are the two contri- two main parts that hazing can be defined by. And that seems to be, when you speak in those terms, students can resonate with that and then more readily identify it.

Patrick Biddix: I- if I can jump in there for a second, Keith, too. I, one of the things I appreciate when Steve talks through that and r- that reminds me of is this, one of the things that students tend to come in with is this agreement because they’ve had some sort of prior experience. And what does that prior experience look like with hazing?

A lot of times it can be a relative, what we would consider a relatively low on the spectrum behavior, but an adult was present, and that, that’s the difference. Then it’s okay, right? Maybe you are maybe it’s the tennis team and the seniors are asking, in high school are asking you to go fetch all these things for them or go run or go do something, right?

But the coach is there when it happens. And so now it’s okay ’cause an adult, a- an authority figure saw it, so it’s probably okay. It’s probably fine. So that’s a, an experience they’ve had. You move into college, now there’s maybe advisors around. Maybe there’s … they’re at least aware of organizations having adult figures, right?

But they’re socialized into that already because the coach told us it was okay, or our parents knew we were going to do that thing. And so that’s a piece of this too that I think we don’t often acknowledge, is that there is a an a tacit agreement that happens because of grownups being around and it’s probably okay.

Keith Edwards: I appreciate that context and framing of this. I think an early line that becomes a central organizer is this, that compliance is not commitment. And so I’d love for you to begin, we’ll begin with you, Patrick. What- … what lies beyond compliance? If we don’t wanna just do compliance, what’s beyond that?

Patrick Biddix: I think this is one of my favorite parts of the report because it, there’s a useful distinction here to make. And that is that, that policies matter and reporting matters, laws matter, training matters. And really the passage of the Stop Campus Hazing Act w- was huge because there, there is to Steve’s point gosh, there can be four definitions existing at one time for a student trying to understand something, all right?

So I’m a student athlete, for example. My institution has a definition. My team o- ma- has a definition maybe, but my sport does, so there’s three. My my state does. And all of those may disagree. And not necessarily disagree, but some may be very specific, some may be very vague. And then on top of that, now we have a federal definition.

Now that’s not an argument that we shouldn’t have things spelled out in, in, in different ways, but it certainly can create confusion. And I think what’s that that has, has created and has been challenging for us in the hazing prevention space is that- It’s led to a how do we make sure that we’re meeting the letter of the law?

How do we make sure that we’re checking this box through what compliance is, and not moving towards commitment as a prevention system to be able to cr- actually create cultural change? So the way we frame prevention through Charge for Change is it’s about changing the condition that allows the behaviors to continue.

So what a policy does, and I’ve taught policy, that was my that was my area of expertise for a couple years here teaching policy at UT. A policy tells us wh- what should happen, but prevention tells us what actually is happening, and the gap between those two things is where our work kind of lives, right?

It’s why we spend so much time talking about leadership and coordination and assessment and capacity. Those are things that translate compliance into commitment. And if people are still experiencing behavior which they are regardless of the law, then we’re not done with the work yet.

That’s the way we see that distinction.

Keith Edwards: There’s so many corollaries here between, as you’ve alluded to, alcohol education and alcohol abuse prevention, and sexual violence prevention, right? Where we wanna shift the culture and change the norms that are out there. Stevan, what would you add?

Stevan Veldkamp: And a beautiful setup, Keith, ’cause the hazing is commingled with those other public health challenges, right? And it shows up especially, it it presents itself in one subculture as violence, in another subculture as hazardous drinking, in another as relationship violence. And so it’s really important, I would say, to start to view that pre- A, prevention is possible when it’s resourced adequately.

And then we start to, I would say, have a more holistic effect that all pre- all boats rise to a rising prevention tide, where your sexual violence, your hazardous drinking, and your hazing. So if you’re really addressing hazing, you’re also addressing those other public health challenges. You’re not taking away from them, you’re adding to them.

And so I think that’s the amazing opportunity and, again, where it’s, I get really excited about this opportunity, especially, again, working with students for so many years where we would start to work on a prevention of this issue find success, be it sexual violence, be it hazardous drinking, and then we move to a different shiny object.

If we can stay the course with this thing called hazing prevention, have all boats to that rise to that prevention tide, I think we have an amazing opportunity to really start shifting culture, really reducing BACs, reducing incidents of violence, and reducing hazing as a triple effect, if you will by tackling this thing called hazing.

And so I think that’s the, again, the major opportunity when we start to really believe it’s possible. When I s- and I say that intentionally w- ’cause I think we for a lot of folks, I think it’s seems like an irretractable, it’s just gonna be here, so we gotta manage it- … versus actually invest in prevention.

And again, that mind shift, that philosophical mind shift I think is huge and important, and my favorite thing about the Charge for Change, ’cause I think it gives a, an opportunity for a campus conversation to align and get all on the same page, versus I think some of the campus saying, “Yeah, it’s possible,” and another set of campus saying, “No, we just need to manage it, and remove it and make it go away.”

I, that’s yeah, all boats- I love- … rising to a rising tide. Yeah.

Jhenai Chander: Stevan, I love that add to line that you use. It, ’cause compliance is literally like the floor, it’s like the bare minimum, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, I think about this as like a relationship, right? We have key principles in a relationship or a friendship, right?

But it’s like you wanna foster that relationship so it can grow and, so I do think, institutions obviously are gonna comply with the law. But, I think- to Patrick’s point, like we have to be able to create the conditions where students can feel safe, but also belong and thrive.

And I think that means like institutional commitments and resources and capacity to ensure that this the prevention work is a part of all aspects of the institution. So yes, steep- deep and through student affairs, but across the campus as well. And when I was coming up in student affairs, the line will al- was always “Show me your budget,” right?

And we could see what you’re committed to or what’s important to your campus. And so that’s the question that I ask too, like, how are you investing in the infrastructure, the staff, the student programming and education to ensure that we’re not just at the floor, that we are building up a learning arc and an experience that will transform the campus environment for all students.

Patrick Biddix: I’m gonna use that if you don’t mind. Compliance is, well- I love it. It’s good. I’m gonna be using that as we move on with these.

Jhenai Chander: For sure.

Keith Edwards: And I think, as Stevan was talking about this notion of not acquiescing that pacing is inevitable and some of it’s always gonna exist, but really trying to prevent it.

And, I think I’ve done a lot of sexual violence prevention work and, one of the things I’ve always said is, how much sexual violence is tolerable for you, right? Ooh,

Patrick Biddix: that’s good.

Keith Edwards: And obviously none of it is. And so how do we really set the bar for that? And as we’re talking about a commitment and resources and well-resourced initiatives, that’s hard in times when budgets are being cut, staff positions are being let go.

But on the flip side- Hazing is also very expensive for the institution, for the staff, for the lawyers, for the response, for the PR, not to mention the harm that is done to individuals and ultimately in some cases, student death, which is the worst thing that m- that most faculty and staff ever have to deal with.

And so how do we think about an investment in prevention that can actually save us money in the long run?

Jhenai Chander: Yeah, I think it’s also a ripple effect of we think about the students that are directly impacted. But I can tell you, like it impacts students who have to show up on campus the next day, or they might wanna get involved, right?

Like we, this student engagement is so critical to student success. I always talk about the 40 million, now it’s like 42 million students who start college and they leave without finishing. And when you unpack those, that data, a lot of times it’s not academic. It’s like th- about their experiences on campuses.

And so there is a true economic line around if we can make sure students, we can address this area proactively that students will finish. And when students finish it’s a true benefit for the institution.

Keith Edwards: Stephen, I know you wanted to get in there. Go ahead.

Stevan Veldkamp: Now I want to say something different than I was gonna say.

But no, I was gonna say, with Grace being, again, campus-based student affairs practitioner co-curricular learning at my core but all of us in this work, prevention science is maturing. So this is something that is, I would say, a shared experience. And because of that maturing process, we now know more things.

And that’s an opportunity that we just- it’s coming to bi- it’s coming into being, right? And so in 2002, there were three articles about hazardous drinking prevention. In 2026, there’s 60 empirical studies. We now know more, right? And so this is an amazing opportunity for student affairs to embrace prevention.

Our compliance folks on that side of the campus and our insurance carrier folks this is an opportunity for those folks to champion this work and really start to build out prevention the likes we haven’t seen. And then with that, the opportunities that we start to look at some of our policies and practices and be able potentially to retire a few things because we’re adding the prevention game, and we’re getting good at it and better at it.

And that’s again, an opportunity to learn together, and coalitions are being built around campuses that want to invest in prevention, and they’re starting to see the positive results. And so I think this is, again, fast-forward 10, 15 24 more years, right? When this becomes something that hopefully has taken root and grown and we’re really starting to a- again, get better together in building out that prevention practice.

Keith Edwards: These are all great framing, and we’re selling hazing prevention. I feel like people- Yeah … are on board with that for so many good reasons. But what should folks do? And I think it’s easy to say boards and presidents and vice presidents should lead and emphasize this and makes this a priority, which of course they should.

And I think it’s sometimes as Patrick mentioned, advisors might be entry-level or younger staff who are working really directly a- advising student orgs, advising fraternities and sororities, working with athletes. What can the mid-level folks do, who are those directors of maybe, of NCAA compliance or directors of student activities or directors of fraternity and sororities?

What can these mid-level folks do who really want to move this agenda forward? What can they put into place? What would be helpful for them? Start with you, Jené.

Jhenai Chander: Yeah I was pondering about this a little bit, and I do think not to– I would encourage mid-level professionals to don’t negate the power of their influence in the use of data.

I think they have– there’s a clear opportunity, one, to build cross-functional relationships and partnerships, but I think data will speak volumes. I always tell people, you don’t have to have a large data set to show leadership what is happening on the campus, right? They have a direct line and a view of to what’s happening immediately with students, and all of that is data.

And so if you’re track– you have opportunity to track experiences, get student voices directly use that to be able to create the change that they wanna see within their area and their department, Fi- make sure you go also make connections around, like, how this connects to student safety as well as student success and make sure that they’re able to communicate that to to their leadership and senior leaders on their campus in a strategic way.

Again, I think having that direct line to students is rich data and information- … to be able to influence change, and sometimes we discount that. Oh, no one’s listening or no one’s gonna hear me. But being familiar with the field, like this report and the scholars in this space, so that you can have the language and the tools that you need to be able to communicate your ideas and your recommendations to campus leaders I think is very critical and important.

All

Keith Edwards: right. Patrick, you mentioned you were working in this space back at WashU, and-

Patrick Biddix: Yeah …

Keith Edwards: what suggestions would you have for these mid-level folks who really wanna move this forward?

Patrick Biddix: We unintentionally are very aligned, Jeneé and I, in this. I would say a couple of things. O- one of those, just as a little bit of framing, is that mi- mid-level professionals often, an advantage they have is that they’re close to the work.

They don’t maybe not always setting institutional policy, but they’re influencing implementation through relationships with students, b- both ways, right? And the, the day-to-day decision-making pieces. So more directly in there there’s a couple different things. I’ll echo what Jeneé said around building connections.

Ha- hazing preve- prevention should not be owned by a single office. It … Listen, if hazing were one organization’s issue we could tackle this thing pretty cleanly. I wouldn’t say we could solve it tomorrow, but it’d be a lot easier if it were one area. But it’s not. It, it not only invades all organizations, but it travels across campus as it does.

So that, that’s the first piece, is just mid-level professionals I think tend to be in the best position to connect different folks with student affairs, athletics, FSO, conduct, health promotion and critically in this, student leaders. To, to Jeneé’s second point using data again, it doesn’t have to be a massive assessment project, but just understanding where students are being reached, where they, where gaps are.

And there’s some excellent and emergent tools around just understanding where the campus sits relative to its, beliefs around hazing, where another aspect of just collecting data around what programs are being implemented and then what the outcomes of those are.

I think there’s one other piece of this too I’d add, and that’s a little trickier for folks. I think sometimes it’s one of the first questions we always get is what’s an alternative?” So usually the way I put that back on students is, “What are you trying to accomplish?” We’re trying to, create some commitment and some belonging.”

“Okay, then how do you do that in your organization? And if you can show me somewhere in your in your history, in your organization that belonging is that, that hazing was a part of the organization as it, when it began, then that’s a different conversation to have.” So they’re asking for alternatives.

They’re asking ways… they want to belong. They are seeking connection. They’re seeking the achievement of cr- crossing a line, whatever that happens to be crossing over, joining the group, becoming a, a full member of the team in the sense of JV and varsity and all that sort of stuff, and identity.

A- and the goal in that’s really not telling students what to do. It- it’s helping them understand that there are alternatives, and I think a lot of them are more creative than we give credit for. If they’re creative enough to come up with some of the stuff they have in the hazing space, I know they are more creative to come up with stuff in the belonging space as well that accomplishes a very similar goal but does so in a healthy way.

Stevan Veldkamp: Back in the day working with NASPA in Region 4 for the new professionals track I chaired that experience for a couple years, and one of the questions that we embedded in our curriculum was, “If you’re a dean for the day, what would you do?” If, again, this magic wand that you can just, wield and it just happens.

But I think that from a mid-level perspective again, live in that possibility of you’re a dean for the day. What can you change? Look at your policies, and what are the parts of the policies that you’re like, “Yeah, this is not gonna work” . And give that… and again, frame it in some positive ways.

But I think that’s a really amazing opportunity, that mid-level, because you have the relationship with the students, and above you what’s happening, and you see those policy statements come in and how you can give critique to policy. And then that’s a hu- an important pr- process to then go through.

And again, buy-in to be able to start to move change in some of those things. And just ’cause students aren’t getting it doesn’t mean you need to change it, but do we need to put it in different language, as an example. So that’s one of the thoughts. Second thought is what are you good at in an honest conversation about those strengths?

Are you that curriculum development person that can write amazing curriculum, but you’re not the facilitator? I, again, supervise a lot of staff in this space and you’re… we we put these job descriptions together, which again, I think are the, a challenge within student affairs of just we add and we add.

We don’t ever subtract or hone or focus potentially. But, again, what is the honest conversation of can you develop the curriculum or can you facilitate the curriculum? Yes, there’s some amazing humans that are those utility player people that can do the both/and, but I’ve found that typically the people that can facilitate aren’t necessarily the curriculum developers, right?

As a, as an example. So I think just that really honest conversation about your strengths, and then the ask of “I need help doing this to bring this conversation forward.” And who is it, right? Is it within your own department? Is it somewhere else in another unit of student affairs or even across campus?

A new professional that we brought into the center didn’t come from our traditional student affairs space, but came up through prevention and hazardous drinking prevention. And she’s “Don’t we have teaching and learning folks on campus that help faculty be better?” Da.

I’m like, “Why aren’t we tapping into those people to help with our student affairs program?” That’s genius. That’s so smart. We need to totally do that. But back to the what can mid-level professionals do, I think, again, be creative, tap into those resources, honest conversations. And and and again, amazing p- seeing things, right?

Because you can see it potentially more clear- clearly from the middle than you can even potentially from the top or anywhere else in the organization.

Keith Edwards: Terrific. We have framed this, given context, made the call for a need to be not just compliant but to actually do true prevention, and then given some really tangible tips a- and suggestions here. As we move to wrapping up our time I wanna invite each of you to share a final thought. The podcast is called Student Affairs NOW, and we always like to end with this question.

What are you thinking, troubling, or pondering now? And also, if folks wanna connect with you, where might they be able to do that? So Stevan, what are you troubling now?

Stevan Veldkamp: Oh, goodness. Nothing for them without them, so centering students in the conversation and how important that is. And then as I say that again, ex- any ca- subcultures and how important subcultures are to center and what are those big subpopulations that the conversation’s gonna look different in this one versus that one and versus this one.

So how many of those… again, building those relationships and getting the time to develop those relationships so you can really hear and listen to students on those policies as well as what are the programs that are gonna help shift their behavior that’s going to increase the reporting, increase their intervention.

So that’s one b- rare large thought. The other is the literature is pretty clear on bystander intervention, and we haven’t touched on that in in this podcast. And and it’s not telling students that they need to be bystanders. That’s not the bystander intervention that we’re talking about, but it’s again, a facilitated seventy percent participation, thirty percent new knowledge.

It’s a facilitated experience. In talking to Aaron Fisher with the Leadership Program Design Studio, that’s like a two-hour planned experience, right? And so how are we investing in students to really build the skills to be bystanders, not just saying, “Hey, go be bystanders.” So that’s the education.

And again, I think that’s a really valuable opportunity for campuses to invest in that type of work because it’s also the sa- it’s also connected to those are gonna be great career skills, as an example, right? So I think it’s that leadership, it’s that bystander intervention that leads to intervening today and then leading, y- in their careers tomorrow type of thing.

So that’s what’s on my mind. So pass it off.

Jhenai Chander: I could d- jump in. Folks can find me on LinkedIn as Janae Chandler my name. We just launched the NASPA strategic plan. It’s a three-year strategic plan, and I’m really focused in, in two areas, and this connects to the conversation, guys.

Enhance the career pathways and well-being of student affairs professionals. And then the second one is provide timely advocacy, policy, and practice resources. And so where I’m thinking right now as it relates to this topic is, one, how do we how do we make sure that s- the people who are doing the work feel supported?

How do we help them manage their secondary stress from supporting students in the various challenges that’s happening currently right now on their campuses? And so we’ve released a bl- re- recently released a blog, and I’ll share it with you, Keith- … to share with the audience just around who’s taking care of the caregivers, right?

And that’s very important to me right now, and I’m just trying to figure out how to scale that in our association. And then again, the second thing around the advocacy policy and practice resources. This year we had our Sexual Violence Prevention Summit. We had a Cannabis and Alcohol and Other Drugs Summit.

We had just a number of summits and events beyond our strategies conference- … that I’m trying to figure out to our conversation today, how do you bring this all together, right? Yes. Because it shouldn’t be necessarily experienced in silos, but how do we bring this all together to talk about hazing and to talk about how the addition of these substances play a part?

And so I really just, my creative juices have been flowing on like how to make sure that, one, particularly because we’re in a time where professional dev- development dollars are limited, and so I don’t want people to, I don’t want members or student affairs professionals rather to say I only have X amount of dollars.

I can only go to one event.” And that’s okay, but I wanna make sure that people can have a comprehensive learning experience. And so that’s where I’m thinking right now with the new strategic plan and some of the changes that we just implemented, so I’m really excited about that. I’m excited, I’m worried, I’m all the things about it.

Keith Edwards: Energized, fired up, ready to go. Yeah. All that, yeah. How about you, Patrick? What’s with you now?

Patrick Biddix: R- so related, more directly to this, I have always been fascinated with social networks, and I’ve been looking at how social networks can be used to strengthen prevention and wellbeing interventions.

So I’ve run a couple trials and watching the results come in now. So that’s super exciting. On a more personal level I’m working with helping my oldest navigate his first year of college as well, like Jenee said, which is probably the most interesting student success project I’ve ever been involved with.

So far as tomorrow’s orientation. If all that goes well I might be able to get my 5K pace back under seven minutes a mile. That’s a, that’s another thing I’m working on. And then- but people can find me through the University of Tennessee through email. I’m pretty, pretty responsive that way.

I’m always happy to continue these conversations.

Stevan Veldkamp: And Keith, I forgot my email is sjv54@piazz- or @psu.edu as well as the piazzacenter@pennstate.psu.edu, so piazzacenter@pennstate, and then Timothy Piazza Center on LinkedIn as well.

Keith Edwards: And we will get all of that and more in the show notes. So thank you all.

This has been terrific, and really appreciate the product and the process, and you joining us for the conversation today. I think this will be really helpful to so many people and and really make a difference. So thank you all for your leadership in this space. I also wanna thank our sponsor of today’s episode, Evolve.

Given the current ti- context of higher education, we need to invest in leaders with the capacity and capabilities to transform their institutions in the future of higher education. The Evolve Institute for Higher Education Leadership offers four leadership coaching journeys tailored to four different leadership levels.

Each is a three-month journey that includes individual and group coaching, plus a curated curriculum of short asynchronous video modules. We also offer Evolve for leadership teams. If you’re ready to evolve your leadership voice, visit evolve-institute.com to learn more. And a huge shout-out, as always, to our producer, Natalie Ambrosey, who does all the behind-the-scenes work to make all of us look and sound good.

And we love your support for these conversations. Your listening, sharing, and recommending makes all of this possible. You can help us re- reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast on YouTube or to our weekly newsletter announcing each new episode and more. If you’re so inclined, you can leave us a five-star review.

It helps great conversations like this reach even more folks. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to our fabulous guests today and to everyone who is watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you, all.

Certified Peer Educator (CPE) Training 

Caring for the Caregivers: Identifying and Addressing Compassion Fatigue in Student Affairs 

Piazza Center Resources:

Charge for Change Webpage

Hazing Prevention Strategies 

Recommendations for SSAOs Leading Hazing Prevention