R. Bradley Johnson
Well, I echo what everyone else has said. I think for me, one of the things that stood out the most was the case management and the care teams. We saw an increase. We were gradually seeing an increase before COVID, but I think once COVID hit, we. Really saw the increased need and the importance of people who serve in those care team, case management roles, and they don’t have to always be out of a out of a Dean of Students Office or so where we may typically think, I mean, the article that we had in the edition talked about, you know, academic advisors, you know, utilizing technology with starfish, and navigate 360 and everything and and how there has to be, going back to that idea of community, there has to be a lot of connection with, you know, a student’s advisor, a student’s faculty member, You know, the dean of students office, or wherever help may be available.

Keith Edwards
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW I’m your host. Keith Edwards, today, I’m joined by editors and authors of the new volume from New Directions for Student Services titled addressing student success at small colleges. This volume brings together so many different perspectives of the challenges and possibilities of how small colleges can best serve students. I’m so excited to have our four guests here today. Student Affairs NOW is the premium podcast as the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs, we release new episodes each week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com This episode is sponsored by evolve. Evolve helps senior leaders release fear, gain courage and take transformative action through a personalized cohort based virtual learning experience and also here on Huron, education and research experts help institutions transform their strategy, operations, technology and culture to foster innovation, financial health and student success. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he, him, his. I’m a speaker, author and coach, helping higher ed leaders and organizations advance leadership, learning and equity. You can find out more about me. Keith edwards.com, and I’m recording this from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the current and ancestral homelands of both the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. I’m so excited to have our four guests here today who contributed to this volume, along with many others. Let’s get things started with some introductions. Dr Jen Shaw, tell us a little bit about you.

Jen Shaw
Hi, Student Affairs, friends. My name is Jen. I’m the Vice President for Student Affairs at SaintLeo University, which is in Tampa, Florida. We’re a small private Catholic institution, the firstCatholic institution in Florida. I’ve had a 30 year career in student affairs, everything from the the biggies, like University of Florida to the great University of North Carolina, Greensboro and I went to an amazing, small private Transylvania University founded in 1780 in Lexington, Kentucky. Glad to be here.

Keith Edwards
Over to you, Brad. You Brad,

R. Bradley Johnson
Good afternoon. I am Brad Johnson. I use him his pronouns. I am Clinical Professor of higher education and Program Coordinator of our master’s in higher ed here at UNC Greensboro. I also attended a small institution, Davidson College for my bachelor’s degree, I have worked in student affairs ever since I was an RA as a junior in college, all the way up to about 12 years ago, I completed a career in Housing and Residence Life here at UNC Greensboro, before Going over to the dark side, as some friends called it. Some of my student affairs friends called it and became faculty in our higher education program.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Glad you’re here, Brad and James, go ahead and tell us about you.

James McGhee
Hey, good afternoon. My name is James McGee. I’m the associate vice president, Associate Dean of Students at Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. I’ve been here for 19 years. It’s been a wonderful opportunity to be here in the center of the universe, as they call it, Ashland. And I started my career over 20 years ago at Sweet Briar College down in Amherst, Virginia. And I also went to a small liberal arts college, Averett University in Danville, Virginia, where Jason and I also went, because we are first cousins.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Well, let’s learn more about your cousin. Jason Robertson.

Jason Robertson
Hey everyone. So my name is Jason Robertson. I use he, him pronouns. I am Associate professor and program director of Public Health and Health Science, which is a little different from everyone else on this on this call. So what in the world am I doing talking about student affairs? Well, so one of the things before becoming a faculty member, I actually have a 13 year experience working in student affairs, specifically in health promotion and health centers at the University of North Carolina, at Greensboro, Longwood University and some other universities. And currently and also attended Avery University, as James just said, and right now, I have taught at two small colleges, Avery University. I went back to my alma mater, and now I teach at Salem College, a small women’s private liberal arts college located in Winston, Salem, North Carolina,

Keith Edwards
awesome. Well, thanks to the four of you for being here. I’ll join in. The sharing. I went to small private college, Hamlin University, had 1500 students at the time. I came from a high school with a graduating class of 23 so that 500 incoming class felt huge and overwhelming to me, and it was a wonderful place for me to adjust to that and learn about. And then I ended my on campus about 10 years ago at Macalester College in also in St Paul, Minnesota, which is a small college that I’m very proud to be affiliated and connected to. So when this volume came along from the new directions, folks, I was super excited to see it and super excited to read what you all had organized, curated, cultivated, written and put together, Jason, I think you’re going to lead us off with how this came to be, how this project came to be in its first place.

Jason Robertson
Yeah. So, you know, in the world of higher education, you can’t it’s really hard right now to open the Chronicle or Inside Higher Ed or anywhere and not see information about what’s happening to small colleges and institutions, and that’s coupled with even mainstream media like Forbes or the Washington Post, where almost every day you’re seeing where a small college or an institution is struggling financially, they’re closing or they’re merging with someone else. So you see a lot of bad press about colleges are closing. Things are happening. But what’s not really out there is what’s going right at small colleges and institutions. How are they serving the students that are out there, you know? So right now, if you looked Since 20, 2050, small institutions and growing have closed, have merged, something has happened to them. So really, we started talking about, what does that mean for the landscape of higher education? What does that mean for the communities in which these higher education institutions are located? What does it mean for the students? And so, how do we start to highlight the successes of small colleges, and what does that mean as we lose them for the students, but what does that mean for the good things that we’re doing, and why should we really be worried about the loss of small colleges and institutions in the landscape of higher education? So we got together with Deb tau with new directions. And she said, You know what? Let’s do it. Let’s figure out what’s going on with small colleges and institutions. And do you know some people who might want to edit and some other people who might want to talk about it? I said, I think we can figure some things out. And here we are today.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, well, Dept out is definitely an executor. She likes to take an idea and make it happen without a lot of fluff getting in the way for sure, your story, Jason, about sort of scanning the news, reminds me of one of our guests in a previous episode. Jose Luis reira is Vice President University of Delaware. He said, You know, I don’t, I don’t know when the last time I read The Chronicle of Higher Education and there was good news, right? And that kind of haunts me every morning, when I get the email and scan through, it’s a tough time and a lot to navigate. And you’re pointing out particularly the challenges to small colleges, viability, existence, the students they serve, and the communities many of these colleges are in towns that are organized around them, and so loss of that college can mean really a huge, devastating blow to the community. James, what do you want to add about how this kind of emerged?

James McGhee
Yeah, I think Jason did a really good job of opening the topic up. One of the things that we were really concerned about was in the scope of as we were losing small colleges, what we were losing. We weren’t just losing an institution. We were losing niches. We were losing spaces and places where unique cultures existed and and not just cultures, but traditions, things that people held dear to themselves. We’re all going away due to financial you know, solvency issues, we talked about our own experiences and how valuable those experiences were to who we are today, both as faculty members and as student affairs professionals. I don’t know that today I would be a student affairs professional if we hadn’t went to a small, private institution where I got to see that student affairs was an actual thing you did. I would probably be working for the federal government or something else. And you know, so we wanted to make sure that we uplifted it. And the other piece that we wanted to look at was innovation. I think we’re at an inflection point. And we mentioned this a couple times in several articles throughout the throughout the addition is that we’re in a place where we’re not going to be able to do student affairs the way we’ve always done it. We’re going to have to figure out new ways to do things. We’re going to have to stop trying to overlay the University of Florida’s organizational structure over a school the size of St Leo or Randolph Macon. We’re going to have to try to figure out what do. Do we do that’s unique and different and not be married to the things we’ve always done? So this was the beginning of that conversation about how we’re going to move forward.

Keith Edwards
I one of the things I’m reminded of is when, when there were times where there were just a lot of students, and we could just admit more students, I think the way we did that is we said we’re just like everybody else, right? We’re just like the University of Florida, we’re just like Tennessee, we’re just like Minnesota, like we have all the same student arts, and we have all the same majors and and as we reach this enrollment cliff, and new students becomes harder and harder to find, I think the success in recruiting students is going to be around how we’re different, our differentiation. We’re not just like everybody else. If you want this thing, we are excellent at that, and we offer that, and we have these experiences which is really different than Florida, Tennessee or Minnesota or these different places. So I really resonate with that.

James McGhee
I think that’s a really important point, because that was the part about the niche and the uniqueness of the culture of higher education, particularly small institutions. I’m thinking about the fact that Randolph Macon has a show choir, which is not something that a lot of colleges have. Jen, I saw the work that you all are doing with hockey, and how much those guys were excited to have you there. And I think all of that just makes us unique, and we want to be unique, because we want to be able to say what makes us different than those around us right now, yeah, and

Keith Edwards
we’re not trying to be everything to everybody, like show choir isn’t for everybody, but if it is for you, this could be a really great place. And hockey in Florida isn’t for everybody, but if it is something that you’re into, those

Jen Shaw
it’s those niche experiences. Figuring out eSports was another big one that I know a lot of us, small colleges have adopted, and it is amazing the community that’s built with a group that usually was hiding out in their residence hall room, not interacting with anyone and and James is right. I mean, we’re having to just think about things differently and do things differently.

James McGhee
Yeah, kind of the concept of eSports that blew up here as well. Jen and one of the things that’s been so beneficial about that is we’ve also been able to take students who were able to participate in team sports as children, but for whatever reason, aren’t able to do that. Now, whether that be some sort of challenge that they’ve had after they came to college, they’re still getting the experience of being a member of a team and participating. It’s allowed us to let folks participate in ways we never thought they would. So it’s all wonderful stuff.

Keith Edwards
And involvement and engagement and community and connection supports the academics as well as the learning and growth beyond the classroom. Awesome. Well, Brad, we haven’t really gotten you in here, but you’re going to lead us off here in this next part, which is we’re going to hear from each of you about both the challenges and opportunities, challenges and possibilities for student success at small colleges. And I really want to invite you to bring in some of your thoughts and your work, but we also couldn’t have all of the authors in the volume here, so feel free to name drop and give credit and all of that. But Brad, I don’t know if you have any more to add about how this project came to be, but if you could maybe share that, maybe lead us off with any challenges and possibilities that you’re seeing,

R. Bradley Johnson
I don’t think I really have anything else to add that hasn’t already been said about how the project started. As I shared earlier, I went to a small institution for undergrad, and so I had a keen interest in learning more about what small institutions are doing now, because I am faculty in a higher ed program, I do talk about institutional types and All the things that are out there for my master’s students to potentially ponder and think about where they want to go when they graduate. What I what I would say are some challenges for small institutions today is, of course, smaller staffs. I think COVID did not do higher ed, or really anybody, any justice in terms of not causing a lot of staff burnout and turnover, even though I think higher ed overall did a good job of pivoting and trying to adapt as quickly and as best as we could small staffs at small institutions, I think were were overburdened at times, and even overworked. We already know that that staffs, staff positions at small institutions tend to be more generalist than specialists, which means they may have, they may be working in housing, but they may have a lateral assignment over in, you know, intercultural engagement or campus activities. And so if you compound that with the fact of what. Social distancing, all these other things that came along with COVID. I think that that really affected what, what we what we have seen at small colleges since, since the pandemic.

Jen Shaw
Piece of that, Brad, too, is a lot of vendors. I don’t know about you, James, but the last probably four or five staff members we’ve lost have gone to vendors. They’re not staying within higher ed. So it’s not that they don’t love working at the small college, and that’s what we hear. Is, I love this job. I love my students. The pay is terrible, but I get to work from home. I get a flex day twice a week. You know, all those things that people experienced during COVID and finally saw balance in their lives versus the 24/7 365, we experienced in student affairs, and they don’t want to go back to it, and it’s hard to blame them, but, but, but vendors have been the our big competitors in terms of staff for us lately,

James McGhee
higher education adjacent is the new thing. Yeah, yeah, experience without having to do the full commitment. And I think that begs the question of, you know what? What we’re asking?

R. Bradley Johnson
Well, and I even had colleagues who, for years, had posed and asked to do work remotely, and many of them were often told, No, you can’t your your job. You can’t do your job remotely. Well. I mean, COVID hit, and we quickly found out that just about everything could be done remotely if you were inventive, inventive enough and innovative enough to readjust your your work environment for for it, I think some possibilities. I think small institutions are very cozy, and we have a population of students. Keith just shared that his high school population. My high school graduating class was only about 150 and so for me, when I was starting to think about college, the thought of going to a large institution and our one or so was was really, was really frightening. In fact, I had a friend, one of my best friends in high school, went to UNC Chapel Hill, and when I asked her where she was going to be living on campus, she had a map, and she proceeded to flip the map over to show me where. And I said, Oh, that’s, that’s, that’s not for me. So I think that there is a good niche out there for incoming students who want that cozier environment, and who may feel like they will, will would get lost or just be in a number another number, if they went to a large institution, I think smaller institutions also afford more mentorship opportunities, more one on one, because you’re not in a large class, the professors, a lot of times, get to know you as a person and not so much as a student. I know my undergrad experience, I would see professors playing tennis or playing basketball with students, or inviting students over to their homes for dinner and discussion about, you know, a topic that they may be reading about. So I think that that opportunity is there. And that’s not to say that you don’t get that at some larger institutions, but I think just the nature and the environment and the setting of a smaller institution makes that a lot easier for our students.

Jason Robertson
Yeah, and I think to to go with that is the whole idea, you know, we’re using the word community, right? There’s a community at a small institution, whether it be between faculty and staff, staff and faculty, staff and students, faculty, staff and students. And how do we all support each other? And unlike sometimes where everybody gets lost at larger institutions, students know when faculty and staff are having bad days, we know when they’re having bad days, and they care about us and we care about them. And so you get into this idea where you build a caring environment where everybody wants everyone to succeed, and it’s very it’s a very interesting environment where, yes, you have to be more careful, because everybody knows where everything what’s going on. It’s very small town, but it truly is genuine, and it’s something where these students can get that individualized attention, like Brad’s talking about, and this mentorship idea, but when you walk on the campus, it’s also palpable. It’s where you feel it it’s where it’s lived. And I think that’s another really interesting thing about small colleges. It’s not something we just talk about, it’s something you feel when you walk to the campus. Yeah. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
James, what are some of the challenges and possibilities that you’re seeing?

James McGhee
Yeah, so I think the way we interact with families is changing. It’s both an opportunity and a challenge. There are expectations that families have coming from K through 12 into college that are not compatible with FERPA regulations and how we would like to do business to help their students learn to take care of themselves, and so sometimes it requires a little finessing and conversation with parents to help them get to the place where they can help their students appropriately. We want to continue to do that, but that is a challenge. It plays into the need to have the conversation with the parents and then the conversation with the parents, and then the conversation with the students, and then the conversation with the parent and the student. So it takes, you know, three times the amount of time as you just had the conversation with the student. But where we’re at now, particularly after COVID, with the developmental delay that we know exists, and with the changing expectations in K to 12 for parents, that’s a challenge we have to face. So we’re trying to figure out how to do that best

Jen Shaw
things with the parents too. We’re seeing them playing a much larger role in enrollment decisions. So our that’s been another thing that we’ve changed, I would say, in the since COVID is putting a lot more emphasis on the parent experience when they interact with us pre admissions, because when we talk to them after they’re here, we find out the decision was like 70% family, 30% student, and it’s that feeling of safety and community that Brad and Jason talked about,

James McGhee
yeah, I mean the other challenging piece, I think folks already mentioned It was staffing and helping our staff to feel supported and to feel like that, that they’re evolving. I think that goes with the opportunities, because would much rather talk about opportunities. We’ve done some pretty unique things here. One of the articles in the in the work that Sarah Weinstein and I did was about how we took all of our departments in student life and Residence Life and the chaplains office, and basically dissolved them all into one student engagement center, and said, y’all are all one office. You all were hired to do specific tasks. And now we’re going to create cross functional teams. And with those cross functional teams, we didn’t assign them, we let them assign themselves. What do you care about? What do you want to learn? And each semester, we sat down and we have a conversation about, what area do you want to grow in? Okay, well, then you’re on that team and you’re going to go learn about conduct, or you’re going to go learn about this, and then whoever’s running that team is the person who trains those students. So we’re getting cross lateral support. They’re filling their cups up. My coordinator of inclusive engagement loves the outdoors, so she wanted to start an outdoor program. So, you know, dei, work is heavy. It’s very, very heavy on the people that do it. She loves it, but it was, it was draining for her too, but the outdoor stuff fills her cup up, and she gets to do it in new context. And so allowing our staff to dictate some structure that’s going to allow them to be better employees and feel better about their own work. I think is an opportunity that we have, that that we need to make sure that we get involved with and the other thing is to listen to how our students are changing. Our students don’t want to do what we did in 1989 and 1990 and 2000 I you know, I meet with our trustees, and our trustees are really invested in the student experience, but they’re often really shocked when I say they don’t necessarily all want to go out to the 2000 person concert. They want to hear somebody play, and they want to sit there with their three friends and listen, but they don’t want to get to the big stage. Some do still, but the experience is vastly different, and there’s not a one size fits all model for engagement anymore. So we’re creating different types of models of engagement for different types of students. And to be honest, I think that our small colleges and universities, we have the ability to be incredibly more agile about how to do that, because we get a lot more data to work with.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, great. I’m seeing some overlap here in connections. Jen, do you want to add anything out here? Yeah,

Jen Shaw
I mean, clearly echo everything everybody else said, personnel and staffing and stretched thin and tired and working so hard is is certainly an issue. I think bigger picture, private institutions have got to develop alternative streams of revenue. We cannot depend. We’re so dependent on tuition and it and having just sat through budget meetings where you know five students makes a difference in in terms of do you get to fill a position or not? So I know for us and the chapter that Carla Carney Hall from Illinois, Wesleyan and I did together talks about, how do you create alternative streams of revenue, how do you build relationships with people outside of the institution to really get creative and entrepreneur? Entrepreneurial. So I think from a from a field perspective of Student Affairs, it’s been really interesting. And James, I don’t know if you’ve seen this too, but the farther you progress in the field, and definitely when you’re a VP, like, I feel like my job is advancement sales person, you know, I don’t, can’t even tell you how many times how much time I spend convincing other people to give us resources, whether it’s the president, the CFO external people, sponsors, donors, and because we don’t, you know, most small institutions, there just isn’t a spare Penny. And if you want to do something new and creative for students, you have to come up with the funding for it, and we’re already so thin. It’s not like you can really cut anything. So to me, that’s a challenge, but it’s also a tremendous possibility. And certainly, what if I was going to recommend one thing to everybody that work at a small institutions, I would say, Get really flexible with your staff, like James talked about, let them empower them to help sort of determine what’s going to work for serving students the best way possible, while but also still being healthy and happy. And then the second thing would be figure out alternative streams of revenue and get really creative in in both at an institutional level, but also within your unit.

James McGhee
Jen, I love your point about the external funding. The article you all wrote for the the edition was wonderful. Grant money is key to everything we’re doing. Our Leadership Fellows program is funded for the next four years by truist, and that really started with us going to an event the truist was holding. We had some great conversations. Our grant folks put us in touch. Thomas ransom, who is the vice president of President of Virginia, here for truist, had conversations with us about what we wanted to do. They were willing to fund it. Had we not done that, I don’t know that I could operate that leadership program the way that we want to operate it for our students. And so those external streams of revenue are key right now,

R. Bradley Johnson
and I think that’s something that that higher ed programs can can do a better job of, is, you know, we already talk about assessment and valuation, but very few programs talk about grant writing or the fact of you’re going to have to, at some point or other, be able to justify your program, your services, what you offer, and you may be asked to go out and get corporate sponsorship or get funding or support from another area of the institution, and I think that that our programs and our faculty can do a better job of really driving that home. Because I think sometimes students look at us when we say that and just think, okay, whatever the money, the money will be there, but we’re finding out that it’s not there, and it’s getting pulled in a lot of different directions, one of which may not be where the student is currently working.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, Jason, I want to apologize, because we, we let all these smart colleagues go before you, and I’m guessing they stole a bunch of your challenges and possibilities. But I know you’ve got some new thoughts to add. What do you want to add here?

Jason Robertson
Yeah, so I’ll take it from a different standpoint, because I do I have left, you know, I don’t work in Student Affairs directly now. So one of the things also with small colleges and institutions, it’s extremely important, is communication with your faculty colleagues. And because at small colleges and institutions, faculty sometimes also take traditional roles that student affairs professionals take, and for better or for worse, one of the biggest things that has to happen in that role is the community strong communication between student affairs and faculty. And how do we both serve the institution, and how do we not compete? And that’s going to be one of the biggest things, is because you can’t compete at small institutions. You shouldn’t compete at large institutions. But that’s a whole other stock conversation we could get into. That’s a podcast, right? That’s a whole different podcast, whole different book we can write about that later. Um, but how do we we’re both here for the students. We’re both here to meet the needs of the students, and so how do we share sometimes the burden of the work that needs to be done? And Charlotte Vail does some work with this in our book, and talks about, how do we have to be adaptable, and really, how do we work together? And how do we ensure the UN siloing of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs, especially at small institutions, and at the heart of all of this is small institutions really also get the luxury sometimes of being mission driven, and they can focus. Is very much some institutions are very social justice based, which we see with our colleagues at St Mary’s, and they talk about their work in the their social justice departments and and community engagement with Sarah Dempsey and her colleagues. But how does that? And that is a good example of faculty a department that is both Student Affairs and Academic Affairs. So we can share these roles and be adaptable and be innovative, where, if it sometimes, people might not give you the money for a pure student affairs program, but what happens when it serves both sides of the college, and sometimes trustees will hear that when they won’t hear another. And so I leave that as a true moment of collaboration and a true moment of supporting and getting truly co curricular. And how do we work those two things together? Yeah,

R. Bradley Johnson
and I’ll say that that things that I would get on a soapbox about or preach about, when I was a student affairs staff member, the moment that you slapped that faculty label on me, you would have thought I had given them the secret to slice bread or something, and I was like, but I haven’t said anything different this time around, that I have that than what I said, you know, 1215, 16 years it but it’s the perception of, you know, faculty holds certain power and certain governance at an institution. So I always tell my students, you know, get on the side of faculty. Find those faculty that get what you do and are there to support you, because they’re going to be your champions in a lot of spaces that you’re not going to have access to.

James McGhee
And I think Jason and all and everybody here’s made a good point. So to sort of circle back around to the community aspect for our for the people out here who are at small institutions, the collaboration is key. And if you’re if you’re not in a senior role, take the opportunity to go talk to your advancement folks and have them explain to you how to do and ask when I got ready to run the eSports program, while we were trying to hire a director, I had donors that were interested. I had never asked for money from anybody before. So the advancement folks talked me through, how do you do that? And so now, when we do, you know our day of giving, I am perfectly comfortable jumping on the phone and making calls to alumni for them, and I do that because they did it for me. Yeah, go to your advancement folks. I mean your enrollment folks. Get them to explain you how yield rates work. It changes your life when you understand how yield rates and discount rates work at a small institution, it really sets the budget in right and focus for you, and then you can, as a student affairs professional, make better decisions for your own department if you understand how what you’re doing interacts with everybody else. And at a small institution, because we are a community, you can have those conversations without it feeling like you’re not in somebody else’s lane. You want to understand their lane so that you can best help them in that lane. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
well, James, let’s stick with you. I love this piece about challenges and possibilities, but there’s so many chapters and so many contributors to this volume. Want to invite each of you to share what’s a chapter or a contribution that is really sticking with you in your practice? So, James, what’s really standing out for you?

James McGhee
Well, there were two, so I’m gonna lift both of them up. The first one was Jen and Carla’s work with external partners. I think that right now is so key. We sort of covered that, so they’re deeply into that. And also Samantha Lopez’s work about student engagement after the COVID 19 pandemic on small institutions, and how that’s going to fundamentally change how we operate in every program, not just in Student Activities and Residence Life, but in terms of off campus life. How do we get people back to campus to get engaged in the community when they’ve been so used to engaging in different ways, and then how do we change those ways to make them more palatable and comfortable? So both of those articles, for me, really stuck

Keith Edwards
out. Great. Great. Jason, what has stuck with you? What do you I mean, I know this book is out now, and you probably wrote it and a year and a half ago, maybe, and you were getting submissions and people writing things even before that, what has kind of stuck with you over time?

Jason Robertson
Yeah, and I think I appreciate that you said that, because the I want all of these articles were phenomenal, and all the people who contributed to these articles were phenomenal. But I will say, I’m going to talk about the process a little bit, because we had a collaborative when we put this together, we actually had a a lot more people who were going to write than we ever knew. We had people that articles that never made it into this because and so we worked through a collaborative process early on in this process, in this group, and people got to submit ideas for this book. We. Income. We kind of knew where we wanted to head head with this, but we wanted to know from practitioners, what do you want to talk about? This is kind of things, what did you want to talk about? And we came up with a list and this. And honestly, there were a lot more articles that were going to go into this book, into the but we worked together as a team, and sadly, a large number, I can think of off the top of my head, of about five authors who lost their jobs during this process. Their colleges shut down. They were out of jobs, and navigating that process with them personally, as they were losing their jobs, and then had to come back to us and say, I don’t have the bandwidth anymore. I personally can’t devote any more to this, because I don’t know where my next job is going to be. I don’t know where I’m going to be able to afford anything from my family anymore. And we truly built a community as we were writing this group. And, you know, it really helped to build and highlight the closeness of the practitioners that were working on this volume, and the support we gave one another and the empathy that we all had for one another as we were going through this process, and we watched colleagues go through what we were writing about. So I highlight that as something that you will until you either you’ve experienced it you I mean, we read about it every day, but then you watch people are just just break down that you’ve never met, except from a zoom call, and then just watch everybody start to pitch in and say, No, I’ll pick up that article. That article is really important. I’m going to shift and drop what I was writing about, because that is so important, we can’t let that drop. Yeah, and that truly highlights the community of practitioners that we are, and the importance of the work that we do in our field. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
well, it highlights community. It also highlights the urgency of doing well at small colleges. As we’ve said, the viability is, you know, it’s on the razor’s edge, right? You know, five more students get retained, and you’re great and, yeah, five drop out for really good reasons that you think is in their best interest, and you’re in real trouble and cutting position and a few more. And maybe, maybe the institution doesn’t get, get to exist anymore

Keith Edwards
Jen, what is kind of stuck with you and your day to day practice

Jen Shaw
first, you know Jason and Brad and Deb made this such a fun process. It was quick. We had to move really fast. They were really good about moving us along when we needed to move along, but, but it was like such a pleasure getting to work with them and echo. Jason, gosh, the authors just some really, really bright, bright people that I really admire, James clearly being one of them, he is. He is such a sharp cookie and and I really think he’s an amazing practitioner in the field. I’d say probably from the chapters, one of the themes that that is constantly on mind for all of us is retention. And, you know, how do we do it? You know, what are creative ways to do it? How do we do it with no money? How do we personalize it so that that’s probably one of the one the things that I would say probably got me thinking the most in terms of, it’s a constant pressure for us, just exactly what you just said. How do we keep them? Is it in their best interest? You know, how do you kind of weigh out the you know, I just met with a student today who was 26 grand. Does she really need to come back and o more money versus, like her home life’s terrible. Is she better off on campus and having 100 grand in debt? You know, some of those just really difficult things. And so many of the new populations, I know for us, we’re seeing a lot of students on the autism spectrum. How do we how do we retain effectively, students who who are presenting different needs than maybe we’ve seen in the past, so that’s probably what start struck. But I will tell listeners and watchers, gosh, there’s some there’s some bright people in student affairs, and I think you’re going to be really impressed with with this collection.

Keith Edwards
Great. Brad, what’s been sticking with you?

R. Bradley Johnson
Well, I echo what everyone else has said. I think for me, one of the things that stood out the most was the case management and the care teams. We saw an increase. We were gradually seeing an increase before COVID, but I think once COVID hit, we. Really saw the increased need and the importance of people who serve in those care team, case management roles, and they don’t have to always be out of a out of a Dean of Students Office or so where we may typically think, I mean, the article that we had in the edition talked about, you know, academic advisors, you know, utilizing technology with starfish, and navigate 360 and everything and and how there has to be, going back to that idea of community, there has to be a lot of connection with, you know, a student’s advisor, a student’s faculty member, You know, the dean of students office, or wherever help may be available. And so what really stuck with me, and I think it’s because I have a lot of friends, especially here at UNCG, who are in those roles, and it’s hard. It’s hard on them. My master’s is actually in counseling, and they they do counseling on a daily basis, and it’s hard issues. You know, when you have a student who is housing insecure, who may not have a place to go back to, or, as Jen was talking about, home may not be the best place for them to go on a break, or when the academic year is over, and they have three months or so before the next year starts, we’ve got people students who are food insecure, the number of pantries and everything that are popping up all over institutions. I had a student who did an independent study on that, and it was just, it was amazing, but it was also a little bit heartbreaking that that we would have to have things like that that that come up. And so these these colleagues, are working with our students on a daily basis, trying to help them navigate these very hard situations. And it takes a toll, I think, on them, and I’ve seen some who have just who have burned out at an early stage in their career, and you just want to say, but you do it so well, the students really connect with you. And that’s, I think, part of the concern is they do put 110% into their services and their efforts with students and and in this, again, going back to the staffing changes and everything, we’re asking a lot more of people in these positions, and so it’s going to take its toll. So, you know, I think getting getting better resources, more staff for these care team and prevention roles, so to speak, I think is is vital, and something that I continue to think about as we’re hiring new, new staff members, or, as I’m hearing students with coming into college with with greater concerns about just their well being overall. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
all of you, I’m really taken by the power that these institutions have to affect students through the community, through the relationships, through some of the remarkable opportunities they have, and also the real challenges for as Brad you’re just talking to, for students and for staff, Jason was bringing up the folks colleges, closing, losing jobs. There’s a real poignancy here, Jason, do you want to jump in there? One more thing before we move to our final question.

Jason Robertson
Yeah, I think to echo what Brad was talking about, you know, I’ll put my public health out on for a moment. You know, one of the things is also, how do we further train our Student Affairs practitioners in some of the other areas that are really that I think we can help them with like so in the fields of things like public health and health promotion, and things like social determinants and social drivers of health and how everything is connected that our students are dealing with. And I think I’m very passionate about those types of things being both a public health practitioner and a student affairs practitioner and an academic, and how do we really start to bring those things together? And as a member of the American College Health Association, one of the new things that’s coming out is really also faculty and staff health to understand all of this stuff that impacts our students, also impacts our staff, and it impacts our faculty and it impacts everyone else. So I think as institutions, regardless of your size, we’re here talking about small colleges today, we really need to do a really great job to start to understand what is happening on our on our campuses today, and then bring in additional. Resources, and we can, we can’t forget, sometimes our students are our resources, and sometimes our students have the passion to do some of this work too. So, you know, yeah, I would just leave kind of with that in that area as well, right?

Keith Edwards
Well, we are running out of time. I feel like we just got started. But this podcast is called Student Affairs NOW, and we always like to end with this question about, what are you thinking, troubling or pondering now might be related to this conversation or build on it, and also, if you want to share where folks can connect with you, you can go ahead and do that too. So Jason, you just shared one thing that’s on your mind now, social determinants of health and public health and staff and faculty as well as students. What’s one more thing that you’re pondering now.

Jason Robertson
I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t kind of mention this. You know, I’m really right now thinking about what the current impact of governmental policies and practices are going to be on our current system of higher education as a whole, but especially on our small colleges who don’t have unlimited tuition resources, who don’t have unlimited endowments, who don’t have all these resources, I mean, and nobody, no college does, but especially for small colleges and universities. And I’m really thinking forward. I’m trying to think through. How do we move through this in an organized and focused manner? Right? Not in a chaotic manner, but how do we move through this in an organized and focused manner, not only for ourselves, but really to meet the needs of our students and our student populations, both for the institution, but also for the personal safety and well being of our students that we serve.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, great. James, what’s with you now?

James McGhee
So for me, I’m thinking about innovation and ways that we can innovate our practice, and at the same time, not asking people to innovate practice when they don’t have the energy to do so, but knowing that if they can’t innovate practice, and we can help higher education to change more quickly than it normally would, that that can also be a mitigating factor to what they’re feeling in terms of, you know, burnout and powerlessness, the ability to change how things are done. So I’m really pondering how to do both of those things at the same time, to help people change, but then also to change the ship that is notoriously slow and turning right or left, but probably needs to figure that out pretty soon if we’re gonna if we’re really gonna serve our students best.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I love the both and of that. James Brad, what are you focused on now?

R. Bradley Johnson
I think probably one of my biggest concerns is just and we opened with this, but the continuous closures of small colleges our area, here in Greensboro, we have a wide variety of institutional types, including small colleges and universities. And I’ve seen I’ve seen them struggle here lately, and I think that that is what is worrying me the most at this point, because, as James alluded to, we potentially are losing a piece of historical significance in the landscape of higher ed when you’re talking about institutional types, and all the different types of of institutions that are out there, and where student affairs workers can can go once they, you know, graduate like mine, with their master’s degrees. And so that has really gotten me concerned, because they don’t necessarily have the alumni base that they can count on to give huge donations, or even a lot of donations that larger institutions, especially like our ones or so, tend to rely on. And so that has me, that has me concerned, especially with my own small institution, which I don’t think is, is, is any danger, but I mean, you never know, especially with this day and time with with higher ed undergoing more scrutiny for accountability, and people wanting to know, why should I get a college degree? What’s the return on investment? I could do a job now and start making money, and so I think all of that kind of goes into the mix and plays a role in the future of small colleges and universities.

Keith Edwards
Well, Jen, we’ll give you the last word.

Jen Shaw
Thank you. Well, first, I want to welcome anybody that has listened and stuck through this with us, to be in touch. Email is great. I’m Jen dot Shaw at St leo.edu or LinkedIn is another way to get me. But would love to hear from you and get your insights and and talk about, you know, our our book that we’ve put together. Secondly. I on the Gallup Strengths Quest positivity is my number one. So I cannot end on a bummer note. So I’m going to end with just saying partner with anybody you can you know. Back to our conversation, faculty, parents, alumni, anybody at the institution, but also outside the institution. I cannot tell you how many companies have stepped up and it, you know, it’s $10,000 for orientation T shirts, or it’s, I just got a hotel to give us several certificates for free night stay, so that if a student’s in the hospital, the parent can stay at a hotel for free. So so reach out to people and ask for help, because they want us to survive. You know, they believe in our institutions, especially our alumni, and so I think, take advantage and build those relationships and really be entrepreneurial, would be my final message.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Well, thanks to all four of you for joining us today, for your contributions to this and to Brad, James and Jason for editing this volume and steering this clearly a very important, urgent and critical message. So thanks to all of you for your leadership in this space. I also want to thank our sponsors of today’s episode, Evolve and Huron. Evolve helps senior leaders who value aspire to lead on and want to unleash their potential for transformational leadership. This program is led by me, along with doctors, Brian Rao and Don Lee, and we offer a personalized experience with high value impact. The asynchronous content six individual and six group coaching sessions, and maximize your learning and growth with a focused time investment, greatly enhancing your ability to lead powerfully for social change. And Huron collaborates with colleges and universities to create sound strategies, optimize operations and accelerate digital transformation by embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo. Huron promotes institutional resilience in higher education. For more info, please visit go.huron.com/now as always, a huge shout out to our producer, Nat Ambrosey, who makes us all look good and sound good behind the scenes, and to thanks to all of you our audience for listening and watching these important conversations each time you listen or watch and share with others. You help make this possible. You can really support us by subscribing to the podcast on YouTube or to our weekly newsletter announcing each new episode on Wednesday mornings. If you’re so inclined to leave us five star review or add a comment, we really look forward to them again. My name is Keith Edwards, thanks to the fabulous guests today and to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you all.

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