Heather Shea
I posted something on Facebook, that’s actually a modification of what a colleague wrote. And I said, in that text something to the effect of, you know, I’ve responded to a lot of text messages like I’m okay, I’m okay. You know, and we ask people, How are you today? I’m fine. I’m okay. But, you know, I was, I was wrong. I’m not okay. We should not be okay. With this the violence that has been inflicted upon the East Lansing community. I’m safe in my home, you know, at this moment. But I think the process is going to be long, and it’s going to be a grieving process and healing journey. And I think as as I consider, like what the Michigan State University campus needs And you know, there’s lots of this happening in lots of places. But can we create some kind of shared connection and responsibility for building the kind of community that doesn’t seek a violent solution to solving problems like, at the individual level at the collective level?

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today we’re doing something different. We’re gonna be discussing how student affairs professionals navigate the aftermath of tragedy. Rather than hosting a panel of experts as we often do, we’re gonna get personal and talk amongst ourselves. Heather Shea is here to share a bit about her experience navigating the aftermath of tragedy on her campus at Michigan State. And we’ll also hear from Glenn, Raechele, Mamta and me about how we’re trying to support our colleague, and friend. We hope to leverage this particular experience of Michigan State and others experience to help all of us learn how we might navigate tragedies on our campuses and support our colleagues on campus. And from afar, with students with your colleagues, and more. We hope you never need this episode. But if you do, we hope this is helpful. Student Affairs NOW is the premire podcast an online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs are released new episodes every week. On Wednesdays find details about this episode or browser archives studentaffairsnow.com Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. And this episode is brought to you by Stylus visit styluspub.com and use the promo code SANow for 30% off and free shipping. As many of you who are regular listeners know I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him his. I’m a speaker, consultant and coach, and you can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting from Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples, we usually begin our conversations with introductions of our guests, but for regular listeners, you know, the folks who are here and you’ll hear from them. For those of you who are not regular listeners, and maybe have connected with this episode in a different way, you’re welcome to find all of our information at studentaffairsnow.com. We hope this is helpful. So let’s just begin with the human. Heather, how are you doing today?

Heather Shea
First, just huge gratitude to my colleagues who who agreed to join in this really difficult conversation but also to provide the support starting starting at the very beginning. You know, we lost three students, we lost three Spartans to what seemed like at this point in time a senseless and random act of gun violence. We have five more students in the hospital last night, even though a lot of our students have left campus in droves. Last night, 1000s of people, students, faculty, staff and committee members gathered for a vigil on our campus, and we heard from our governor, our interim president, even our basketball coach showed up.

Keith Edwards
And just for context, folks, we’re recording this on Thursday, February 16. It’s just for folks. Yeah, for your listening.

Heather Shea
Yeah, about three days, right. It’s been so my main takeaway from that event is, you know, Spartan nation is strong. It is a connected and caring community. How am I you know, I think somewhat, I’m going through the motions, right, and trying to keep myself busy. I’m trying to do all the things right, what are the what do students need, what staff the listening sessions that our division has set up, you know, sending resources, gathering information from my colleagues across the country, you know, checking in on my students who I work most closely with. But I’m also like, really paying attention to how this feeling that I can’t do enough right now. And then kind of disassociating from my own emotional reaction is, you know, one of the things that we that we talk about right as a trauma, exposure response, right, I’ve been reading my, my book, trauma, stewardship, and so I go to the resources right versus like, sitting in it. I’m, I’m also just really angry. I’m really sad, and I’m really angry. I was one of the staff who was called in to be at the family reunification center. And I got home Tuesday morning at 3am. Tuesday morning, I saw on the phone to my partner in Ann Arbor. He wasn’t there in person. But he was expressed an incredible amount of care and concern and said, You have to call your therapist and get an appointment. He came up that night was Valentine’s Day. So we were already planning on spending the evening together. He also encouraged me to reach out to my best friend Kathy Adams Riester, who’s AVP at IU. And both of those conversations were just like, so what I needed, right? So like, how am I today, I’m, I’m better than I was yesterday, and I’m certainly better than I was the day before. Yeah, so I’ll kind of stop there. I’m sure I can go on and on. But I think been spending a lot of time sitting in that moment of I, I know that this is common. And that is making me really, really sad. So

Keith Edwards
thank you, thank you for sharing that. As we talked about this, we don’t want to make this episode about Heather. And we don’t want to make it about Michigan State. But we want to use this experience and leverage it to learn and grow. And so I want to, I’m gonna bring in the other folks who are here. And just want to share, you know, you have a particular role on a particular campus. Other people have different roles. Other people are working directly with students, others are in counseling centers, other are macro administrators leveraging and planning events and dealing with media. And we’re all different humans having different experiences, different emotions, different connections, tapping into our own personal experiences in different ways. And we just need different things. So but I think you sharing what your experience is just helpful and maybe normalizing for others. I’m wondering what, if you want to kind of begin as lead us off and others can jump in. We want to talk a little bit about crisis response. In the aftermath of tragedies like this, we want to talk about helping students and we want to talk about helping the helpers and helping colleagues. So what have you been learning that maybe other folks might benefit from? Should they ever ever need to through this experience so far?

Glenn DeGuzman
I’d like to kick it off. Hi, everyone. Definitely not the the episode I was hoping to record this morning. But I think Keith, what you said about different people having different roles and having different responsibilities. When, when a crisis or a situation like this happens. All those roles, all those responses, the priority that many people have in their in their day jobs needs to go to the wayside. It’s all hands on deck. All essential departments that do contribute skill sets, knowledge, information, resources need to change that their purpose for the day for the week, for however long it takes to ensure that we are providing support to the students and the staff, of faculty who have to address this crisis. Because I think the reality is that we can do all the preparation in the world. And we can train people, but we are in a working environment where there’s constant turnovers, there’s new professionals, people don’t have a lot of experience in dealing with crises, how people respond in the moment becomes critical. And it’s it becomes really important that the leadership of the university needs to make sure that structures are in place. But more importantly, contingencies are in place in place. Because there’s going to be interdependencies amongst people and resources and people are going to need a break people are gonna need, the trauma that comes from just responding in the moment is is is critical. And that’s just from a structural perspective, I haven’t gotten to the student perspective, to create support for the students who are going to be going through this traumatic event, not only in the moment but for the rest of their lives. I’ll pause there. So I want to hear colleagues to just make this really organic.

Keith Edwards
Well, I’m glad you reminded me some of these students who were told to run, hide and fight when they’re first time having that experience. Right. They’ve done this in high school, they’ve done it in other situations. And so what does that bring up for them in so many different ways?

Heather Shea
And I and some students were at Oakland. Mm. which just experienced a school shooting, you know, less than a year ago. So that that’s the other heartbreaking part is that this is becoming way too normalized in our, in our society,

Glenn DeGuzman
You know, it’s interesting, I keep thinking too. When I first started working, I was at Colorado State for that felt like eons ago, right. And I was working in, in the Asian American Center, Asian Pacific American Student Service Center in Columbine hit. And that was my first foray in the students in Columbine, many of them came to Colorado State,

Keith Edwards
it was the largest feeder high school of Colorado State.

Glenn DeGuzman
It was an see that and to have conversations with students who experienced that had a really huge impact, even just how I look at risk and how I look at how we support students who are going through that, because it impacted students for years, years.

Raechele Pope
You know, it’s so hard to listen to this, I want to begin by saying hello to everybody. I also want to talk about the the introduction that this isn’t about Heather, and this isn’t about Michigan State, and I want to disagree, it’s all about Heather, and it’s all about Michigan State. And it’s all about Columbine, and it’s all about Colorado, and it’s all about Buffalo, you know, this is so incredibly personal, you know, and, and it’s and it has to be because that’s where it starts, that’s where it is for our students. That’s where it is for our faculty and staff on these campuses. And that’s where it is nationally, you know, I keep you know, people on campuses, we’re always walking that line between the personal and the political and the appropriate professional, as long as we love guns more than we love people. And we prove that especially when those babies were killed in, in Connecticut, you know, right. And so you’re like, we that’s the decision that we’ve made. And so we will continue to face this on campuses. And I was thinking that I was, I think I was in Iowa at the time, I know, I was connected, my partner was living there. And I think it may have been when I was working there where that was, I think the first campus shooting where a student shot faculty and administrators. And then so this continues, and it makes me crazy, and we don’t know how to deal with it. And so we deal with the immediate aftermath in those ways that both Heather and Glenn were just talking about, right? But then we say, okay, it’s gotta get back to normal, right. And so now we say so students walk in the class and faculty start teaching. And so we have to send out letters and say, you can’t just start teaching, you’ve got to acknowledge what has happened, even if it’s a week later, even if it’s, depending on when we can get back to the campus, we’ve got to acknowledge that we’ve got to be able to say, how are you? Because those students are walking in with that, that faculty is walking in with that. So our situation that happened in Buffalo, not even a year ago, it hasn’t even been a year, where someone came to Buffalo specifically to kill Black people from a small town in New York didn’t have enough. So we had to drive to Buffalo, find a place where black people would be and then circulant. So how do you come back to class as a student and say, This is how, you know? How am I supposed to start focusing on statistics? Right? So that we have to recognize it’s not just in that moment. It’s in this all this aftermath, giving people the place and the time to talk.

Keith Edwards
I think that brings up a really interesting challenge. And Heather and I talked about this yesterday and Michigan State is canceled classes until tomorrow. And I’m not here to second guess that decision in any way. And I think there’s a downside to not having class not having places where people come together where people come to have an adult in the room to be connected. There’s you know, not everybody handles that well, some people jump in, we’re going back to normal. But I think that’s an interesting complexity to consider about how to navigate community how to navigate connection, what structure does having a class period in a particular location or virtually bring and and what good can that do? And as pointing to if we just ignore the reality in the room it can it can you harm? Mamta let’s get you in here. What do you what is the present with you?

Mamta Accapadi
Oh well, so much. And I disagree with The collective Heather, this can be about you and about Spartan community. So, and I think it’s important. And so I guess, you know, Keith, you, you talked about what’s present with me what’s present with me is we all need to be present with one another and figure out what that looks like. So, as I was thinking about the, you know, the reflections that we’ve all shared already, I think about, you know, we’re part of this grand ecosystem, right, our societal ecosystem, of which I don’t, you know, I might have individual contributions to how I can address some of my beliefs around where and how guns should be used and where they should be, and who should have access to those things. And I don’t have agency in that conversation, right, or those decisions. And yet, as members of campus communities, we have agency of certain conversations, but we’re part of this larger ecosystem. So if there’s one part of our ecosystem, that is essentially causing harm or decisions in an ecosystem that’s causing harm to the part of the ecosystem that we’re a part of, how do we do? Like, you know, how do we do our best, and how do we be present and be loving with one another in that, and just as I hear y’all reflect, I just, I just go back to I feel really, as the young people say, basic whenever I say this, but while this is, while we’re talking about an immediate reflection to supporting students and our communities, now, we have to change how we show up every day, because our everybody I’m going to focus on our young people and our children. That’s my bias. They, they are socialized to live in a world where this could happen to them at any moment in time. Right. And so, now when I think about processes like academic advising, or, or the conduct process or what ever our campus ethos is need to be 100% Loving, I want to know where love is in the strategic plan of every decision that we make, because the one thing that we have control over is how we love our students, and how we love our community, and nothing else matters. So then the decision around canceling classes, if you know, Keith, I think you were brilliant, you know, it’s it’s it’s a messy decision, right? And all we’re imperfect, so we it may or may not be what people need, but it’s better than pretending something’s not happening. Right? Yeah, or hasn’t happened. And at the same time, where do we prepare, and not just first responding colleagues, whether it’s public safety or student affairs, educators, you know, our facilities, colleagues, and so many people that kind of sit in, you know, health services, emergency response, those colleagues are? How do we live and lead in a culture where faculty, staff, students, anybody who’s prepared to create healing spaces is given agency to do so? How do we put that in, you know, in HR infrastructure? How do you facilitate a grief based conversation that can’t I mean, that needs to be informed by and guided by our, you know, mental health professionals, and experts on trauma, trauma based care and response. However, I think we all have the ability to become stewards of those meaningful conversations. And so I think in those ways, I’m not excited that that’s a toolkit that I want to strengthen. But it’s a toolkit that I need to strengthen and I think, you know, you know, something that that Glenn said, was so powerful. Yeah, all hands on deck, and that, you know, I’m not on a campus anymore. But when I was on a campus, that was a thing, you hear something happens, and then we all knew we were 100% of the staff were we’re gonna get together. But now what would that look like? If it’s not just Student Affairs? What would that look like? If you know like, yeah, really, is the processing of invoices. So important, like, let’s have our finance colleagues like whomever whatever, like we should become cultures of healing.

Heather Shea
I just want to add, like, I think that was the first ask that I had of the community and Dre Domaine ACPA, President, right, I have a direct line to her because of my role. And I sent her a text message. I was on a zoom call, then nine o’clock the next morning, pulling together listening sessions, right. So these are not counseling, we had counseling also. But like spaces and places where students can come together and community and be heard, right. I was like, There’s got to be resources out there that somebody has developed for a situation like this and Dre sent me this, like, multi page document before I got off of the Zoom call and was able to forward that to folks, it’s been adapted and posted on our website shared across campus. Glenn, got my text responded, I’ll send you stuff when I get to the office forwarded to me, like a whole bunch of UC Berkeley resort. Like, I have this like, compendium of, you know, documents and details that, and this is this is the Student Affairs community, right? Like, it’s people across the country. You know, starting at 930, that night, reaching out to me, like my phone, just, my phone just exploded from people on other campuses, who are who were here for us. And I just, I just want to say, I think that that’s, that’s part of the bigger conversation for me is that it’s not, it’s not if but when? And then how do we equip folks to be as much as you were saying, in those conversations and present? You know, what do you need to be able to facilitate a listening session? You know, what do you need to have, you know, a degree in counseling? If, if there’s a student who needs that we need to be able to identify and refer right? But like, what are the things that students need in that moment, often, they just need somebody to, to listen to them. I took my dog to the vigil last night, I should post a picture of her. And students just came up. First of all, she was a little bit she’s not a trained therapy dog. So she was a little bit anxious. But I had a couple of students come up, and I’d be like, how are you doing, and then we were able to have a good conversation. And it was just, it was just really valuable, I think, to be able to be present in that moment with those students as they’re having just experienced this.

Mamta Accapadi
I feel, you know, as I hear you reflect, and I’m sorry, this is probably going to be the thing that I harp on in our conversation today over and over again, which is, you don’t need professional development to deliver affection. We all have an abundance of affection within us. And what’s beautiful about the diversity of the ways that we show up in the world is that my brand of affection in any one of ours, it’s all going to be different. And so there’s going to be a type of affection delivery that is relevant and necessary for our students, for our colleagues across the board. So let’s do that. Right. And I think that, and I am really uncomfortable with what I’m about to say next. So I just need to own that. I need as a former senior administrator, in student affairs, my wish and hope, and prayer is that other cabinet level colleagues, you know, inclusive of, you know, VPs of development, Provost said, are all all the things. And the President recognize that this role does not sit on the Student Affairs organization to provide affection, there’s a different organization only. Right? And so how we activate around being a culture of affection and love sits directly live the way that that that that culture, permeates, sits with the President sits with trustees. So I just, I guess that’s that’s what I would offer is that we leverage especially our privileged identities, in this particular case, to be affectionate.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. And I love that you’re the reminder of just our human capacity beyond our skill set beyond our training beyond our degrees beyond our certifications, right to start human capacity, and I think some people do not feel equipped. Yeah. You know, I think Raechele mentioned a statistics professor might just have I don’t don’t know what to do, I want to I don’t know what to do. And maybe your reminder just helps them out, overthink it and be human. But then other folks may not feel equipped because they’re overwhelmed of what it brings up and evokes for them. Right. And I just, you know, I know I have a job, but I can’t be effective and doing that I might do harm. And I this is bringing up whatever, for so many people and I think we have to remember that because I think it’s so easy to say well, Heather, you have a particular on campus and so you need to go at there’s also a human who may or may not feel prepared or equipped or capable had there’s also a human with different skill sets. And the last person in that job probably would have been More effective or less effective at doing different things. So how do we really think about not just the role in the job, but the humans that are in them, I want to go back to what Heather mentioned, you know, being barraged by love and support and connection and empathy and shared experience from colleagues, far beyond Michigan State is wonderful. And you mentioned to me hearing from some colleagues, some of whom are on the screen right now. Right away and immediately and sharing resources. And I didn’t instantly was thinking of you but also not wanting to intrude? How do I be supportive? How do I love Heather without being another thing she has to tend to? And I’m not saying I’m wrong, and others, right, or vice versa. But just the complexities of that, I wonder, yeah, just just as a n of one, Heather, when when colleagues see something like this happen, what would you want to say, this sort of guide about? What would be helpful, what you need it and recognizing other people might feel differently?

Heather Shea
You know, to be honest, that little iPhone heart thing that you can attach to every message. So, you know, I see you I, you know, I appreciate you sending me this note. You know, several folks, folks, did, uh, you don’t have to respond right now. But I definitely, you know, I’m thinking about you. Other folks, like, I just got a text message, as you’re sitting here from a colleague is checking in on you. Are you doing? I mean, I think I am definitely a person who looks looks for connection, and moments of shared positivity residents, whatever we’re to call it right. You know, that love that, that we talked about? I also think, you know, the amount of people I consider a family, you know, in ACPA in student affairs. You know, that’s what that’s what we that’s what we do is we show that so I really, I deeply appreciate it. Keith, I didn’t even I was so bombarded. I didn’t even track have come I haven’t heard yet from. So, no, no, no. No worries at all. If you’re if you’re one of the people who have not reached out to me, it’s totally fine. But I tell you, like I you know, I also recognize, like Facebook has not been a really healthy place for me for a while. And so, I recognized going back on to Facebook, and seeing outreach from folks, I was like, Oh, my gosh, you know, another whole place that I hadn’t really engaged in in a while. And this is my cat Sammy, who sent tend to like, join every time I’m talking, I’m then hangs out on my left.

Raechele Pope
your voice and says, Okay, she asked me for

Glenn DeGuzman
the love. I have a couple of scattered thoughts. To your question, Keith, about community. You know, when I found out about the situation in Michigan, watching the news late at night, and the first thing that popped in my mind was just to send a quick text, just let them know, I’m thinking about her. And then, you know, but what’s really interesting is that I’ve been going through a lot of personal and you all know this, I’ve been going through a lot of trauma in my life with with my just my extended family and whatnot. And just getting a communication, for me personally was just reassuring, knowing that was part of a larger fabric of a community. And I think that when when we think about resources, and we think about what we do, right, we can have all the information we can we feel like we can have all the information we can feel like we leave plan for this type of scenario and whatnot. But that human connection still needs to happen. Because we need to be able to just know that there are people out there who are willing to help and I think about my own experience working at UC Berkeley, where we do have lots of situations that emerge all the time and the relationship that I have, not only with you know, my fellow colleagues at Berkeley and the departments but also extended outside of UC Berkeley. I think that’s a that comes with just being in the field for a while. And that comes with just developing relationships for a while. But I remember when, when, like COVID When COVID situation emerged, right? It was easy for me to contact our UC My fellow UC Santa Cruz, my colleagues over there using just asking questions, or in one case, we were even looking for rooms, right? Like, who would think that you can contact another institution for that type of support and help. But that is what it means to be part of a larger Student Affairs community if you if you happen to have those connections. I think the other piece and I want to go back to something Michelle said earlier, I’ll pause here was just in the aftermath of the situation. We are responding in real time and I think Student Affairs we’ve always just been like, well, we react we situationally react to situations, we’ll try it, we’ll solve it, we’ll figure it out. We’ll try to do this. We have enough data, we’ve done enough episodes, y’all right? We know that. We know that. Mental health issues, mental health concerns, crises are rising, we have the data, we and we need to make sure that we’re investing more money, more resources into ensuring that staff are prepared. But the dilemma is, if we know that this is happening, the minute students are popping up the campus what is happening before they get to campus. Right? Where is the you know, and we can’t I guess we can we can lobby, we can do what we need to do, we can volunteer, we can say what we need to say before on what we feel this to happen before they get to college. But once they get the college, I’m in residential life. I’ve got first year students first year transfers first year since living and I see what they’re going through. And so it is what keeps me up at night. It is it is like the thing that drives me like ensuring that we have all the protocols and the strategies in place, knowing full well, that even if we have that we still are going to be it’s gonna be a chaotic response because of the fact that we don’t know who, when, where, or what’s going to happen. And I think that’s where leaning on the community leaning on each other. getting support from other getting contact with other people is so critical.

Keith Edwards
And folks, sharing resources, and tactical support and scripts and guides is great, but also love and connection. And someone not in it can be really helpful. I do want to move us to wrapping up, I want to just kind of get a final thought from from each of you. Raechele, what do you want to share with us as we move to concluding? Well,

Raechele Pope
I’m not sure if I have a final

Keith Edwards
co faculty member, we know we understand

Raechele Pope
how much everyone. So I want to say one is about reaching out. And I think that there’s a there’s an important tool that we can use. And that is it’s not about me. And then about me sending and so letting them know I’m thinking about them, but not expecting them to share information or to have the time to deal with me. Now, I can find that information out other places, all I want you to know is that I’m thinking about you and to not put any pressure to respond not put any pressure to answer my questions or anything like that. And I think that’s crucial. And want to also circle back to one other thing that we talked about. And that was the sort of skill set they have the being human, the sharing ourselves and our love with others. And I just want to point out that we need to do this in ways that are authentically us. If you are that person that doesn’t deal with emotions to really well. But you’re a faculty member, and you have your students coming in. And you know, to the class and you could say I was wondering if we could take just five minutes to sit quietly and allow us to think about what we’ve done, what we’ve just experienced, and what will help us be here together. So now I don’t have to think about what’s the right thing to say or what if a student pours out all this emotion and I don’t deal with emotion really well. I just need to be me and to allow space and then to figure out how to have the other and so I think that those are some important things for us to keep in mind that I don’t have to jump into super emotive mode when that’s not my style. It’s me I’m all over the place. I’m all emotion or but somebody else who isn’t to give people the room to be authentically them and not to have expectations about how they handle it, but that they do something.

Keith Edwards
Glenn, what do you want to offer us here?

Glenn DeGuzman
I really liked what Raechele just shared that was really good. I’m going to come at it from. I’m going to try to come at it from a different angle. My I’m thinking about the frequency that this is happening across our country. And I think about it In the preparedness of our student affairs professionals, not only at the leadership level, those are experienced, but our newest professionals. And so to the leaders to the decision makers in the department heads, make sure you’re reviewing your processes and protocols. Have a plan make sure you you have the understanding that that people when a situation like this happens, it may not be your trained staff who are going to be responding with you. They might be a civilians, a non affiliate, someone who’s volunteering their time, just because, right I think about I mean, it’s an this was an active shooter situation, we have earthquakes tornadoes are, we’re just going through, and we need to be prepared. And you have resources just at the tip of your fingers. Not only that you possess but other people, other people have that information. So it can be shared in the moment. This is one thing.

Mamta Accapadi
So I think you put us an order. Interesting order that like I’ve just like the yes or Sally Yes, glad. And I think where I want to connect into the conversation is to say, a completely agree, right, as I think about, again, being the person who was responsible for protocols and processes, having those in place. Because it’s all just going to, I mean, at least it’s a loose infrastructure, when you actually can’t think that clearly when you’re in the moment. And the other part that I would say is, and I’m not excited again, to say this, but I think that there is a preparation that we need to have around understanding our coping strategies. So this is the kind of professional drill we can do with our teams, because these things are inevitable. So if I’m stewarding an organization, where am I creating space to talk about when tough things happen? And when you experienced trauma in your life? What are your typical coping strategies? Or how would you want people to know like, as, you know, it’s to build that sense of interconnectedness within and among our teams to show that we do and I hope that we do care about the individuals who work who we work with, for and alongside, so that from from an administrative care base leadership infrastructure, that’s what I would offer. And then the the other thing, and we touched upon briefly, but I also think this is something that we could strengthen, which is this notion of our our interconnectedness, outside of even the parameters of our institutions. So what does it mean to have an active relationship with spiritual leaders in the community? What does it mean to have an active relationship with local community groups? What does it mean, you know, to have those active, meaningful relationships, because sometimes if we don’t have that capacity, because we are in it institutionally, we can draw upon and remind ourselves that we’re part of a community that’s bigger than us.

Keith Edwards
And sometimes our campuses are going to be that for others in the community, right? It’s not just campus incidents, but we’re going to be there for things that happen. And other places. I want to, go ahead.

Mamta Accapadi
One more thing, the importance of secondary traumatic stress. I just can’t underscore that enough, because what we’re going to see is that, and so we see people reacting to things that don’t seem like that’s what the issue is, right? Like, just recognizing that. So that’s continual because this life is continual in the way that we’re having to navigate.

Keith Edwards
And I want to recommend to folks, just briefly, trauma stewardship, we did an interview with Laura Vander Lipski really helpful how to help the helpers, both individually and organizationally and, and structurally, Heather, how would you like to wrap this up today?

Heather Shea
Yeah, I just, I want to echo everything that you all have have said in that. Also just express my gratitude. I, I posted something on Facebook, that’s actually a modification of what a colleague wrote. And I said, in that text something to the effect of, you know, I’ve responded to a lot of text messages like I’m okay, I’m okay. You know, and we ask people, How are you today? I’m fine. I’m okay. But, you know, I was, I was wrong. I’m not okay. We should not be okay. With this the violence that has been inflicted upon the East Lansing community. I’m safe in my home, you know, at this moment. But I think the process is going to be long, and it’s going to be a grieving process and healing journey. And I think as as I consider, like what the Michigan State University campus needs And you know, there’s lots of this happening in lots of places. But can we create some kind of shared connection and responsibility for building the kind of community that doesn’t seek a violent solution to solving problems like, at the individual level at the collective level? Yeah, that’s, I think, my biggest hope I’ve been, I’ve been thinking a lot about hope. I’ve been writing my speech for ACPA. And I was thinking back to the, to one of the first student affairs books that I that I read in 19, it was published in 1998. So that that gives everybody an indication of how old I am. When Hope and Fear Collide, y’all remember that book by Robert Levine? And internet curtain, and I just, I think about this, like, what, how, what would it be to live inside hope? live inside the feeling of hope. And so, while that book has, you know, probably not as much relevant today, because it’s really about my generation of college students, those who went to school in the 90s. I think about our students today and how much of them are coming with hope? versus how much of them are coming with fear? And can we build the kinds of campus communities that foster hope? I love and appreciate all of you. Thank you so much for your time and for your support for Michigan State’s campus for me as a human. I am so grateful.

Keith Edwards
We love you Heather. Go green. And you love right well, I get to transfer us to sponsorships now. So thank you all so much for your love, your sharing your vulnerability, your honesty, your wisdom, all of that. And and thanks to our sponsors who honestly make conversations like this possible make it possible for us to offer this free, no charge to anyone who wants to listen or watch anytime. So thank you to Symplicity and Stylus. Symplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institution Symplicity supports all aspects of student life including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being students access and accessibility services. To learn more, visit symplicity.com or connect with them on social media. And Stylus is proud to be the sponsor for Student Affairs now, browse their student affairs, diversity and professional development titles at styluspub.com. Use promo code SANow for 30% off all books plus free shipping, you can also find them on social media. Thanks to Nat. As always, please connect with us in other ways. We hope this conversation is something that you will never need. And if you do, we hope it is useful and will continue to make a difference in the lives of students and our colleagues and our communities will be on our campuses. And that gives me hope for the good work that you all will do. Thank you all very much. Make it a great week. Bye everyone.

https://studentaffairsnow.com/trauma-stewardship/   
https://studentaffairsnow.com/trauma-informed/  
https://studentaffairsnow.com/combating-compassion-fatigue/  
https://studentaffairsnow.com/navigating-trauma-and-burnout/