Brian Gano
So you look at an organization and it’s made up of gears, right? So a department is a gear and then that gear is broken. So you take out the gear and you fix the gear, you stick it back in, and everything is working, right. And then when we started looking at Appreciative Inquiry, we’re looking at that whole human system and some of the tenets of appreciative inquiry would say, No, you have to look at the whole system, every one affects everyone else. And then if you’re only fixing one little thing and putting it back in, you’re only getting back to the status quo. And Appreciative Inquiry, you can also look at it and use the word appreciative in terms of it grows in value, right. So that’s one of the things I like to tell people, as you know, we’re not only looking for the positive strengths, but we’re also trying to grow your value and move beyond the status quo. And isn’t that what most organizations or individuals want to do is get better and grow and appreciate?

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today I’m joined by doctors Symphony Oxendine, and Brian Gano, the two editors of a new volume on appreciative inquiry and Student Affairs. I think this may be a new approach for many of you and I’m excited to learn more and explore this with our experts who edited this volume and got contributions from many of their colleagues will talk about what it is and how we can utilize it in our practice. Thank you both for being here and for sharing with us. Student Affairs now is the premier podcast an 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 every week on Wednesdays find details about this episode or browse our archives it’s studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is also sponsored by Routledge Taylor and Francis view that our complete catalogue of authoritative education titles at routledge.com/education This episode is also sponsored by Huron, a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice. 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 advanced learning, leadership and equity. You can find out more about me at Keith edwards.com. I’m recording this from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. So, Brian and Symphony glad to have you both here. Really excited to dig into this a little bit more. I’ve been loosely tangentially working with appreciative inquiry for more than 15 years now. And so really appreciate it. You getting this out there. I think it’s a really great tool that we can use more and more in our practice. And I think there’s also a lot of misconceptions, so excited to get into this. But before we get too far into it, let’s hear a little bit from each of you, Brian why dont you, tell us a little bit more about you.

Brian Gano
Hey, thank you for having me. My name is Brian Gano. I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. And my pronouns are he they. I currently work part time faculty in the master’s education program at UNC Wilmington in North Carolina. I also am the owner and facilitator at Kaino consulting where I do some work with organizations on team building program review facilitation and using appreciative inquiry. And my work relates to appreciative inquiry. I’m a certified Appreciative Inquiry facilitator, which means I’ve gone through some training through the center of appreciative inquiry to really utilize that and help organizations and approach things in a different way. So that’s a lot of my work. And then I’m also really focused on things like sensible logging and and campus climate for our students.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Symphony. Tell us a little bit more about you.

Symphony Oxendine
Yah, Hi everyone. My name is Symphony Oxendine. I use she her hers pronouns. I am Cherokee and Choctaw from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I am joining you from UNC W Wilmington, North Carolina, the ancestral and present day homelands of the walk masu on people. I’m an associate professor of higher education, as well as the assistant department chair and doctoral coordinator because I don’t do enough. So that’s a long business card for educational leadership here at UNC DW in the Watson College of Education. So I am a former student affairs always at heart professional turn faculty member. And I’m also a certified Appreciative Inquiry facilitator. I also have a consulting business where I do appreciative inquiry and leadership consulting, particularly around education and using AI to do strategic planning and those kinds of things. I’m a mother, a wife, and also a Disney lover. So here I am. Right.

Keith Edwards
All right. Well, let’s get some context. Because I think maybe people aren’t familiar with this term appreciative inquiry, and I think many people who do hear it have some misunderstandings about it. So let’s just get some context symphony. Let’s start with you. What is appreciative inquiry?

Symphony Oxendine
Sure. So appreciative Inquiry is a lot of things but kind of to get to the root of it. Actually, David Cooper during his dissertation coined the term appreciative inquiry as he examined an organization by looking at its strengths and its assets rather than through a deficit based approach which in his organizational development work, he really was like something’s not jive in here with this organization I’m looking at so he kind of flipped it on its head. But really if you get down to it AI is a generative strengths are asset based approach that looks at the study and exploration of what’s giving life to human systems at their best. And AI kind of looks at At the positive core, so the capacities and the processes that give life strength possibility to living systems, which is higher ed, right organizations, those kinds of things, student affairs are all living systems. So, in essence, it seeks out the solutions rather than the problems. So that’s kind of what AI is in a nutshell. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
really, unfortunately, we haven’t this artificial intelligence that has come in and AI, acronym away, but we’ll use it as for Appreciative Inquiry today, I first came along appreciative inquiry and when it was used in that context, by being in a training session about cross cultural communication, which is often loaded, and don’t say the wrong thing, and don’t mess up. And it was really brought in as a visualization of think about a time where you communicated across cultures. And it went really well. Yeah. And I would say that I talked about like, what, what made it go well, and what did you learn? And then we started sharing, it was really unique. So Brian, what do you want to add here?

Brian Gano
Well, I was gonna say, I think we hit on a couple things there. One is, it’s amazing when people are first introduced to it. How I guess natural it comes to them, but also revolutionary, it is for them, because things happen. Like when we pose those questions about when was the best time you you were at this? Or when did this work really well? Those stories produce so much energy, right? And they really started to compound on each other. And they’re like, oh, yeah, and then. And then when, as a facilitator, we start breaking down, hey, what was happening? And what was present at that time? And we can really say, oh, what’s when can we replicate that? What can we do to make that better? And I think I also like the point when you use or introduce the question, was there some misconceptions about what Appreciative Inquiry is, because a lot of times, we think it’s, it’s positivity, for positivity sake. And we really will always want to just spell that right. We want to say no, that’s not what, what this is, we’re not ignoring issues that are in an organization or what’s going on. It’s the way that we approach what we can do about that, or look at that. And we can also say, you know, can we turn this into an opportunity? Can we flip it around? But then we also, we take a critical lens sometimes and say, Hey, there’s something that needs to be addressed here before we can even move forward. So what’s ways that we can we can do this, but the question usually comes out, like what you’re saying, well, when did it work? When was it the best thing that ever happened? Right? Yeah,

Keith Edwards
I’ve often heard people say, you know, when did it go really well? And then, what was the recipe? If you really love that dish? What was the like, what went into it? What were the secret ingredients? What was really key? And then maybe how can we replicate some of that? I also think it’s, it’s really useful. It’s sort of flipping the paradigm of the educator, being the expert, and having all the knowledge and knowing like, Alright, you’re on, we’re in a workshop on conflict, I’m going to tell you how to deal with conflict, instead saying, think about a time you were in conflict. And it went really well. Write down five things that helped that go well, and now all 20 of you share five things. Now we got a whole bunch of things. What do you think are the most powerful and so the group is kind of creating from their own lived experience, very fairy and flip of that kind of creating? Here’s how conflict has gone well, and what can we learn from it? And how do we apply it forward? What else do we want to say about what is or isn’t Appreciative Inquiry before we move onward?

Symphony Oxendine
So I want to say too, that Appreciative Inquiry, kind of, though its beginnings, very much came from organizational development. It is it has evolved so much since you know, 1986 and 87, when it kind of originated, that it’s now not only a theory, it’s a methodology. It’s a philosophy. It’s a mindset. Like I mean, there’s appreciative intelligence. Hmm, pedagogy. Pedagogy. Yeah. I mean, appreciative pedagogy, appreciative intelligence, Appreciative Leadership, like, there are so many ways that you can use appreciative inquiry. That, you know, it’s limitless, really, and I think that that’s one of the things that kind of drew me to it, I think, to begin with was how natural it felt. But at the same time, I was socialized to not really look at the positive or the life giving forces at things. And I think that’s what kind of a lot of folks really connect to about Appreciative Inquiry is that it’s this positive kind of idea generation versus negative problem identification, right. My my student development philosophy kind of emerged through my career but was really influenced by appreciative inquiry, which is students are a solution to be embraced, not a problem to be fixed, because I felt like so much as a student affairs professional that I was I was being told by kind of a Are people I needed to fix the problems which the problems were students? And instead of embracing that they’ve had so many successes just by getting to us in college? Why are we not looking to them for these answers that they’ve already got? So

Keith Edwards
yeah, are making a couple of connections with it, you’re sharing around Peter block who did a lot around community talks about going from problem focus to solution focused possibility focused on one year just focused on the problems, you start to love your problems and make them bigger and make them impossible and and then moving to solutions is great. But when you’re focused on solutions, the problem is still driving the solution. And we’re thinking about, like, what’s possible here? What Craig this space? I don’t know what that is behind you, Brian. But what could this community look like what could be possible here, sometimes you address the problems and even create things that are there. And then another one, very similar to that is Shan Jin, right, who wrote the four pivots around social justice, and one of his visits, pivots is from solution or we might talk about deficit focus to possibility strengths, assets, very appreciative inquiry approach.

Brian Gano
Yeah, one of the things I think, and this is, you know, from when we’re going through the training as appreciative facilitators that we talk about is when you start viewing appreciative inquiry in the process, that it takes place, you know, our, our natural position, or what we’re usually taught how to look at things, is what we call a Newtonian sort of looking at an issue. So you look at an organization and it’s made up of gears, right? So a department is a gear and then that gear is broken. So you take out the gear and you fix the gear, you stick it back in, and everything is working, right. And then when we started looking at Appreciative Inquiry, we’re looking at that whole human system and some of the tenets of appreciative inquiry would say, No, you have to look at the whole system, every one affects everyone else. And then if you’re only fixing one little thing and putting it back in, you’re only getting back to the status quo. And Appreciative Inquiry, you can also look at it and use the word appreciative in terms of it grows in value, right. So that’s one of the things I like to tell people, as you know, we’re not only looking for the positive strengths, but we’re also trying to grow your value and move beyond the status quo. And isn’t that what most organizations or individuals want to do is get better and grow and appreciate?

Keith Edwards
And again, to re emphasize, it’s not about ignoring the problems or the challenges or the difficulties are approached to help us better address those to better navigate through some of that and some new ways.

Symphony Oxendine
Well, before we move on, Keith, I want to also mention one thing that is significant about appreciative inquiry. And if you do a lot of reading into kind of the roots in the evolution of it is not necessarily the only the positive, but the generative it, which is what you were talking about is solutions, yes, are amazing. And that we have to be generative about how we move forward collectively as a whole. And by generating new ideas, new possibilities, it keeps us from going back to that status quo. So it’s not necessarily just the positive of it, but it’s the generative positive change that really makes that difference.

Keith Edwards
I think that’s super important. Can you say a little bit more? What’s the difference between positive and generative?

Symphony Oxendine
Um, okay, so. So I would say that, when we talk about generative, that if we only focus on the positive, then there may be times when something has failed, which we would say, isn’t a good thing. But if we can use a failure to learn from and generate new possibilities, then you actually create transformational change at that point. So you know, so for instance, in your example you were talking about, especially when we talk about things like racial justice, social justice, equity, those kinds of pieces that you may not have, necessarily always an opportunity to say, well, this is a time when I had I had a most positive experience, it may be, I need to focus on what I’ve been through and what I know I don’t want to experience again to imagine or generate the possibility of what what it would look like if we all were able to communicate cross culturally effectively. So it’s not necessarily that if there is not a positive or life giving force, you can necessarily always pinpoint you still have a generative opportunity there that brings you into a new maybe never before thought of opportunity, right. So

Brian Gano
I was gonna say in to help with the language and then we’ll go into so with Appreciative Inquiry or, in some of the bases that will come out are is the either the four D process or the five D process however you want to look at, and there’s a lot of talk about that in the volume. But you know, the positive part is when in the one of the first stages is discovered. And that’s where you are trying to find out your strengths and what happened, right. And then you move into these dream phase and design phase. And that’s where that generative work happens, where in that dream phase, you’re saying, Hey, how can we, how can we build on this? And if we had no other limitations ever to impede us? Or do I want to do we could dream, the best organization that we could it possibly be? What would that look like? And that’s amazing what happens during that phase? Because in the design phase, we start taking that those statements or those ideas and actually say, Well, how can we accomplish that? What would that look like? What would we what would we do to in order to get to that point, or to some semblance of that dream? And then you sort of that last, the last D is to deliver on that and then come back to it. So it’s generative. And then also appreciative inquiry, unlike a lot of other analysis, organizational behavior examinations, is actually giving you plans, right, a SWAT analysis doesn’t give you a plan at the end of the day, right? It just, it just leaves you feeling like you have failed. Whereas in Appreciative Inquiry, you’re actually designing your future.

Keith Edwards
Well, the human brain loves a mystery, Brian, so I’ve got the four Ds, I need to know what the five these are the four Ds are discover, dream, design, deliver, and sometimes,

Brian Gano
well, the first one will be defined. Define. Okay, yeah. So you’re defining what your scope of your inquiry would be?

Keith Edwards
Okay. So we’re looking at conflict, or we’re looking at racial justice, right? Conflict,

Brian Gano
or where what our organization wants to be, or Yeah, we have this, this team building issue on our team. Let’s, let’s decide what we want to focus on there. So it can be large, it can be small.

Symphony Oxendine
And let me also say, sorry, we’re gonna move past Question one, I promise. That In the Define piece, and there’s there’s a technique that that out there called named claim reframe. So when you identify in the in the define, when you identify the focus of the inquiry, you want to make sure that it’s a positive, generative focus. So instead of we don’t want to be we don’t wear a dysfunctional team, you would name that. Okay, so we’ve got some issues that are going on here. So we’re not saying that you need to ignore issues, acknowledge them, and situate them in. So what does it mean, if we were a functional team? So you reframe it from a asset or positive kind of aspirational? So what you know, our topic of inquiry could be, we are a team that is communicating respectfully and functioning, healthy, right? That’s the focus. So you focus it on what you want to happen, instead of, again, identifying all those problems and then falling in love with them and keeping them regurgitating them.

Keith Edwards
Which reminds me of the miracle question from couples therapy. Are you familiar with this?

Symphony Oxendine
I am not.

Keith Edwards
The miracle question is couple goes to the therapy and says this is not working. It’s just not working. We really need your help. And the therapist says, Well, what if this two years of couples therapy was incredibly successful, and the relationship was just top notch? What would you notice day to day, week to week? Well, we’d hold hands and we do this, we do this, we do this? And the therapist writes all that down, and then therapist tears off that sheet and says, go home and do that. Yep, things that you think. Right. Right. So All right. Question two. You wrote this volume with other contributing authors, particularly for higher education and student affairs practice. So let’s talk about some of the ways we’ve talked in generalities, which I think is super helpful in the framing, but talk about how we can use this in student affairs practice. Brian, what are some examples you might be able to offer us?

Brian Gano
Yeah, so when we when we think about how we could use as a student affairs, and I guess some of the impetus of us wanting to bring this volume forward was we had some areas in Student Affairs in Higher Education, that Appreciative Inquiry was being used, of course, it had been applied as an organizational examination tool or analysis tool. And then we had things like appreciative advising, which had, has really taken off and a lot of people are probably very familiar with some of that approach to the work with our students. So we knew just from our experience, that other people probably are using what we call appreciative framework. So not just appreciative inquiry, but just start everything that falls under the umbrella of an appreciative approach to our work. And because it’s new directions and student services, we are particularly interested in what people are doing in a novel way or apply between these two different programs or areas throughout, and when we solicited authors we got I mean, we got a lot of responses we got, I think 24 or 25 proposals that we had to go through and make some hard choices with. And, you know, people will have been applying this to Student Conduct, which is also something that I talked about in our in our article about how we, how I applied it to some student conduct work I was doing at university or college. And then also, we’ve seen some graduates supervision, international studies, some, you know, overseas study abroad programs, some great work around, of course, appreciative administration, and budgeting are some things that we don’t really think about too much, but are important parts of Student Affairs. So I think it was, it was really interesting to us to see how people were adapting those five ds that we’ve talked about, or the appreciative advising model, or a model such as, there’s another model out there called soar, which is the Appreciative Inquiry version of SWOT so you know, strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results, um, gives you soar, and how you can sort of apply that to your organization or your department, and, and really build sort of relationships and this appreciative approach within your organization.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I’m reminded of when we always focus on the problem, it can be hard to see beyond that. And if you do things like sore, you start to say, Oh, well, what are the results we want? Oh, well, how do I pay attention to that? And how do I recognize that? Oh, I see that actually happened in the last meeting. How do we do that again? And how do we expand some of that sort

Brian Gano
is amazing. I think it’s something you can do in a in a over a two month, three month period you could do in two hours. And it’s amazing what happens in just that short time, because again, like SWOT, everyone leaves disgruntled, they feel like they failed an organization because you end on threats, right? You’re in a bad thing happening to us, and you have no plan forward. Whereas soar really is an amazing tool. But I think for folks

Keith Edwards
who aren’t familiar, just give us the acronym for SWOT. And then you’re suggesting this appreciative inquiry approach this acronym for SOAR?

Brian Gano
Yeah, so SWOT would be Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. And they sort of, you know, they coupled together so that you’re, you’re always combating that. And then sort of, if you’ve been through a SWOT analysis, the energy really gets to that point where, oh, we’re examining all these bad things. And people sort of leave with that with a taste in their mouth about what’s happening. So again, was strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results, to lead you through that process, a quick, appreciative process, where you end on results. And that’s that result piece of saying, how do we know that we’re, we’ve been successful and what we wanted to do.

Keith Edwards
Alright, we’ll see people doing this, and we’ll see this kind of outcome. Yep. Symphony? What other examples can you give us from student affairs practice, Brian’s laid out some of the functional areas and some of the approaches? What are some examples?

Symphony Oxendine
Well, so the actually the SOAR was the way that I kind of introduced appreciative inquiry in particular and into my teaching as a faculty member in a student affairs graduate preparation program. So, you know, I think that what I love about Appreciative Inquiry is that many of the folks especially the authors of our volume, we’re doing Appreciative Inquiry work. unknowingly. So they were you using that term? Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, it again, when I said it’s many things, and a mindset is one of them, and sometimes you just start doing it without knowing it. So in particular, when I started introducing Appreciative Inquiry concepts into my teaching, was, again with Student Affairs, master’s program students, and in our leadership and higher education class. And one of the things that was interesting is we did a sort analysis, our classes were two hours and 50 minutes. And we did a whole sort analysis about the one thing they all had in common, which was our program. And at the end of the night, I said, So you all just did appreciative inquiry. And they were like, what, and and realizing for for these folks who are going to go out into every functional area in multiple, like, even some academic affairs, doing student service work, just changing that mindset that they had that you don’t have to have any special knowledge to do this. is I think what really for Brian and I was particularly important about this volume, was we want to see folks being able to use these the concepts in the theory and philosophy behind AI in all the ways that they do their work. So, for instance, in one of the chapters appreciate the ABCs of like community service and community engagement, the author, Dr. Christy Poteet, she, she actually created her own model called appreciative base change, approaching community engagement and community service in a way that was not the savior complex of we’re gonna go in out from outside and come fix their problems and then leave. But it was how do we look at this community and be in relationship with this community we’re doing community service with in a way that acknowledges their humaneness their, their relationality the assets they bring, and how do we do this together. And I mean, it’s, I’m getting goosebumps just talking about like it, it is so amazing, because as an indigenous person, I know how it feels to have to be othered. And so just kind of having these, these practitioners coming in and being able to provide us with these wonderful applications that are very implementable. Is is is just really what I think Brian and I were trying to get to was, we don’t want this to be so theoretical, that it feels not approachable, right?

Keith Edwards
Yeah, yeah, it’s complicated idea. But a powerful one.

Brian Gano
And we, and we intentionally pushed our authors, you know, every time we got a copy back from them, it’s like, we want to hear a story. Like if they were they were giving us a traditional, you know, article with a lit review, when we’re like, you know, get rid of all that tell us the story of what is going on. Because storytelling is a huge part of appreciative inquiry. It’s where we find the power to where we find the strength. So we’re like, we want to know, how are you influenced what was what was going on for that, and we got some just amazing stories from our authors about what’s going on. And so I think that’s where we’re also saying, if we can give them stories, and we can give them a little bit of a roadmap, then we don’t know where this could possibly go. But we know, it could go to a lot of different places.

Keith Edwards
Well, that’s a great transition. Let’s get to some of these stories. So you, you organize this and facilitated this get contributions, like you said, for many people, lots of whom didn’t quite make it in. But when I was looking through it, I was really impressed with there were chapter titles and descriptions that I wouldn’t expect in a book on appreciative inquiry. It’s not sort of the traditional, here’s what it is, here’s how to do it. There’s a lot of like, very specific detailed things. It was really rich. I’m super curious, as folks who had some expertise in this and organize this call. What did you learn? What were your aha moments reading from the authors? What are some of your favorite stories that Symphony let’s start with you, but what was some some standout learning or some learning that stands out to you?

Symphony Oxendine
Um, you know, I, it’s hard to pinpoint it down to it, because it’s.

Keith Edwards
so choose a favorite.

Symphony Oxendine
It’s like picking my favorite child. I there’s, yeah, there’s just so much there that I feel like, in particular, some things that stood out to us are for me anyway, as we went through this was how folks are able to just own their own, they’re, they’re really struggling for words right now own their ability to make small changes in whatever way it made sense for them in their in their position in their office, or whatever program they happen to be working with. And that that we didn’t have to validate for them that this was worthy. So as as in this is probably my faculty hat, but like, I feel like as, as someone who is helping prepare current and future professionals in our field, that there are so many right answers. And oftentimes professionals feel like someone out there has the right answer, and I’m not doing it so I just need to find it. And so for us these these authors were all right answers to whatever functional area whatever program they happen to be. Addressing. So for instance, our colleagues from Hawaii are in or the writings they had in their chapter about building a community, a beloved community from using storytelling, which is AI and how they We’re able to not just affect students, but faculty and staff in a way that honored their traditions and their realities, but also brought everyone else into it. Because we know that it’s going to bring them higher and do better for everyone when we we bring everyone together. And I just feel like there’s so many kind of nuggets in each of the stories that they’re telling in each of these articles. But we really wanted to make it implementable. So for instance, Brian mentioned the Chapter on Budgeting. So I know how difficult it is to teach budgeting as as a faculty member, but you know, as professionals, how many of us really feel like we got a good handle on budgeting in a way that illustrates the values that we say we are our living, but then when it comes to spreadsheets and proposals of what we’re going to put our money to, it’s hard to put that into practice, because many of us haven’t been taught that way. So I think that’s what those little pieces in there just kind of really excite me about how folks can take this and use it immediately in their in their practice.

Keith Edwards
Beautiful, beautiful, Brian, what can’t you get out of your head?

Brian Gano
I think again, all all of our articles and all our authors were amazing that we had some great applications of how they’re using AI. You know, one of the if I was going to look at a specific one, I think that’s just in my mind. And a great example, is Dr. Glassman talking about how to use it in Student Conduct because I think that’s a really hard one. And we you think about well, how are you going to put appreciative inquiry into conduct because you’re, it’s pretty straightforward. If you ever worked in conduct, you know, it can be extremely draining. It’s not a very positive experience in general, you try to make it that. And he or she she really did a great job of showing us if you’re especially in the in the resolution part where it’s someone’s sort of accepting responsibility. Well, how can we make this a positive learning experience? And can you flip it on the head? And I know I did that when I was in Student Conduct, sorry, how can I turn this into more positive experience where we’re, we’re building on things rather than tearing you down or making a self true learning experience, that you really walk through a story about how I’m using sort of a fictional student of that went through the conduct process, but how would you guide them through this sort of appreciative process using the five day process of appreciative inquiry, I think it was extremely successful in the way that she approached that. But I also want to use her as an example. Because one of the things that was for us that simply I mean, was this whole process of this, this volume of getting this together. And we put the call out there. And one of the conversations we had before we were writing up the proposal and the call for everything was we again, we recognize that there are people out there who are using these concepts and using this process and have this mindset, but haven’t been formally introduced to appreciative inquiry or know what that means. So our proposal had to both be a call for papers, and an education tool. And it worked, because we had individuals like Dr. Glassman who wasn’t really familiar with the concept, but recognize that that’s what they were doing and what they want to do. We had several authors who talked to us about that. And we did presentations at ACPA Convention and about how that process sort of happened. But they were learning about the actual AI formerly, even though that that’s what they were doing. And then that also led to Symphony and I writing our first articles in there about knowingly and unknowingly using this. And I sort of examining our own past and saying, hey, you know, I from my art background and be an art major, you know, a lot of the things I learned of how to look at our critique art, improve my own art was sort of a stepping stone or away that instilled in me the values of appreciative inquiry. Well, before I actually met Symfony, and took her class on appreciative inquiry, which was my formal introduction to the topic. So I think both we have what’s coming and the lessons learned from this and what we can get from this knot or this volume is, of course, the articles and how we’re applying it but for me, it was really that whole process that we can educate these individuals and in our colleagues and find out how they’re using it and even if they don’t know they’re necessarily using it.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I think you know, this notion of it being tactical tools and source strategies and need to do it in a class but also this mindset and this philosophy, just of shifts how you approach the world you like, I understand you’re having a really tough time with your friend. What do you appreciate about them? Once a time when it has gone? Well? How might you want to get back to that can just be rather than what’s your friend doing? That’s wrong. I’m thinking as a parent, you know, why are they being so mean to you? And why does that feel so icky? And look, but just a way of approaching the world? I think it shifts from into a little bit more realm of agency.

Symphony Oxendine
Right. And, you know, I think that was what, what’s funny that Brian and I kind of reflected on afterwards is that what we are lovingly calling the appreciative editing that, you know, we both both, this was our first time editing a volume like this. And so we were learning as well. And, and having been through publication processes, where it felt not great, right, that you get

Keith Edwards
such a positive framing.

Symphony Oxendine
I’m like, you know, I mean, rejection after rejection, but in a way that was not not helpful at as a, you know, a young Scott Miller, who was like, just, well, okay, I didn’t do it. Right. But what what would you like to have seen what could have been better. And I think for Brian, and I, that was one of those pieces that we also wanted to be appreciative in the way that we, you know, kind of collected all of this, this stuff together and how we interacted with our colleagues who are contributing to this volume. So So I will say, it was a learning experience for everybody. And I’m so grateful that it that it turned out as wonderfully as it did, and I really hope that it has just some great impact for people and is useful in ways we hope it is. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
Well, and I think you’re reminding me that, you know, oftentimes, our goal is feedback is that we get no negative feedback. The path to no negative feedback is being okay for everybody. Yeah, and sometimes you take out the magic, right that maybe, maybe so and so didn’t like that. But for everybody else, that was the magic. And then you take that out, because one person didn’t like it. And so I think striving to make everybody happy is a great way and sort of moderation. And we’re seeing this now with the other AI Artificial Intelligence, it’s not coming up with the best ideas is coming up with the most largely palatable, average common response, taking some of the magic out of it. Well, I think you’ve done a wonderful job. It’s very eclectic. With the things that you’ve brought in the voices, the topics, the examples, I think people will find themselves in it. But as we are running out of time, we always want to end with this question as this is Student Affairs NOW, what are you thinking about? Now I know that the volume is out and available, you probably submitted it ages ago, you probably thinking about it, maybe even talking about it today, you’re coming back to it? What are you thinking troubling or pondering now? And also, if you want to share where folks might want to connect with you where they can do that? That would be great. Brian, what are you pondering now?

Brian Gano
Yeah, it’s a it’s a? Wow, that’s an amazing question. Well, I think one of the things I have been pondering and and marrying two of my passions really is appreciative inquiry, but also really examining sense of belonging. So I’m, the way that I approached, for instance, my dissertation was an appreciative approach to sense of belonging with LGBTQ plus students. And I really thinking about how I can sort of develop something or guide individuals to create campuses or create environments where belonging can really flourish on our campuses. And it’s such a blog sense of belonging has been a topic that really has hit, you know, new new heights in the last, I would say, 10 years or so with obligations and discussion and what the concept is and how we’re using it. So I’m doing some other work on another day in another journal with some other co editors on sense of belonging and housing. So that’s going to be an exciting project coming up, but really looking at how do we understand that because I think it’s rightfully so I think belonging is a key to a lot of the success that students can have. And if you take an appreciative approach to a sense of belonging, it can really flip your organization around and say, Hey, what are we doing that can actually help individuals find belonging on our campus, rather than looking at as sort of an outcome or retention thing that’s will just magically happen, so that, you know, we’re actually putting an effort into the things that need to be done for it to be successful.

Symphony Oxendine
I love that Brian. So that’s where Brian you know, Brian and I, that’s his dissertation. chair we connected over a sense of belonging. So we can totally dive on sense of belonging for a long time to, I would say what I’m kind of pondering and have been for quite a quite a while is, you know, as, as I think about my role in, in helping prepare and in, you know, think about professionals in higher education and student affairs in particular is, you know, how do we help folks kind of what I call shore up their sacred kind of identity. So I just remember how unsure I was about myself as a professional for so long. And then when I realized in in kind of integrated the AI, mindset and concepts that already existed in me, before they were ever called AI is an indigenous woman, those storytelling and all of that was still already there. But the hope that having something like appreciative inquiry and, and knowing that I can make changes, even small changes, for the betterment of myself, my students for that positive transformation is something that I continually challenged myself, because I know that the exponential impact in particular I can have as a faculty member will spread with all the students that I’ve taught in the past, and the ones I’m teaching now and will in the future, if I can help them understand how to embrace their value and what they bring that are wonderful gifts to our profession and to the world, that they can then go out there and make these positive changes. So we can kind of combat a lot of what feels very out of our control and very hopeless, bringing back that hope to our profession. And that, for me, is probably the biggest piece of why I love what I do and why I love in particular Appreciative Inquiry, in the amount of of emails and correspondence I get from former students who are like, I just want you to know, you may not be a lot to you. But this changed how I do my work. And it helped me stay in the profession when I felt like I wasn’t going to stay and changed how I did my work, and just is amazing. And so for me that really is kind of undergirding all the things that I do, and how I think about the future and how I want to continue to contribute as someone in this community. And folks can find me on Twitter, I’m there pretty much only once a year at ACPA convention, sorry, just you know, I’m busy. LinkedIn, my UNCW’s website, you know, reach out by email, but I love to connect with folks. And you know, I just love higher ed and love what we do.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful. I love that you’re highlighting hope and agency and possibilities. These are some of my favorite words. Anything else either one of you want to add, before we wrap up include something you want to make sure it gets in this conversation.

Brian Gano
Yeah, the only thing I want to highlight maybe echo a little bit was Symphony was saying is, and I know this, this volume is geared towards student affairs, but I think I’d be remiss not to speak to some faculty in our field as well. And say if you can encourage or use appreciative pedagogy and ways that you approach topics, do that. I mean, it’s it is remarkable what happens on how students respond. When you give them an update, just one appreciate a question at the beginning a class of you know, I started my semester asking my grad students, when were you the best version of yourself as a student? Yeah. And it gets them in the mindset of thinking about that, and how they can approach that. When I when I work with students trying to develop their thesis topic, you know, and I start introducing appreciative inquiry and how you can flip this, you know, what we look at as typically problems and how you’re going to really examine that problem and look at it and appreciate a mindset. They really get excited about a topic. And then the things that generate from that are amazing, and these are the future of our profession. So we really, if we can instill that early. I can’t imagine what will happen to Iran if we have a whole bunch of appreciative mindset of people out there in the field.

Symphony Oxendine
Yes, to that, yes. Well, and I just want to thank you, Keith, for inviting us on here, Brian, for being an amazing co editor, all of our authors who contributed and also the editors, Dr. Deborah Taub and John Garland, who were amazing and gave us so much grace. They were appreciative editors for us too, and I and I just, I’m so grateful to be able to that we can all share this together.

Keith Edwards
All right, thank you. Well, thank you for both for being here and sharing this with us and sharing this volume and all the work you put into it. I know we’ve just scratched the surface so folks can get the volume, where they get their new directions for Student Services. Thanks for your leadership in the space. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation. And thanks to our sponsors, to today’s episode to Routledge and Huron. Routledge and Taylor and Francis is the world’s leading academic publisher in education, publishing a wide range of books, journals and other resources for practitioners, faculty, administrators and researchers.. They have welcomed Stylus to their publishing program and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education, teaching Student Affairs, professional development, assessment and more. Routledge is proud to sponsor student affairs now view their complete catalogue of authoritative educational titles at routledge.com/education. And Huron is a global, a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients put possible into practice by creating sound strategies, optimizing operations, accelerating digital transformation, and empowering businesses and their people to do to their to own their future. By embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo, we create sustainable results for the organizations we serve. A huge shout out as always, to our producer, Nat Ambrosey who does all the behind the scenes work to make us look and sound good. We love the support we get from our community for these conversations. You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter and I’ll see each new episode and more. If you’re so inclined, you can leave us a five star review. It really helps the conversations reach more folks. I’m Keith Edwards, thank you again to our fabulous guests today. And to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thanks all.

–