Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Absolutely. So I think something that is at the essence of what we do is we support students. We remove barriers to their success and we have theories that have been constructed and developed over time. Some problematic, some, a little bit more involved in their collecting of data that informed those theories. But when it comes down to it, it’s all about the students, but then sometimes we start to forget and go, well, how do these theories apply to me? You know, in my own transitions and well, I can help everybody else with their career development, but when it comes to my own, I’m somehow different in that. So I think this book kind of welcomes folks to think about themselves and stop for a moment and, you know, we serve our students so well and maybe some of the folks that we supervise, but what does it mean to actually think about ourselves?

Keith Edwards:
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs Now. I’m your host. Keith Edwards. Today we’re discussing early to mid career transitions in student affairs. Student Affairs Now is the premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browser archives at studentaffairsnow.com. Today’s episode is brought to you by Stylus. Visit styluspub.com and use promo code SANow for 30% off and free shipping. This episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape. Go to leadershape.org to learn how you can work with them to create a, just caring and thriving world. As I mentioned, 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 Ojibue peoples. Let’s get to today’s conversations. We have three folks here. Love for you to introduce yourselves. We’re here to talk about early to mid career transitions. We’ll talk more about the book in our second part episode. That’s coming up next in a little bit, but let’s go ahead, Jane, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
Good afternoon. My name is Jane Adams-Dunford. Pronouns, she/hers. I’m Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. with over 30 years of experience in higher education. I am very passionate about access and student success. My diverse experience in student affairs includes organizational development, strategic planning, leadership development, equity, and inclusion, and university compliance. I’ve had the pleasure of serving as mid-manager Institute director for two years for NASPA and SACSA and faculty member for several years, which has afforded me the opportunity to share and grow with others in our wonderful profession. Thank you for having me today, Keith

Keith Edwards:
Yeah, we’re so glad you’re here. I look forward to that wisdom from all of those experiences. Kristin, tell us a little bit about you.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Hi everybody. I’m Kristin Walker-Donnelly. I serve as the Director of Assessment for the division of student affairs at Clemson University, where I’m also a visiting professor. So dabble in a little bit of teaching in the master’s and doctoral programs that we have. My pronouns are she/her/hers. In my previous higher before higher ed life, I was actually a secondary ed teacher taught predominantly English and dance and decided to make the transition into higher ed. And just had a passion for transitions in the work that I, as a high school teacher in the career center at Clemson University and even with assessment and being a visiting professor, talk about transitions all the time have had the pleasure of presenting with Tony and Dr. Pam Havis. Who’s now retired with different conference presentations on the topic, and then it was really exciting to get involved with Tony and Dena and this publication and looping in so many amazing colleagues to share their wisdom about transitions. I know I learned a ton and helping to edit and write this volume of New Directions and look forward to chatting about it today.

Keith Edwards:
Wonderful. Thanks, Kristin. And Tony, how about you?

Tony W. Cawthon:
Hi, good afternoon folks. My name is Tony W. Cawthon and I use he, him and his pronouns. I’m finishing my 30th year at Clemson University. I started my career and university housing and Mississippi State, world series baseball champion. I’ve got to get that in. So I started in university housing and then worked for about 13 years and then I moved over to be a faculty member. So I’m currently an alumni, distinguished professor of student affairs and higher ed and worked here teaching primarily in our master’s program. But I also teach in our doc program as well in ed leadership in the higher ed concentration with that. So look forward to talking with you this afternoon as well.

Keith Edwards:
Wonderful. Well, thanks to all three of you for joining. As I mentioned today is this is part one of a two-part episode.

Keith Edwards:
We’ll have both episodes drop on the same day. And both episodes are on career transitions in student affairs. This episode, we’re going to focus on the early to mid career transitions. So many folks are in the midst of that contemplating that doing that. I’m struggling with that wrestling with that, and then we’ll be releasing another bonus episode today on many of the other career transitions, things like retirement or moving from practitioner to faculty or mid to senior level or beyond higher ed. So we’ll talk about some of those transitions as well. All of this is explored and your new directions for student services book, managing career transitions across the lifespan for the student affairs practitioner, Tony and Kristin. You edited the volume along with Dena who will be on our next episode. And Jane contributed. I’d love to hear her. Tell us a little bit about the book overall.

Keith Edwards:
Tony, maybe you can help frame this for folks who aren’t as familiar and might want to check it out.

Tony W. Cawthon:
Okay. Yeah. Happy to do that. It was a labor of love, first of all. But it was an opportunity to do a New Direction series. As Keith mentioned it’s a nine chapter book that really looks at different career transitions that all of us experience you know, we hope to create and put together a book that looked at each of the uniquenesses of all the transition periods that we experienced in our career. But more importantly, I think, as I remember back to Kristin can add to, I think we really wanted to put together a book that gave readers some practical tips about how to be successful, managing those transitions written by people who had experienced the transition. So the retirement people was written by people that have retired.

Tony W. Cawthon:
The mid manager chapter was written by mid managers. So we really hope that that was what he was going to do. So the first seven chapters deal with the sort of the transition periods. The last two chapters are a little bit different. They look at things that are I guess, aspects that impact your career development. So there’s a great chapter on how your social identity impacts your career transitions in terms of how you navigate those. And then the bookends where the, I guess what I would call a comprehensive list of resources to help you navigate and move forward. But we really hope that it would be a book that people could pick up and read the pertinent chapter about at the appropriate time in their life and be informed and be better trained, better, ready for the transition that’s about to happen. Yeah. Wonderful. I love some of the practical tips. So let’s, let’s hear some of those practical tips as we go along. Kristin, you were also one of the editors. Anything else you want to add about the overall volume?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
I don’t think so. I think to what you said in terms of the practicality of it, it’s kind of all the things we wish we would’ve known when we were first navigating that. And we also said none of these things are rocket science, love the rocket scientists out there, but in terms of the information, we just wanted to package it in a very condensed way. We know time is of the essence for a lot of folks. So we wanted to make sure that it was something that you could pick up and read at any point in your career and constantly go back to it and have the condensed version. And that’s what I, as Tony said, in terms about that resource chapter for further reading, for further resources, we wanted to be able to, you know, kind of embed and hyperlink. And it’s almost one of the great things too about the publication being available online is being a conduit to resources. So sometimes you just don’t know where to start.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Well, all due respect to the rocket scientists, I would argue that human change and evolution might be a little bit harder than rocket science, right over the whole course of a lifetime and a career, but we’ll do our best here. So let’s talk a little bit more about some of these early to mid-career transitions. Kristin, why don’t you kick us off here? What are we talking about? What would you want people to be kind of thinking about anticipating and maybe broaden the perspective on this?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Absolutely. So I think something that is at the essence of what we do is we support students. We remove barriers to their success and we have theories that have been constructed and developed over time. Some problematic, some, a little bit more involved in their collecting of data that informed those theories. But when it comes down to it, it’s all about the students, but then sometimes we start to forget and go, well, how do these theories apply to me? You know, in my own transitions and well, I can help everybody else with their career development, but when it comes to my own, I’m somehow different in that. So I think this book kind of welcomes folks to think about themselves and stop for a moment and, you know, we serve our students so well and maybe some of the folks that we supervise, but what does it mean to actually think about ourselves?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
So I think when thinking about these transitions, we have to really think about kind of two buckets. And I think the authors of the different chapters did a really nice job of encapsulating this, that you’ve got the personal transitions and then the professional transitions and our minds automatically tend to go to the transition of the job, you know, of literally going from a grad student to a new professional or a new professional to a mid or to my terminal degree, et cetera, et cetera, versus like there’s all the personal stuff. And I think the last 18 months have that a lot for us. So I love that we’ve gotten the book questions to ask. We have practical questions that you can ask, you know, using Nancy Schlossberg’s adult transition theory and the four S’s, what questions can we ask ourselves? And we need to recognize too.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
So in some, some of those tangible things is we know that a majority of the folks that might be listening to this or viewing it on YouTube may have gone through a cohort model. We know maybe the majority of folks went full-time or went straight through from undergrad to grad. And those things really impact some of those personal and professional transitions, something that we love about Sondra and what she talked about. And her chapter of going from grad, a new professional was building community in your zip code. So even the job aside, like how do you make friends seems like such a simple thing, but when you go from my friends may be more on my residence hall or on my hall, or they were in this club or things of that nature is how do we make friends knowing everyone in your department or in your office or on your team are not necessarily going to be your BFFs.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
You know, there’s some of the politics involved with that. And, and how do you start building those relationships? If you take a role where maybe you don’t know anybody, I know that happened to me and going to grad school, moved across the country at 30 years old and didn’t know anybody, but, you know, you kind of make your way through it and giving yourself, the space and grace to let that happen. But putting yourself out there, we encourage our students to go to their learning edge and meet new people. But we have to kind of do that a little bit, you know, of ourselves as well, you know, and then there’s some of the actual transition of the role, you know, so are doing some informational interviewing, getting to know people. We know we answered the interview question correctly that says like, oh, I would build relationships and get to know people in my department and across campus, but are you going to do it?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
And that’s just a great way to kind of learn, understand that institutional and department context, so that value of informational interviewing maybe figure out where you want to go leverage that same skillset and that same willingness to build relationships, but do it so that way, you know how to build the relationships that you need to do the job. But it also may lend itself to some of those friendships, you know, with colleagues across campus and such. So, you know, we might have some folks that have completed their graduate degree and they’re actually already a full-time professional. This degree might allow them to seek that higher level position or a different opportunity. That’s a transition too, you know, cause you can feel like, okay, well when’s the right time. It’s not like my colleagues going from a full-time graduate student into a role where all the jobs are posted at the same time.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
And how do I navigate that? But if you’re already going from a full-time role to another full-time role, navigating all the politics that are involved with that. And when do you inform your supervisor? So I think there’s some really good tools here on terms of those initial transitions, including even when do I go, if I want to go and seek that terminal degree and how do I balance that role with the other roles that I have. So I think the concept of transitions is just ongoing. It never really stops, but I think taking a moment to realize I’m going to be going through some personal transitions as well as some professional. And it’s, it’ll be a little bit messy, but you know, as Schlossberg tells us, we can look at ourselves, we can look at our support, the strategies that we’ve used in the past, and that can really assist us. Yeah.

Keith Edwards:
Let me, let me interrupt though. And then I want to get to Jane and then have Tony chime in. I love that you’re highlighting the personal and the professional. I hear so many people who are just focused on the job, the title, the move up, and then they completely forget about the zip code, the community, the friends, or lack thereof. And I love bringing in the student development theory. I think oftentimes we confuse student development theory and then there’s adult development theory. And I remember distinctly being in the doctoral program at Maryland talking about all these deep, deep student development theories. And we were talking about the students we work with, or maybe we get vulnerable and talk about when I was a first year, I did this stuff as though the same dynamics were playing out at break as no, they weren’t happening amongst us.

Keith Edwards:
And you know, we’re, we’re heading into the orientation season. Many folks are doing orientation and helping, you know, first-year students, essentially high school seniors in many cases make friends and it’s super awkward. The only thing more awkward than 17 year olds making friends are student affairs professionals, making friends, right. How hard can that be? I and then I think a really important thing to highlight here is that we often have cohort models for master’s degree. And some people do have that cohort experience as new professionals. Maybe they are one of 12 RDS for instance, but then others are the only new hire in the past 10 years in the career center. Right. And it’s very different to be the only one and have that experience. So many, many great things to highlight. Jane, anything you want to add here about some of these dynamics

Jane Adams-Dunford:
And community is so important because when we look at the whole piece and just what it is to be a professional and the retention of that professional community is everything and relational relationship building is so important. So I totally,

Keith Edwards:
Totally. How about you? What would you add?

Tony W. Cawthon:
Yeah, I think there’s one who graduates probably 35 to 40 master’s students a year who come back and chat with me. Here’s some common themes related to this one. Oh my gosh, it’s a lonely cause I was the only person hired in my department. I wasn’t one of 12 hall directors and it’s a pretty lonely experience when you’ve been immersed with that cohort where you did everything together and that’s good and bad. We all know them, but it’s a lonely, it can be a lonely experience if you don’t find ways to create that community, both institutionally and in the community, you live. The other thing I hear students talk a lot about, particularly as they move from grad student to student of Student Affairs pros is how exhausting working all day long. Yeah. When you’ve been working all day as a grad student, but it’s, it’s sort of a different kind of work.

Tony W. Cawthon:
And so they’re, they weren’t used to that. You know, having to be at work at eight o’clock in the morning as a grad student, I could go with 10. So I think those things are things to think about. And the other thing I hear them all talk about is, oh my God, I should’ve thought more about supervision and advising that I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have a philosophy of advising or a philosophy of supervision. And I’m now overwhelmed because I’ve gone from supervising students to supervising professional staff or administrative staff who may have been there 30 years to be much older than me. And how do I navigate that? So I think all those things are things that they need to think about on the personal and professional side is how do you, how do you do that? It’s just a difficult transition.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Tony, you bring up such a great point, you know, because you may be experiencing your own transition coming into a professional role while managing other people’s transitions. So while you’re trying to get things figured out and maybe onboarding yourself and participating in that, you’re also facilitating somebody else’s, you know, onboarding experience and helping them talk through their transition. So that that’s a lot and it, if you’re not expecting it, you can be really overwhelming.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
And one of the things that we often hear from our mid managers is that they’re the ones that are doing the onboarding and they are not being on-boarded. So I think that we have to be very mindful in that whole sequence of habits plays out and how we can better support them.

Keith Edwards:
Perfect transition. Thank you, Jane. Here we are. We’re having this conversation in July. We have folks who are just now maybe today, maybe next week, maybe last week, starting brand new roles. Maybe they’re moving from it’s their first time not being a new professional and having some kind of mid-level responsibility. And so they might be really curious about how they can start this. Well, have a great new beginning, Jane, you took the lead on the chapter on mid-level managers, as you mentioned, you have been faculty for many years and led the NASPA and then SACSA mid-level managers Institute. What suggestions or those practical tips I’m really eager about what practical tips would you have for folks who are starting these these roles in the next level of their career?

Jane Adams-Dunford:
You know, I would just encourage them to be flexible and willing to negotiate, but don’t compromise your integrity. I think that’s very important to know, and to start to cultivate a wide base of support, but don’t expect everyone to support your, every position of thought. Know how to give and take. Cause that, you know, when they come in out of grad school, everything’s their way or when they come into that new position I know at all, and I’m going to do it all.

Keith Edwards:
I was that new professional for sure.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
How could they ever, how did they exist without me? Right. I don’t know how I didn’t get thrown out.

Keith Edwards:
I don’t get it. Yeah.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
And I think, you know, probably to be cognizant of, and look for ways to make others successful, you don’t think about, you know, it’s bigger than, than the I it’s the we in team maybe work toward being perceived as competent and informed rather than one who has to always be right and become a citizen of the campus and get to know how the other departments and divisions on campus work. And that will help you in determining and your goals and priorities for the academic year and as much as possible, try to find that work-life integration. I’m not a supporter of balance because I always think that it’s going to tilt either way, but I think it’s very important and that we try to find that work-life integration.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Go ahead.

Tony W. Cawthon:
Jane, I love your comment though, because I think embracing that the mid-manager role is a complex ambiguous role. You know, you got lots of responsibility, but very little decision-making authority at the end of the day. So you better build those relationships across campus. You know, cause you’re the ones in some ways doing much of the heavy lifting and you got to know who to call on that other departments. I love that concept of if I’m a new manager coming in, schedule those interviews with other people, even if you don’t have to meet with them regularly, take, take the initiative and schedule your own time to meet with those other that you’re going to work with because the manager is the one sort of facilitating all the moving parts

Jane Adams-Dunford:
That dissemination of knowledge,

Tony W. Cawthon:
Recognize It is ambiguous and it is complex, but it can be a great role if you can embrace that.

Keith Edwards:
And I picking that up and what Jane was talking about about the negotiate, but don’t compromise. There’s so many both ands to this. And I love that. You’re talking about being a learner we were before we recorded talking about Bernay brown and talks about the shift from being a knower who’s right. To being a learner who wants to get it right. And I think that is that, that, that nuance and the campus citizen. I still remember a supervisor pulling me aside and saying, you’re here now you’ve got to stop wearing the polos from these other schools.

Keith Edwards:
We will go to the bookstore is a game where there’s polos from these other schools. I’m like, well, I visited there once. Isn’t that great? And no, she was not impressed. So being that campus that has been really investing in the campus community, learning about the structures, the people, the organization, the culture, the history, the, the intangibles is really great. I’ll tell you Keith, my funny story real quickly when I went to work at Mississippi State, my first week there, Mississippi state was playing my Alma mater and football and I’m with the football game, dressed in my Alma, mater orange from the University of Tennessee and ran into the president. And the president said, who pays your salary? It was a, it was a really minor thing. Okay. I am now part of this community. I am now part of the Mississippi State community. So that, that is so critical.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Well, we don’t want to turn this whole conversation and the embarrassing stories about things that we did, but some of those might be helpful. Kristin, what would you add to folks who are starting these new mid-level roles now and maybe are wondering how they can make sure they get it off to a good start?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Absolutely. I read a book and we shared it at a conference and I said, my biggest takeaway, as well as my own career journey scene is the higher you go up or the nature of your role. If it’s not just over one department. And like with my role with assessment, I’m serving all, is it just gets more complicated, you know, just for relationships, it’s complicated, determine the status like this complicated. And I think what you said about Brene Brown’s quote you know, about the learner and it’s not just about knowing and being right is, oh, it’s far more complex. What seems like such an easy answer. Nope. That’s probably gonna take a couple months and you were talking to the queen of sense of urgency, but really saying what are the things and kind of playing chess and real and not being like, you know,

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Mr. Burns and Simpson calculating, but how do I be strategic with who I talk to and where do I bring them in? Because like I tell folks, like I have far less authority in this role than I did in my previous role in terms of being able to make some change happen a little bit quicker. It takes far more because I’m working with institutional effectiveness and I’m working with my counterpart in this college and in the division of undergraduate studies and, and, and, and you realize everybody’s really still wants to row the boat in the right, in the same direction, but how we get there. And the journey that we take is, is really complicated. And just appreciating that and recognizing, wait, you see a barrier. I don’t even see. Yeah.

Keith Edwards:
Well, as Tony said, you oftentimes, yeah. As Tony said, you oftentimes don’t have authority to get people. You know, you can ask them to do things, but you can’t get them to do things. I remember a colleague saying, you know, I was as an entry-level professional, I was a resident director. I was an area director. I was a complex director. And then I became an assistant director and no one listened to me and she just thought the title was misnamed. She says, as soon as I realized that it wasn’t an assistant director, I was as an assistant suggester. Everything calmed down. Like that’s all I’m here to do. I’m here to suggest you do these events. I’m here to suggest you complete these forms. So I think that gets to the complexity of some of these mid-level roles, where you have a lot of responsibility, but not the authority that matches. And that’s where the, the nuance, the relationship, the influence becomes kind of the key commodity.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
If you can’t share the why, and you can’t articulate it, there’s the work that you do, kind of those at the same level and above you, but then those at the same level, maybe in below, if you can’t articulate the, why anything that happens is because the relationships that I built and because I’m able to do that some days I’m, I articulate it better than others, but if you can’t do that, anybody you work with will will know and be like, time is valuable. I’m not going to work on it if I don’t think it matters, right.

Keith Edwards:
I want to go back. Jane, just one more thing. I want you to go back and say whatever you were about to say, and then I want you to hit this balance versus integration point really well.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
Okay. I think that’s very important for mid-managers to learn how to manage up. I wish someone had taught me that I think it would have saved me a lot of aches and opportunities to learn of course, but, but I think it is so important that, that we coach them and support them and advise them on the importance of learning, how to manage it. Okay. Work-life integration.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. How would you tell us more about balance vs. integration? I think this is so important.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
So I always thought for years that I needed to balance and if I didn’t balance, I wasn’t okay. And that, and that I couldn’t be my best. And then I realized maybe I am at my best. If I’m doing this at 60 and this set 40, it makes me complete. So what wherever, and however you find your optimal space or peace, then that’s your integration happy place. So I try to stay away from balance because balance means equal and that all the time does equal need success. Right.

Keith Edwards:
And why would we want our life to be imbalanced with work? Right. But work is a part of life. Life is work as a part of that. So how do we integrate that?

Jane Adams-Dunford:
And you realize you are more than your job. You are more than your title.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. And or there might be some days or weeks or times of the year where work gets a much bigger chunk than it does at other times. And vice versa.

Tony W. Cawthon:
So I would say Jane, I love that concept of, you know, I remember having a supervisor who said work-life balance balance means that your working life just sort of co-exist integration means you bring them closer together and together, and that’s what you want. They’re closer together. Then you just want them to coexist, you know, keep separate pods come closer together. So I love that concept. And I think all of us can learn from that. Not just mid managers and new professionals.

Keith Edwards:
Yes, absolutely. Well, we’re, we’re, we’re running around the corner here and not quite to our final question, but you said so many practical tips, so eager to get those, we frame this, we’ve troubled it. We’ve made it complicated. We’ve talked about the nuance. So what are some key takeaways that you’d like to be really clear about as we help folks navigate these early to mid career transitions? We’re going to start with Kristin and then to Jane then to Tony. Krisitn, what are some key things that you want to make sure folks take away from this?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Absolutely. So I would say so in my previous role in the career center, I worked with a lot of especially graduate students and a lot of international graduate students. And I was doing a presentation for a group of automotive engineering students. So things I know nothing about except for I drive the car and I happened to go to this big trade show that is very envious of them because there was an internship component and I ended up not drag racing. Now I can’t remember the term for it, but there was a picture of me getting ready to go into the car and I have the helmet on. And I put that on the screen. And I said, you realize I’m getting in the passenger seat, right. Not the driver and drifting, that’s what we were doing. And, and I said, that’s, that’s your career development like welcome to grad school.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
You are the, in the driver’s seat, me as a career counselor as a career coach, I’m in the passenger seat. I have some tools and I can help navigate. Now we have GPS, you know, yay. But in terms of that, as an analogy and a way to anchor them, to think about it, I think that’s what we have to think about it as well, that we own our own career development and professional development. And another book that I’m Sandra wrote, which I’ll put the link in the chat you know, she says professional development is really a misnomer. It sends the message that is the profession’s job to develop you, and it’s really your own. And you have to take charge of that. And I know even attending mid-managers Institute with Jane several years ago, like that message was reiterated that you need to develop your own life strategic plan. And I think Tony is going to give a tidbit on this in a moment, but I think just reminding yourself, it’s on you because you know, you best, you know, as Tony always says know thyself. So that would be my biggest kind of takeaway is recognizing you really want to own your own career development and professional development. So your, your, your career doesn’t happen to you. You’re in the driver’s seat and have the control.

Keith Edwards:
I’m hearing to say, be good company for the journey. And this emphasis on on empowerment an agency, right? What am I, what am I going to take control of my career and what I want to learn and how I want to grow and how I want to move forward. All right, Jane, that’s tough act to follow, go for it.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
It is, so, you know what, I’m not even going to follow. I just hope I can compliment you got a pandemic has demonstrated. I think that flexibility, a synchronous work schedules can all support that work-life integration that we were talking about and lowering stress levels, and just affording a time for what do we do next? How do we still be a contributor, but develop and adhere to self care? So I want to encourage us as a takeaway to think about our role now, as we are trying to be authentic support our students and maybe ourselves and what it means to be an activist versus a professional, because sometimes those boundaries are blurred and we don’t want our passion to overtake and become a negative component in our work life. So I would just encourage folks to take some times and think about the boundaries of those categories and how do we move forward, support our students while still being authentic to ourselves.

Keith Edwards:
That’s great. And, and it’s a great segue to Tony and knowing myself what is important to me and where’s the right place for that. Absolutely. Go ahead. Tony.

Tony W. Cawthon:
and Jane, I’m bringing you to my class to talk to my students. I guess, you know, when I think about the big takeaways from this conversation, from this entire experience I had for me, I think it’s helping people have a career development plan that gives you direction and guidance, but not one that’s so rigid that you’re not open to the unexpected. So many of my grad students and early professionals want to plan their whole career. I’m going to do this for the time I’m 30. I’m going to be this. I’m going to be the chief student affairs, senior student affairs officer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I want to go be open to the unexpected.

Tony W. Cawthon:
The unexpected is the unexpected events and opportunities. You know, in chapter one, we talk about happenstance theory, which I absolutely love, but it’s not about luck when those things happen. It’s about making them learning opportunities. So I would say have a plan, but have a flexible plan. And one that allows you to embrace the unexpected events and opportunities that come your way that are new learning opportunities, new opportunities to take risks new obstacles to overcome. And you, and don’t have that rigidity that we, some people think they need to have in their plan. And you do that by again, knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, and you know, the people that are along the journey with you as as we’ve already talked about,

Keith Edwards:
Well, you reminded me of a great quote, which I’m going to attribute to George, which is serendipity is too important to leave to chance.

Keith Edwards:
And that’s what I’m hearing. You’re talking about. Be thoughtful and intentional so that these things that emerge unexpectedly, you can bring them in a while. We are running out of time. So no surprise. But this podcast is called student affairs. Now would love to hear what is sort of on your mind now, maybe it’s related to this conversation or just what’s happening in your professional lives or in the world. And then we’d also love for you to share where folks who maybe want to connect with you further where would you like to connect with them? So, so Jane what are you thinking troubling or pondering now and how can folks connect with you?

Jane Adams-Dunford:
Okay. How do we get back to a more traditional setting in the fall on our campus while keeping everyone safe? We have made the decision to not make vaccinations required or mandatory, but we are strongly encouraging. So that’s how my mind, so we want folks to be safe and we want our students to have a great experience and be engaged again.

Keith Edwards:
How can folks connect with you?

Jane Adams-Dunford:
Please connect with me on LinkedIn or jdunford@wcu.edu. My email would love to hear from you.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Tony, what’s a, what are you troubling now?

Tony W. Cawthon:
Oh, Kristin and I’ve had this conversation so many times. I think I’m just thinking about what’s. What is our profession going to look like in the next five, 10 years? I think COVID is had a lot of us reflecting on our lives, on our work, on everything. And, you know, I see more and more students that are considering jobs outside of student affairs. Who’ve been trained in student affairs and that’s great. But I wonder what it’s going to look like. What’s our, what’s our work gonna look like? You know, there a chapter of the book on career opportunities beyond the ivory tower that you all will talk about. I think in the next one, but I just worry about what it’s going to look like. Long-Term not, not in a good or bad way, but just how it going to evolve based on the impact of COVID as people reflect back on what’s important to them and how they want to spend their time, you know, COVID prove we could do an awful lot of things we didn’t think we could do in a virtual format.

Tony W. Cawthon:
And now we’ve got to learn from that and embrace that. But I do worry about the longterm profession of you know, I worry there’s a lot, a lot of change that we’re not ready yet to embrace, but we better be ready to embrace well.

Keith Edwards:
You’re right. And I think that’s on the mind of our listeners and us as hosts. We’ve got episodes coming out on side hustles and things outside of the academy. We’ve also got one coming up with what you’re talking about. Jane’s mentioning about what is this new work-life for student affairs professionals? What could it look like? How do we bring some more humanity back to the work-life of us in the critical roles that we’re doing and how do we be innovative and creative and create a new thing moving forward. So we’re looking forward to those conversations, Tony where can folks connect with you. If they’d like to connect with you further.

Tony W. Cawthon:
You’re more than welcome to email me at wthot@clemson.edu, or you can connect me on Twitter at, @tony_cawthon. My last name Cawthon. Love to chat with you anytime.

Keith Edwards:
Wonderful. So generous Kristin what’s what are your troubling now

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Troubling? So I think this whole concept of integration and what the workplace looks like, and just the, the muck and the unknown with that and the unpredictability as we figure it all out. So in terms of, you know, looking at again, that first chapter with the career theory, so looking at the intersection of your interest, your skills and your work values, well, that’s all super confusing right now as institutions and, and companies like, you know, or nonprofits, as Tony said, if you kind of go adjacent of what does it look like and what are the policies and know thyself and where do I thrive? You know, I remember having friends, you know, deciding, you know, I’m going to drop out of college and maybe pursue an online degree and then realizing, oh, that’s actually not where I thrive. Most. I thought the flexibility was going to be super great there and align well, and it ended up not doing that.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
So I think in terms of figuring out what does it look like for me as the individual, what environment do I thrive? How do I find organizations and institutions and departments and et cetera, where I can have a role that allows me to have the balance. I saw one study that said, if you can have it any way that you want at higher ed, what would it be? And it said maybe one to two today, it’s remote. And I think about a colleague I was chatting with today and he was talking about what parts of his job he think could stay virtual and what parts absolutely no way at an institution like ours in terms of brick and mortar and orientation. Like, no, it needs to be in person, elements of orientation itself may be virtual, but this component that I’m working on, this is where it needs to be.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
And, you know, I think others working with different students and again, seeking that work-life integration them saying, well, we don’t need to attend those evening meetings. And in my head, I’m like, where are you just going to tell the students that? Or can you have a conversation about that? So I think there’s a lot of pieces of assumptions and what works and giving the grace and space to figure it out, you know, and, and talk through it and not just say it’s all about me at the end of the day and what I want, and I’m going to make the job fit what I want versus how do we kind of integrate those two things together. So I think about that and then to Jane’s area with the mid managers. Okay. Now I’m supervising not just one, but maybe multiple people. And what does that look like and what different people need and what does that look like from an equity standpoint?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
So, you know, again, determine the relationship it’s complicated. You know, I think it’s just a little messy right now and we’ll figure it out. It’s just this transition, no pun intended, you know, it’s this transition period where we’ve got to figure out what makes sense while there are things that are out of our control, like in the state of South Carolina, they’re trying to figure out what does commuting and remote work look like across the state. So that way higher ed institutions aren’t competing against each other, you know? So some complicated things like that. I think it’s not that I’m worried. I’m kind of excited to see where it will go. And then how we all kind of figure out, again, know thyself, what works with me best as a supervisor, how do I support my people best? But if at the end of the day, our mission is to support students. What supports students best?

Tony W. Cawthon:
Yeah. That’s the thing you keep. Definitely for me I lay at night awake, worrying about recruitment to our profession because I’ve talked to so many undergrads in the last couple of years who, who their perception of what student affairs folks do has been based on the last 18 months. And that’s been social work for many campuses, and many of them are saying, I don’t want to be a social worker. And, and so that I worry about, are we going to see less people enrolling in grad prep programs? Are we going to see less people making a career out of this, that all of us have done for numbers of years and see it as a passion and a calling I do late at night and worry about the recruitment piece. And what impact is the last 18 months had on, you know, students had the opportunity to sit with their vice-president and get excited about student affairs when they thought they were going to be an engineer. Because you zoomed in, you got off the dang meeting and it was over I, that, that, that weighs heavily on me as a faculty member.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. She was a missed opportunity and the, in between spaces, right? The in between spaces, we missed go ahead, Jane.

Jane Adams-Dunford:
So think about our, you know, just talent management, our staff this year has been difficult. And I, and I think that we’re having some concerns and problems about folks transitioning back to the workplace because they feel like I’ve been doing my job effectively for over a year remote. So what does this look like and why do I have to come back? And there’s a nationwide attrition in the workforce, and we need to think about how that’s impacting us and how we’ll address it. We can’t do any more things anymore. We have to be creative, like you said, and innovative, right?

Keith Edwards:
Well, and this is different within higher ed and beyond higher ed is the same dynamics. It’s also different by type of institution. It’s also different by region. I mean, the biggest influence for via whether people were in person or virtual or requiring vaccines or not, or requiring testing or not. And that was the political party of the governor, of the state, not data, not other than, so these things are all in the mix and navigating, it’s just another good reminder as we were talking about the nuance, the influence and navigating all of this. Yeah.

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
And I would also add in terms of that innovation part, Jane, that you talked about, and it’s everything that we’ve been talking about and what part two will be is this concept of career development and professional development. And it’s not just about traveling to conferences. Like we know that the costs that are incurred, and if we want to be good stewards of resources, everyone loves a good conference. You know, some of the best ideas come, you know, yes. In sessions and also between sessions and, you know, the networking and understand it, like all of the benefits totally on board, you know, with that. But what does it look like from a broader standpoint to engage in professional development activity when, you know, the last 18 months, and it may not continue, has provided so many free resources, you know, podcasts and free webinars. And I think organizations and associations have gotten creative with sponsorships of bringing democratizing knowledge in this way. But again, it’s on us to take advantage of it if it’s there and carving that out and making time, and does professional development only need to be done working hours, or if I value it, am I willing to maybe integrate it a little bit differently? And, you know, I think about just associations, professional development and even volunteer roles. What does that mean? But again, I think we’ll figure it out. It’ll just be, what does it look like and in the next year or so?

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Well, I so much appreciate that endorsement for Student Affairs Now in this podcast, which is completely free and professional development, and you can take it anywhere. We hear from folks. They, they take the dog for a walk and listen, they go for a run, they do it in their commute so many different ways to, to integrate it into your life and, and keep that learning going. So really appreciate it. Kristin, we didn’t hear if folks want to connect with you, how can they connect with you?

Kristin Walker-Donnelly:
Absolutely. So LinkedIn, I put the link in the chat, feel free to connect there and you can email me at any time kwalke2@clemson.edu.

Keith Edwards:
And we’ll make sure all of this are in the show notes on the webpage with all of those links and everything else. I want to thank you so much to all three of our panelists today for your wisdom and your insight and your practical tips and reminder part two, which we’re also releasing today, a different panel of folks who work on the same book and same volume, looking at transitions beyond their ivory tower to retirement from practitioner to faculty, faculty, to practitioner doing a terminal degree issues of identity and how all of that plays out. So that will be the mess that we’ll try and get organized on the next conversation with three wonderful guests who contributed to the same book. So really grateful for you today, thanks to our sponsors LeaderShape and Stylus. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtual and in-person for students and professionals with a focus on creating a more, just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape offers, engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building to find out more, please visit leadershape.org or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn and Stylus is proud to be a sponsor for the Student Affairs Now podcast.

Keith Edwards:
Browse their student affairs, diversity and professional development titles at styluspub.com. You can always use the promo code SANow for 30% off all books plus free shipping. You can also find stylists on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitte @styluspub. Huge shout out to Natalie Ambrosey the production assistant for the podcast who does all this behind the scene work, including getting all of this up and out and the transcription available for all of you in the show notes. If you’re listening today and not already receiving our weekly newsletter, please visit our website at studentaffairsnow.com swore the bottom of the homepage to add your email to our MailChimp list while you’re there. Check out the archives, all organized by ACPA and NASPA professional competencies. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guests today and everyone who’s watching and listening. Please make it a great week. Thanks all.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-walker-donnelly-ph-d-05110348/

https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781579229580/The-Strategic-Guide-to-Shaping-Your-Student-Affairs-Career