J.T. Snipes: Welcome to Here’s the Story, a show that brings student affairs to life by sharing the authentic voices and lived experiences of those who are shaping our field every day. I am your co-host, JT Snipes. My pronouns are he, him, his, and I serve as associate professor and chair of Educational Leadership at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and I am trying my best to live as a free Black man in a world that would have me live otherwise.

And I am here with my fantastic co-hosts

Helena Gardener: Hello. I am Helena Gardner, and I serve as the director of residence education in housing services at Michigan State University. I have the honor of living my life as a mother, a daughter, a friend, a mentor and someone out here just trying to make this human experience a better journey.

J.T. Snipes: And we’re …

Helena Gardener: And

J.T. Snipes: we’re also going to begin by thanking our sponsor, Evolve. Evolve offers four leadership coaching journeys designed to expand capacity and build capabilities, empowering courageous leadership to transform institutions and reimagine the future of higher education. Helina, what’s going on today, friend?

What’s happening?

Helena Gardener: Ooh, today. Today we got Dr. Shawna with us today. That’s what I hear they call her out in these streets, Dr. Shawna. I like to call her Dr. Shawna Patterson-Stevens myself. On a good day, I get to just call her sister and on an even better day, I get to call her friend. So I’m excited that we got Dr.

Shawna with us today to drop the ballistics. What you thinking about, JT?

J.T. Snipes: Yeah. I’m so delighted to interview and hear stories from Shawna. We go back just a couple of years. And I’m gonna take a second to introduce her to our audience.

Helena Gardener: Yeah. ‘

J.T. Snipes: ‘Cause, she’s an esteemed guest as vice president- Oh, you

Helena Gardener: trying to make her esteemed.

Okay.

J.T. Snipes: Yeah. We gonna put the title and everything. The… she is the vice president of university engagement and student affairs. She is at Central University, Central Michigan University. Fire

Helena Gardener: up chips. Get it right.

J.T. Snipes: Yep, let me get it right. Yeah. She earned her PhD from Florida State University and has been working in the field for a very long time.

Some of her honors- Maybe

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: just a long time.

Helena Gardener: No, it was longer than my time, so it’s very long. No, it’s shorter. I’m kidding. I’ve been a- I’ve been around a little bit longer. Little bit longer.

J.T. Snipes: Just a couple of years. My bad. Just a long time. We’ll… Nat, can you get rid of the, can we get rid of the very-

very and just make it she’s been in the field for a while, a leader in the field.

Helena Gardener: A while.

J.T. Snipes: Striking. So-

Helena Gardener: Get all in.

J.T. Snipes: Yes, get all of it. A with that I’m gonna be quiet ’cause I’m butchering this. This silence

Helena Gardener: You’re not, it’s just so much to say. It’s so much to say. It’s like what should we say?

What should we say about Dr. Shanna? What we gonna say?

J.T. Snipes: It- there’s so much to say, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna actually allow Shanna to introduce herself to you all as the audience. Shanna, tell the people what you want to, want us to know

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: about you. I sure can. Thank you for having me on this show today.

I really do appreciate it, and the reason why I said yes, just to be transparent, is because my friends asked me to do it, and I wanted to spend this time with you specifically. So thank you for making some space for me in your schedules. Yeah we all go back a long time. Because we all have gotten a little long in the tooth.

And one of the stories, I’ll share today is actually how it all began for me and why I think being in student affairs, specifically higher education broadly is so important right now. I am first gen. Didn’t know anything about college beyond that’s where people went to get a degree.

And some, some models that I had access to were on TV, and the main one was A Different World. So that was my idea of what college could maybe be, and I understood that I wanted to advance in the world. So that’s how it was communicated to me as a kid, that you went to college, but I didn’t know exactly how to do that.

And I mentioned this before in some, in a few other settings, I’m not so old that I’m out of touch, but the technology has moved so fast that when I was applying to college, we still had to go to the library and get that big thick book out of the library, and you couldn’t check it out that listed all the colleges.

And so I just flipped to Michigan because I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about what all those other schools meant. And you didn’t have Google at the time to to pitch hit and zero in on specific foci that you wanted to engage. Newsweek was still a literal magazine, and I didn’t have a subscription, so I didn’t even have access to it.

I didn’t know it existed. And so I’m in the guidance counselor’s office at Henry Ford High School off of the corner of Evergreen in Detroit, Michigan filling out my applications with a typewriter Again, not because I’m super old, but that’s just how fast the tech has moved. And I’m only mentioning it because trying to figure out what college was in first gen in that moment when information wasn’t as readily available, it was, I feel so hard to figure things out because I didn’t necessarily even have breadcrumbs to follow, and I didn’t have the ability to just get on Google, I didn’t have the ability to watch YouTube videos. There was no TikTok to give you the ins, outs. There were no virtual campus maps. There weren’t virtual guides that you could go through to try and figure out if a college was right for you. And so the bubble I was most familiar with was Michigan, and that’s how I ended up at Central Michigan University.

And just the ebbs and flows of my experience there, the ways that I actually got in- involved, it was because I was trying to learn myself, and I just threw myself into it because I didn’t know any other way, and that’s how I ended up in student affairs. I was a multicultural advisor at Central Michigan, and that was where I got to have full access to the vocabulary of the world.

And what I mean by that is more recently I think I’ve also mentioned that we were military. So when I was younger, we actually lived in Panama City, Florida, and I went more recently to visit family, like this past summer, and I was going through the streets and just remembering some of the things that I encountered as a kid there.

And the thing that I remember the most was hating it there, but I could never describe why. And this time going back, I was like, “This is what I mean.” Now I have the vocabulary to describe what exactly this feels like for me. And it was something about being centered in whiteness in this super conservative southern space.

It did not feel good, but I didn’t know that’s what I was experiencing. I just knew that’s what I was living, and I didn’t have the words. So college gave me the words. College gave me the access. And the reason why I’m motivated to do this work is because of those experiences. And I’m thinking about all the people that have that same experience even now and in this sociopolitical context.

You have a wide swath of individuals who will never get the chance to step foot on a college campus, and that’s with intention. And I understand that a college education can really help to advance someone’s lived experience in a multitude of ways. It helps expand their development so much faster than just trying to learn it the hard way in the real world, and there’s a reason why we don’t have full access to it.

And there are certain populations that are less inclined to have that access, and that’s the reason why I stick to what I’m doing. That’s the reason why we need to be investing more in up-and-coming student affairs professionals. That’s the reason why we really need to be thinking more strategically across the field around supporting the work of faculty and staff because we have these really pivotal opportunities to engage in the community in a way that really uplifts everyone’s lived experience.

And if we’re not thinking about carefully tending to the framework of that opportunity, but also tending to the needs of the folks that are putting that framework into action, we’ll be in real trouble. And we’re starting to see it now with the closures of some of these universities Someone also asked me to talk about the things I do for fun.

And so those are the… That’s the thing that, that, that inspires me to continue to think about keeping a, a professional trajectory in higher education. But my why is my kids. I have two. One is traversing right now around Michigan State University, living her Black girl magic life. She is living it up on my dime.

And the other one- … is a seven-year-old, just a bubbly, a ball of energy and joy, just living his best life. Has not had a bad day. And I want this world to be better for them. I want this world to be kinder to them, and I feel like if people have developed into their whole selves and the people they are fully meant to become, of course, I feel like higher ed can help with that.

Then maybe it’ll be better for my kids. Maybe it’ll be kinder to my kids. Some things that we like to do for fun, my, my baby boy, he likes to say, “I wanna go on an adventure,” which is code for take me somewhere and spend your money on me.

Helena Gardener: He

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: thinks I just have all this money, and I think that’s really funny.

But I wanna share a cheat code with everybody out there because I know some people follow my socials, and they think that I’m just out here doing the things. And I thought it would be helpful in this economic time period to share how I do some of those things. I’m always really conscientious about the flights that I take, like the airlines, and I’m a Bonvoy girly.

Some people get Hilton, some people whatever. Bonvoy, give me some money. I just shouted you out because I will just make sure that I’m very consistent about sticking with Delta, sticking with Bonvoy. I let those, those credits accrue. And on top of that, when I’m booking a flight, I will give myself a full day, maybe day and a half, to have to complete that flight because everybody’s selfish, and everybody’s greedy.

They overbook these flights, right? So in addition to getting points to pay for that hotel that I need to put these kids in I will be the person that takes that seat voluntarily. And people don’t know that you can negotiate. So they’ll say, we overbooked this flight. We need a volunteer.

Here’s $800.” I’ll go up to the counter. I say, “I’ll do it for 12.” And I have already booked in my mind the fact that I have planned for that booking to be delayed. So I will bring my work with me in the airport, sit there and do my work, take calls or whatever because I got this voucher for $1,200. And that’s how I pay for my vacations, and that’s the way I invest in the joy that I have with my kids.

They wanna see the world. I’m happy to do it, and that’s the way that I do it.

J.T. Snipes: She putting y’all on game for free

Helena Gardener: that was game for free. That was like quick little game for free. And just- That was awesome … eloquently dropped, right? Like just dropped it Yeah, you better, you better-

You better bring that west side of Detroit to the table and help us understand how to navigate these systems.

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: You gotta finesse a little bit.

J.T. Snipes: So Shauna we ask all of our guests the question of why did you want to tell the story you told today?

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: I know it was cut up and brief, and I didn’t include all of the, the trials and tribulations.

J.T. Snipes: And I- We’re not gonna apologize for that story. It was wonderful.

So

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: I’m saying it with intention. I’m saying that with intention ’cause one- Oh yeah … if anybody w- is having a hard time out there, they can count on me as someone that will listen to their story and help them work through it. That’s one. And everybody needs someone in their corner. I’m thinking about the most marginalized people, vulnerable people on these college campuses right now that might feel alone.

And so I’m sharing that just to say there’s a lot to my story that I didn’t get a chance to share, and I’m happy to share that with them if they just need to feel like they need someone to relate to. But also, I just know people are tired right now. We have a morale issue in higher education.

And I think we’re forgetting our why. Or sometimes it’s hard to remember our why because there’s so much happening. People are juggling so many different competing priorities with budget cuts and familial needs. Life is life-ing right now, and e- everybody’s trying to figure it out while it may feel like you’re on a sinking ship.

And so I’m sharing that it’s really important for us to really consider what our why is. I’m challenging my colleagues in the field that have the ability to be thinking about their teams. I’m challenging my colleagues in the field to make sure that they haven’t forgotten about investing in their teams.

And it may not always be financial, but you know, spiritually, psychologically, are we creating healthy work environments where po- people can be their whole selves because there’s already enough going on in the world, and the- the worst thing that you can feel is dis- dismay when you have to then go into the workplace.

I also wanted to share that we’re all human at the end of the day, and we all have a different pathway, but we seem to all end up in higher ed together, and so there is a connectivity that we all share within the profession. And I feel like we’re a profession of helpers. We’re a profession of servant leaders.

Most of us are here because we know the impact that higher ed can make, and I just wanted to share that I personally benefit- benefited from that impact, and I just wanna be able to reach back and offer that same support to other people. I remember my why because I know what kind of- opportunities I’ve had available to me as a result of higher education.

And again, I just want this world to be better to these kiddos that are up and coming mine included. But more broadly I take ownership in the youth of tomorrow on a global scale. And I think we have some work to do as the folks that are s- supposed to be currently stewarding experiences for up and coming individuals in this world

J.T. Snipes: Beautiful.

Helena Gardener: Dr. Shawna, I often tell folks about, this day you may not remember. I remember it because I don’t go to too many football games, but I was at a football game. Evolve. Dr. Shawna sitting behind me as an undergrad. I think I had graduated at this time, but I went back ’cause I miss homecoming. Fire up chips. I miss a few.

I might miss one this year, but I’m not gonna look at Dr. Shawna. I say that. See? She’s already looking at me. She’s like, “Oh, no, you will be here.” It’s so much pressure. But on this particular day, we’re sitting in the bleachers. I think they’re called bleachers stands. It’s a big stadium, and there were two student- three students behind me.

And one was a little bit older. It was young Shawna and a- another young person who was also doing amazing things today. So they were talking about the world times and the climate. And one of the things that stood out to me was how passionate Shawna was, because I was just trying to watch this football game.

And matter of fact, I didn’t even want to be there in the first place. So I was really ready to go, and there was this really intense conversation behind me. And I’ve never forgotten that passion, and I feel like I’ve had the opportunity to witness that passion for the world and others just develop and grow both scholarly, interpersonally.

Personally, I’ve just watched you really not just be a person with passion, but a person with action. One of the things that I wrote down here was that, as a first-gen student, you didn’t know. You didn’t know, but you just threw yourself into it. I’m really curious, when you think of the students that you support today that I would say.

You didn’t say. JT didn’t say. I said. I think they struggle finding a way to throw themselves into things for lots of reasons. Not a judgment statement. What are your thoughts on how to do that? I know we both have young Spartans walking around this campus, and if I think of my own, sometimes the challenge is being very active, very involved, but to throw themself into something seems to be like a lost art, to take a chance.

So I’m just curious to your thoughts on that, knowing that at least from the outside looking in, that you threw yourself pretty well into it, and continue to still do the work.

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: I have three different responses to that question. The first one is I feel like we could maybe be doing a better job with this current generation of individuals in helping them to be able to discern the environment around them so that they can throw themselves into something with regard, like with a modicum of understanding and safety too, right?

And not just doing it and seeing what happens. And I feel like there is a disconnect there between being able to really root out different kinds of relationships, different kinds of scenarios and situations, and knowing when the thing needs to be said and when the thing needs to be held. So helping them to basically understand political environments, I think that’s something we really need to be hitting the ground with with these folks, especially the ones that are about to graduate from college undergrad.

Because I’m seeing it in the professional sphere now where folks haven’t been able to figure out the, the terrain that they’re in so they can avoid the landmines and be as effective in whatever it is they’re throwing themselves into. I also think there’s something about, Now this is where I’m showing my age again.

I don’t know what it’s like to have been raised in social media. I don’t know what it’s like to have been raised with the internet at my fingertips. And so I am, I’m just much more private. I have a concern about privacy. I don’t need to share with everybody every single thought, every single epiphany I have.

I actually keep most of that to myself. I don’t know what it’s like to have lived in that environment. And I think because there’s a switch or a, a shift in how our society is working now, where it’s okay for everything to be on display, there’s a hypersensitivity to failing in front of others.

There’s a hypersensitivity to making a misstep being canceled or just embarrassing yourself I think in ways that have shut this current generation down unfortunately. People are scared to make mistakes. I just had some students in my office an hour ago talking about these presentations they wanna offer and who doesn’t wanna speak and whatnot, and I’m like, “You’re such a small group.

I’m not understanding why you’re not willing to give a presentation.” And they’re like, “Because we don’t wanna make a mistake. We don’t wanna embarrass ourselves.” And I didn’t have that hypersensitivity because I didn’t live my life on full display in front of everybody. So now every single move is a stage and that might be quite literal because they are literally recording every single day, every single way.

And so it is quite possible that, yeah, if I make a slip up or if I fall off the stage or whatever, I could go viral in the worst way possible, and I don’t know how to recover from that. And so I think there needs to also be some consideration around how do we re- readjust or level set around some of that?

Because we’re not wired to be on full display at all times. We’re not wired to have all this information. And I’m not saying get rid of the internet or get rid of TikTok. I do think, though, we need to level set a little bit because the off- the offset or the consequence of that is that there are a whole bunch of people that are worried about taking risks.

There are a whole bunch of people that are worried about saying the wrong thing because they wanna be perceived as the professional, or they wanna be perceived as the expert. And without risk, there’s no failure, there’s no learning, there’s no growth. I’m the kind of person that will self-prune.

But I made a whole bunch of errors and mistakes to lead up to the point where I can even prune. If you don’t have any overgrowth to begin with because you haven’t pushed yourself then what are we pruning? There’s basic, there’s a basic growth there that’s happening. You’re diminishing your ability.

You’re diminishing- … your potential because you are making yourself small. And I think that’s the thing that I think about this current generation of folks that we’re supporting, and I think that’s the misstep that we’re having as a different kind of generation that didn’t have that same kind of pressure that I think- these college students do have now, and I would even say some of these younger professionals. I didn’t live my life like that, and I don’t. So we need to meet in the middle there and truly dig into that a little bit differently so that we can actually be better supporters of folks that do live their life literally out loud at all times.

It’s a challenge.

J.T. Snipes: Y- Shauna, that makes me think a- and Belina, both of y’all I feel may be closer to students than I am because y’all have them in your homes. All the

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: time.

J.T. Snipes: But, Every day … I wonder has there been any movement towards l- like phone-free spaces where you, where ’cause I think that would be really cool if students could have a zone, like, where you know this is not going to be, this is not gonna be recorded.

This is not gonna be put on the internet. I don’t know, I think that could be something… it just dawned on me, right? People can and probably are always recording in some way, and if you could create designated zones of privacy I wonder how that would shift students’, not desires, but students’, Stu- yeah, students’ desires to, to throw themselves- Yeah

into something. The internet is written in pen, not pencil, right? The stuff doesn’t go away, and I- I’ve- I’ve just been trying to think about ways that we could lessen or reclaim privacy in some way.

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: I’m totally workshopping some things right now. I think about how students are…

And I even, I would put all of us in this. There is a want for these institutions to provide us with a modicum of safety and security in a whole bunch of different ways, physical, psychological, emotional, professional, et cetera, right? There, there’s an expectation there. Whether or not a university or college can do it, that’s a whole nother conversation.

I feel like there’s some ways that we can lean into that a little bit. And so one example I’m sharing that I’m playing with to see if it can work here is the idea of that family dinner, and I got the idea because, one, I used to work in the Ivies and they had houses, and we would have these house meals together.

But then the other day I was in a residence hall with my son, and he’s just rolling around on the floor being himself, and to have a child in a space like that, I f- I could feel people’s energy just kinda come down. They were relaxing a little bit “Oh if he can be goofy,” if nothing else, I could point and laugh at him, but more often than not, what I saw the kids, or excuse me, the students doing was like, “Oh, yeah,” “It’s really good to see that kind of energy in here.”

Yeah. And so what does it mean to have family dinner where we have faculty and staff in that space? They bring their partners. They bring their kids, and we can just kinda all share a meal, and you have to keep your phone at the front. Phones at the front. You could check it in, check it out come get this meal, watch the kids roll around, color, play games, whatever, do something tactile, have your meal, take a minute to pause, and then you can get your phone on the way out the door.

I know some people are even buying pieces of plastic right now that are shaped like this, and they’re clear pieces of plastic, they’re not even phones, to try to get out that rote memorization of scrolling. I think there’s some things that we could think about doing that would challenge us to try to help people in general reconnect.

Because I don’t know. I feel like we have a responsibility. Again, when we think about development, that’s one piece, and as educators we are firmly aware that’s happening. We do have a, a, a responsibility in addressing it in some way within the capacity that we have availability and scope, right?

One thing I am workshopping are those family dinners and providing faculty and staff the meal, this is- … this is also an investment in you as a family. Come get this meal it’s on us because we are also benefiting from the time you spend with us sharing this meal with our students.

That’s one example. But yes going back to some idea around what it means to have phone-free or video-free space and just going back to some of the basics I think it’s really important to think about ways that we could do that within the sphere of influence that we have

Helena Gardener: I love that. No

J.T. Snipes: go. Oh, I just- Oh, I was gonna say that’s a beautiful idea.

Helena Gardener: It is. It’s such a beautiful idea, and I’m thinking about we did our student leader welcome event started last week, and I was watching one of my, More senior staff members do a welcome and a couple students who were recording.

And I had mixed feelings of like, why are they recording? What are they gonna do with that recording? What are they capturing? And so I’m thinking as, as you were reflecting about just the anxiety that I had with that. Oh, they’re capturing. She’s not saying anything that I wouldn’t stand with her on, but my concern was, where does this go from here?

Where does her image go? And more so knowing that she’s not a social media person, so she would never see herself out there. So I just, sitting with wow, like that’s just an interesting thought of how much is captured and how much of that we can’t be in control of.

But how do we create space though for that downtime? So I appreciate that. I think one of the last things that I’ll ask you, and then unfortunately it’s time to wrap up all this good energy. That always happens. That’s why I love doing this podcast. It always happens. So I’m first-gen, and you’re first-gen. JT, are you first-gen?

J.T. Snipes: I’m not. Breaking up the flow.

Helena Gardener: Love that for you. We love that for you. You better work. First generational curses or opportunities. Second generation. Second gen. I love it. I love to see it. I think often about- I

J.T. Snipes: think first,

Helena Gardener: but yeah, that’s what I’m claiming

I know that’s right. You better keep claiming it. Claim it. It’s right. Keep claiming it. And it’s wonderful ’cause I see a stark difference between my journey trying to figure out this college life and my son’s journey. And so I’m grateful that he too will be able to have disrupted and teach some things like your grandparents did.

And that’s cool to me ’cause I get to watch that on this side, get to watch it. Yeah. So that’s gonna be exciting one day. I’m wondering, first-gen to first-gen- What would you never let go of though? What would you never have asked for the pass and the cheat code to that you still benefit from today because you figured it out yourself?

For the good of breaking generational curses, ’cause we doing it.

J.T. Snipes: That’s a great question.

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: Okay. Y’all, I, I had to let go of my first response ’cause it’s not appropriate.

Helena Gardener: I appreciate that though. I appreciate it. But I’m with you on that one too. I’m with you on that one.

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: I’m gonna move on to my fourth response.

Okay.

Helena Gardener: Shoot.

J.T. Snipes: If you subscribe to the Patreon, you can check out one through three.

Shawna Patterson-Stephens: Yeah. We have an index for one through three. D- but that’s over some coffee or something on recorded, right? I don’t the way grit is being used now, so I would preface this with that. I do not like it, and also I am pretty gritty and I can get pretty gutter, and I won’t let it go.

I will say the streets are the reason why I understand people. I’m able to read people real quickly. I can tell when they’re for me, when they’re not. I can tell when someone’s on some BS. I can tell when someone’s trying to finesse me, even if I act like I don’t notice it. I can tell when someone’s lying to my face, and all of that is because of my lived experience and other ways of knowing.

And so the cool part about all this, one, Helena knows this, but I was an engineer, and I chose to change my major at the last minute and became a sociology major. Okay, so there’s that. I actually have a very scientific frame of mind when I think about structures, the ways people move and I put all those patterns onto people instead of buildings.

The other thing that comes into that fold is, yeah, the way I know how things work in the real world. I put all that together, and that shapes my, the ways that I go about my work. So the thing I won’t let go is who I am and my upbringing, because it actually did make me who I am today. And it informs the ways that I move around college campuses and universities.

That’s on Mary Had a Little Lamb

Helena Gardener: That is on Mary Had a Little Lamb. And I thank you for that, and it is one of the reasons that I continue to be a fan of that passionate student who was sitting behind me at that football game because when the talk talks, it talks that talk. And it is a word, it is several words, some of the words that I had never encountered until I hear them come out your mouth.

But I told you, you s- you stay teaching, and I’m gonna be grateful for that. I am grateful for that teacher.

J.T. Snipes: We’re very grateful. Thank you, Shauna for, Dr. Patterson-Stevens for giving us your time today. We also want to thank our sponsor, Evolve. Higher education needs courageous leadership now more than ever, and poor leadership has never been more costly.

At the Evolve Institute, we are empowering leaders with the capacity to turn challenges into possibilities and lead with and through them with clarity, confidence, and courage. We offer leadership coaching journeys for leadership teams and individual leaders. Visit evolveinstitute.com to learn more. This has been Here’s the Story, part of the Student Affairs NOW family.

We’re so glad that you joined us to laugh, cry, learn, sometimes commiserate, but always celebrate being a part of the student affairs experience. If you have a story, and we all have a story, please consider sharing it with us at studentaffairs.now/heresthestory. Every story is welcome, and every earnest perspective is worthy.

And even if you don’t feel like sharing yours, you can still find ours at studentaffairsnow.com, on YouTube, smash that subscribe button, and anywhere you listen to podcasts. I’m your host, J.T. Snipes.

Helena Gardener: I’m Dale Helena Gardner.

J.T. Snipes: And this has been Here’s the Story. We’ll see you next time.

Helena Gardener: Shout out to Nat Ambrosey.

J.T. Snipes: Oh yeah, my bad. Nat.

Helena Gardener: It’s all right. Thank you. I got you. That’s why we’re here together. Thank you, Nat. Thank you. We’ll see you next time. Dr. Patterson-Stevens, we’ll see you on the road