William (Wil) Jones
So like with many career offices, you know, we track everything, every type of student engagement that they have. And as we were talking earlier, for example, our career advising information, while 70% of our student appointments last year, had a hybrid modality meaning students can either select to come in person for those three advising appointments, or they can choose to have a virtual appointment, only 30% of the actual appointments were in person. So even though quite a few had the option of doing virtual or in person, students were making the decision with their feet, or I guess with their fingers as they were logging into the computer, we also quickly realized that, you know, not every department is the same. And each department has different needs missions and clientele that should be taken into account. So whether that’s a student population, or an employer population, or alumni population, even this notion around making decisions at the unit level became really important to us.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs Now I’m your host Keith Edwards, the COVID pandemic force many student affairs professionals but not all to shift to virtual or remote remote work roles. Now many campuses are returning to normal although we know that normal wasn’t really ever good for everybody, and eliminating or drastically limiting work from home or hybrid options for Student Affairs staff members. As Student Affairs leaders look to retain staff most effectively engage students and foster workplace workplace cultures of thriving. What is the right role for work from home and hybrid work options for various student affairs roles. Today, I’m joined by four folks who have thought deeply about these possibilities in very different contexts. Thank you all for joining me today. I’m so excited to learn from each of you. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent in the field of higher 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. Today’s episode is sponsored by Simplicity, mature partners Simplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. And this episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape, go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you 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 coach, and you can find out more about me at Keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting today from Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to the conversation. I’m so grateful for each of you for joining us. As I mentioned, as we were pre chatting, this whole episode is Colleen’s fault. You reached out and asked us to do an episode on this months ago. And we’re finally getting around to finding folks who have more to say than maybe we did is we’re thinking through this a little bit more. But Colleen, maybe tell us just a little bit about yourself.

Colleen McInerney
Hi, Keith. Hi, everybody. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Colleen McInerney. And I currently my pronouns are she her hers. And I currently serve as the Assistant Director for Student Activities at Kalamazoo College over in Kalamazoo, Michigan. At K were residential campus, and we have had a lot of conversations over the last year or two. I’ve been around K for about two years now out of my graduate school experience, and now into the field as kind of an entry level professional. And so we’ve had a lot of conversations around what this looks like, you know, my my grad school experience happened in the pandemic. And it concluded in that and so I’ve just been extremely curious about what other schools are doing and how they’re navigating this and what it looks like. So that’s what kind of brought me here today.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. All right, well hear more about what you’re curious about. And we’ll see if we can help us all begin to think through this. Vaughn. Tell us a little bit more about you.

Vaughn A. Calhoun
Well, good afternoon. Hello, everybody, Keith Colleen will Rick, the folks of Student Affairs Now. Just thanks for having me here. Vaughn Calhoun he him his. I’m the assistant vice president Dean, the Center of Academic Success at Seton Hall. You know, when I first came to Seton Hall back in July of 2021, it was, you know, the full swing of the pandemic. And about my first four months, it was really about, you know, learning people, programs, processes, but also building a team. We had about 10 open positions, ranging from directors assistant dean’s, academic advisors, and they all left for various reasons. But you know, it was a tremendous time to build a team. But it there was a lot of, you know, as we’re recruiting new people, the questions always came up, what’s your work from home policy, and I was like, oh, man, right. And that’s when I really realized that this isn’t just a nice to have, this is going to be a must have as we move forward in particular, you know, if we want to attract the best talent and keep the best talent, right. So, you know, for me, you know, we I’ve always heard the term, you know, I can’t wait till we go back to normal, but I realized then, right, whatever was is not going to be what’s going to be in the future. So, you know, I really don’t like that, you know, what, we’ve always done it this way, you know, and so so for me, it was really thinking of how can we starting to create policies, not just one offs, so you know, that’s how I got into really thinking about work from home what it means not only for my institution, but for just higher ed in general.

Keith Edwards
Right, and you’re at Seton Hall, but we talked before you’re a Rutgers grads, we’re going to a Rutgers person who is also a Maryland Terrapins grad like me. Wil tell us a little bit more about you.

William (Wil) Jones
Yes, like as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Hello, listeners. My name is Wil Jones and my pronouns are he him and his. I am the Executive Director for the Office of Career Exploration and success at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Within our office, we have about 38, full time staff members, as well as various interns and graduate coordinators. And I started my role as executive director right at the start of the pandemic. So that was fun. Now, our current office reports through the chancellor provost office, and we certainly serve all students, which is about 50,000 of them. And so we were really excited when Rutgers recently launched our flex work at our U program, where I served as one of the subcommittee chairs focusing on staffing for student services. And you know, within Career Services, you know, we work with 1000s of employers each year, and honestly of higher education wants to maintain our own talent pipelines, we need identify ways to compete with some of the more flexible work policies that employers have. So Colleen, thank you for bringing up this important question. And I’m

Keith Edwards
happy to be here today. Wonderful. And as we were sharing before, we’ll borrowed and some of what’s going on at Stony Brook, to inform some of what they were doing it Rutgers. So Rick, we’re really glad to have you here. Tell us a little bit more about you.

Rick Gatteau
Great. Thanks so much, Keith. And everyone. Well, I’m so glad you borrowed our material, we’re happy to share. I’m Rick Gatteau. My pronouns are he him his and I serve as the Vice President for Student Affairs here at Stony Brook University. I’ve been at Stony Brook now for 20 years, in fact, and been in this role for four and a half years. So I had the good fortune to start in the role before that pandemic. And then when the pandemic hit, certainly, I still have memories of sitting at the conference table say we’re in unchartered territory. And in fact, interesting what Vaughn had just mentioned, related to what is your work from home policy. In my early years at Stony Brook, there was it wasn’t spoken, there wasn’t you couldn’t work from home. And there were days I secretly worked from home because I had to do evaluations or write letters of recommendation, but you wouldn’t tell anyone. And all of a sudden, it absolutely changed so dramatically around, especially with with preparation, knowing that pandemic was coming. I actually learned from some of my colleagues outside of higher ed who said, Go work from home to see if your systems work. And I said, Oh, we’re going to do the same thing here. So we had had people work from home various days of the week to see could we operate that way. But the shift just became, obviously, as we all know, so dramatic. And then coming back, what does it look like now? And we’ve worked through that process, and I’m happy to share more as we get into conversation today about it

Keith Edwards
It really reminded me, one of our earliest episodes was talking about recovering right from COVID. And coming out of the pandemic, which was like a year and a half ago. So what we know. But one of our guests on that Ebony Imani Gallagher said, there’s a notion that higher ed is slow to change. And we proved on around March 13 is different depending on where you are, that we can change overnight. That doesn’t mean that we changed well. And now is our chance to do this well, right to do it with thought and intentionality and purpose. And one of the things I worry about is that window of change and innovation and willing to do things differently might be closing on us where we just go, I’ve had so much change, I just want stability. I don’t want anything new. But there’s still room for us to really think about this. So I’m so glad for all of you for being here. As we said Colleen this is all your fault. You had been having these conversations with your colleagues discussing possibilities. What’s possible, what do we want to we really want that will really regret that if that was able to be happening. What do you think that students, staff and student affairs staff members are looking for when it comes to work from home in a hybrid? What are what are you seeking?

Colleen McInerney
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that a lot of the conversations that we’ve been having so far are around equitability in the approach to like, how are we how are we, you know, if we’re going to create a policy, we’re going to have a seat at the table to inform some of that, how are we ensuring that folks that are super forward facing for students are going to have the same opportunities that some folks that might not, you know, be in that same kind of a role, and for us, in particular at Kalamazoo College, we’re a campus of about 1400 students, which means that our offices are pretty small. So in Student Activities, just this past year, we had the fortune of going from two staff members to three, which was wonderful, and that, you know, having the conversation of Okay, so if there’s three of us, does that mean that we can have a little bit more flexibility like, how are we able to get ultimately a lot of the conversations we’re having revolve around productivity. For me as the assistant director, having a very Student Central Office, it is the greatest joy of my job to have students in and out all day long. And it also makes it really difficult to kind of get some that like, sort of more tedious task work done. And so sort of just looking for to me, it sometimes can sort of seem like, this seems like a window of opportunity like I can perform well, we can still serve our students. Where’s the balance? Can we have that opportunity of conversation here? And how are other folks that have taken the leap of faith and doing it? What does that looking like?

Keith Edwards
Well, I think students are looking for something different. I remember, having been at the University of Maryland, where Wil was a meeting across campus was like, a 10 minute walk to my car, a 10 minute drive, parked my car, another 10 minute walk to another thing. And then arriving at Macalester College is a very small 2000 students campus. And students would complain about why do I have to walk all the way across campus to go work out in the rec center? I’m like, it’s a block. So it’s just making me think about just because we have offices, and we’re used to thinking students will go to those offices, maybe that’s not what they want to do. Maybe they don’t want to go to the office, maybe they’d like to zoom with you or have an open hours or a chat or things like that. And then what about students? So I think, I love that you’re centering the student experience of serving students and being with students. But what might that look like? Right?

William (Wil) Jones
it’s funny, you mentioned University of Maryland, it’s such a large campus. And I think from one side to the other can take some time. at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, we have a river on a highway split, splitting our campus. And actually pre pandemic, we have some conversations based off of some student survey data that we collected, about how we can extend our office hours to make us more available outside of the standard nine to five, we stumbled across this little thing called compressed work schedules. And so we’ve worked for a new HR department to figure out a way to implement a compressed work schedule, because many of our team, they will working late into the hours anyway. And so wouldn’t it be nice if we can give them Monday or a Friday off? So we work with our new HR department to figure out how to do that while at the same time extending our hours of operations for four other days out a week. And sometimes I find, you know, Colleen being creative is usually the first step using our imagination and figuring out what can we do within the policies that currently exist? And then where can we work to advocate for policy differences.

Keith Edwards
And I love that you, you were creative, and you worked with some schedules, because I think most people who would say, students want to access our services beyond hours because of family responsibilities, or jobs or other things, will usually just ask student affairs professionals to work more hours to just stay a little bit later. It’s come in a little bit earlier. And we’re really good in student affairs about adding more and more and more not great at rethinking, reimagining reinventing, you know, new paradigms. And so I think that’s, that’s really important.

Rick Gatteau
Keith, can I jump in? I know what I liked what Colleen said earlier about thinking that we have a staff of three, at least at least we have more people, you can say, how do we divide the work, and maybe I can get a lot of these projects at home, that it’s hard to get done in the office, but adds a lot of value in use the word productivity, I think those are some things we’ve been wrestling with also, knowing on especially in student affairs, so many of our roles are front facing seeing students. It’s about serving students, we look at population density on campus as a factor and thinking through that, that allowed us to kind of make some shifts and how we we’ve operated. But I do think and I’m glad, especially over the last year, I’ve seen a significant shift in people thinking that oh, you can’t get enough work done for homework, or a lot of it may be around trust factor and feeling that you’re not going to really do any work if you’re home and people carry the load in the office. And I just think at least in my area, I think that’s dissipated quite a bit that people have seen the ability to be very productive. And as well, Colleen just mentioned, it’s managing there’s multiple things if we want to serve students effectively. But there are also ways to still be highly productive and not be physically on site. And I think where we’re proving just as corporations are doing that we can do that equally well.

Keith Edwards
I guess a theme I’m hearing emerge is one, what’s the work from home so that we can be student facing in the office and maybe students would be with students be in the office and then work from home to do some of the projects, the big things where we need that focus. But I think there’s another one where how can we be student facing from home. What are there may be ways we can meet students needs even though we might not be there or other things are beyond the hours. Right? We are available from five to 8pm just not in the office, you can access these ways and those kinds of things. Vaughn, you wrote about the slow embrace of work from home. Why that is so important, important for blog posts for the NASPA blog, which we’ll get in the show notes. Tell us little bit about what led you to that piece. And my assumption is tell me if I’m wrong, that in writing that you had some thoughts and ideas and maybe some conversations with folks. And then once it came out, you got a lot of calls and emails, and hey, have you thought about this, or I couldn’t agree more couldn’t disagree more. So I’d love to hear kind of what went into it. And what’s your thought of that?

Vaughn A. Calhoun
No, absolutely. Right. So, you know, I chaired the NASPA policy brief their subcommittee, and we’re charged with writing about contemporary issues that our colleagues are facing, that they might have some interest in learning more about. And I remember when I was, you know, back at the NASPAs National Convention in Baltimore, earlier this spring, the topic that kept coming up was student affairs, professional burnout, and ways in which we can keep and attract talent. And really, you know, higher ed, historically, has been known for a good work life balance, right, you know, you get all the major holidays, extended winter break, spring breaks, summer Fridays, which ends soon, which I’m really sad about. And, you know, in comparison to a lot of other industries, you know, our value proposition was pretty good. And then the pandemic hit us, right. And then work from home became like this standard for many industries. So our competitive advantage wasn’t as what it used to be, right. So that got me really thinking about this would be something cool to write about, right, explore what different institutions are doing, how they’re implementing it, because I think we always hear, I think Colleen mentioned earlier is productivity, can we be productive? Right, but I think the pandemic has really showed us that we can’t pivot on a dime and be productive right now. Everyone had their growing pains of trying to figure out their pace. But but but for me, it was really writing about the possibilities, where is it and where it could go and get I get some, some roles on campus can’t be remote, right? You think public safety food services, ResLife facilities, some jobs need a certain amount of, you know, people, you know, on campus, but that doesn’t mean variations of flex work, compressed work schedules, you know, can’t be crafted. So you’d like, you know, one of my favorite lines of questioning is actually, you know, what, if and how could we right, I think that opens up possibilities, right, as opposed to saying, Well, this is how we’ve always done it. Let’s go back to normal and pretend this never happened. But for me, I think institutions are asking the right questions, because we are noticing, and seeing that talent is leaving, and, and not as much talent is coming back into the pipeline. Like I said, I had 10 open positions, and you know, where we would have 50 candidates, now we’re having like, 12, right, and not saying that those flip aren’t good, but it’s just not the volume that we were once accustomed to. And I think for me, you know, what came out of that were, you know, just the conversations of how technology can help us really reimagine what higher ed is going to look like in the future, because I think what we do today will dictate higher ed, five years from now 10 years from now, right? And that just work from home. But even you know, what does online learning look like? What does VR AR in the classroom look like? You know, the pandemic is awful as it was, there are lessons that, you know, can really help us become more efficient, expand our reach, and really serve more people.

Keith Edwards
Right. And I think, you know, you said the things we innovate now will really shape have the potential to shape. And then the flip side is what we don’t innovate now will also limit us in the future with what the possibilities are. And you’re talking about, you know, people leaving the attrition in higher ed in general and Student Affairs specifically. And then when we’re hiring, you know, we’re having trouble hiring. And the best way to solve that problem is not have two people leave in the first place. Right, or the best way to hire 10 people is to not have five of them leave and only be hiring for five people and, and opening some of that up. And so I really want to frame this both as a way to attract talent, and bring people in, and also is way to keep the people we have or valuable and understand the institution and the culture and feel like it’s a great fit. And not losing that.

Vaughn A. Calhoun
Yeah, you know, I was, you know, talking with one of my friends, she she works in tech, whatever, which I know is, you know, totally different, you know, beast itself, right. But she was saying she’s been recruited now by, you know, these tech companies. And she was saying, If I don’t get offers that are 100% remote, I’m not entertaining them, right. So just the landscape and the mindset of candidates now are changing, right, the expectations, and I don’t think higher ed we’re not immune from that. One of my director level positions, his first question was, what’s your work from home policy? And I’m like, Well, it kind of depends, right? That doesn’t really bode well for his confidence in us as employers as you might get, you might not what does it look like? So, but again, it’s hard, you know, because every department across student affairs and just just the institution itself is different and meaning different levels of student interaction, who actually needs to be here who could maybe stay home a little bit more, you know, folks in it, they can do their jobs from home, probably more than academic advisors. But then again, too, we had academic advisors do advising, you know, via zoom throughout the whole pandemic. So there’s ways of doing just how creative do we want to be.

Keith Edwards
But I know we’ve heard from so many campus counselors and therapists who would have said three years ago, I would never meet with a client over zoom, or over the phone. Like that’s, that’s not I don’t think it’s ethical, I would never do that. And now, after doing it for two years, I always hope half my clients are virtual, and then after a person, that’s really I feel like it’s more effective for some people. So how do we challenge some of those notions that, you know, if a student lives on the ninth floor of the residence hall, it might be better than to meet virtually with their hall director, then go down to the first floor and check in and find that person and do the hours and do some of those things. So

William (Wil) Jones
Long, sorry, it’s also interesting, because we talk about this, the importance of meeting students where they’re at, sometimes that’s virtually. And we’ve talked about that for years now. And I feel like the pandemic has forced us to reconcile what we say with what we actually do. And I think that’s going to be incredibly important moving forward. meeting students where they’re at does not necessarily mean a physical location. And in the case of our office, and success, the vast majority of our students prefer to meet with our career advisors virtually, whereas before the pandemic, honestly, it was like, pulling teeth to not only train our advisors on how to handle a virtual appointment, but also getting students to utilize it. But I think the paradigm has shifted so much that they’re used to it now. And they’re recognizing the convenience of it.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Well, and you’re wrong. You’re preparing students for what are now virtual interviews. I’m not if I if I’m a student records, Google is no longer flying me out to do an interview. in Mountain View campus, they’re gonna do one or two rounds virtually and then and then maybe, maybe not. Yeah, maybe, Rick, go ahead.

Rick Gatteau
No, I was gonna just add to a will mention that similarly, with our Career Center, one of the things that I that I charged our whole team with as we look at what what our students look at, because as much as it’s nice for employees and team members to work from home, there has to be like, the value proposition, what it what is good for the student, do they find value, because you’ve used examples of extended hours. For example, if you can be in your pajamas and be having a burger, you don’t have to get out and get out of your room, for example. So there are benefits on the student side. And our data, for example, in the Career Center has shown that more than two thirds of students prefer the virtual appointment over the in person appointment. So the view was in the beginning of the pandemic, we were forced into a certain model. And I agree it was a long time coming to say, look, we can do this and do it successfully, then it was the question, how does the hybrid model work? And what does that look like? So, again, there’s always still in my view, and this was the evolutionary process of developing a policy and a plan, and making sure that people could adjust appropriately and be provide flexibility to the student, but also for the team member in that in that setting. But still make sure the work gets done, it’s been good to see that the student demand has been because of the student demand isn’t there. While we use an example of an IT person, right, that could be a fully remote job student affair, that’s really a hard sell if a student wanted solely in person, but we are seeing the data both on the counseling and in the career space and an even in Student Activities, that they can successfully set up virtual appointments with groups and find that it works well. So I hope it’s here for the long haul and will continue to evolve.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, and I think even Vaughn about your story about the director candidate who wants to know your policy, and I have so much empathy for you. When you say, Well, it depends, because I’m thinking about all the things you might be thinking about certain about, you don’t know this person, do they really understand the role? Like that depends makes so much sense. And if I’m the candidate, wondering if I’m going to do a second interview or not, that’s not good enough. And so like, it depends, like what because I need to know if I’m pursuing this or am I wasting your time and my time? Well, Rutgers has rolled out this very robust policy on work from home and hybrid options, which we can include a link to in the show notes. A lot went into it at task force that you were a part of, and this is for employees across the entire institution. I love to hear what are some of the key factors, leading the group that led to where you ultimately ended up.

William (Wil) Jones
I’m really proud of Rutgers. To be quite honest, you know, after the first year to pandemic, I think many of us started to realize that not only can we do some of this stuff remotely, we should be. Unfortunately, our president really had the foresight to empower a task force that really explored this issue of the future work. So there was quite a few working groups, including things like human resources, there was an equity group, there was an employee wellbeing group and academic affairs group, I, you know, really recognizing that different parts of the university might have a different stake in this particular conversation. So as I mentioned earlier, I was asked to serve on the student needs and experience working group and as part of that working group, I chair the Subcommittee on on staffing, student services. So you know, we conducted a lot of research, we looked at publicly available resources from inside or higher ed, chronicle higher ed, NASPA, for Vaughn, as well around this overall concern of burnout rates of student service providers, and not just burnout rates during the pandemic. But let’s be honest, we’ve had this issue for quite a few years now. We also talked with in the case of CES, where expression of success, our own employer advisory board to find out what’s going on in the corporate world, because at the end of the day, that’s a lot of our competition, we lost five staff members during the pandemic to corporate positions, that had a lot more flexibility along with the additional day, we looked at what other universities were doing, and so forth. And, and since my own department, you know, we’ve previously worked with you HR, to figure out how to create some type of flexibility even before the pandemic, we then use our own office as a case study, to make the case figure out what works provide some data points, that really helped to make the case with our recommendations. So like with many career offices, you know, we track everything, every type of student engagement that they have. And as we were talking earlier, for example, our career advising information, while 70% of our student appointments last year, had a hybrid modality meaning students can either select to come in person for those three advising appointments, or they can choose to have a virtual appointment, only 30% of the actual appointments were in person. So even though quite a few had the option of doing virtual or in person, students were making the decision with their feet, or I guess with their fingers as they were logging into the computer, we also quickly realized that, you know, not every department is the same. And each department has different needs missions and clientele that should be taken into account. So whether that’s a student population, or an employer population, or alumni population, even this notion around making decisions at the unit level became really important to us. And so as a smaller group, our primary recommendation around flexible work arrangements included extending services to students where they are, you know, remaining competitive among peers for the purposes of recruiting folks into our positions. We also needed to assist with the current burnout rates of our staff and, and so we recommend, we recommended that the university extend the COVID era, flexible work arrangements, including both telecommuting and compress, I don’t want to lose sight on the compressed work week, because we talk a lot about certain populations may not actually be able to work from home, there could be some room for a different type of flexible work arrangement, which could be a compressed workweek in the case of workers. But overall, the goal was to be able to create these these equitable arrangements within similar job classifications within each department, with the unit heads serving as the primary approver. And not let’s say like a division, Vice Chancellor or so forth, because again, every department is different. So we did adapt some of what Stony Brook University had regarding the flexibility or sorry, the expectations that each staff member who is participating in the program would have things like the fact that employees must remain in good standing or the employer must, the employee must maintain expectation, there must be an expectation that they remain accessible to the office and so forth. And that really became helpful for us to create a sense of checks and balances here. But I’m really excited about where our final future work report when it was made public and they really did include a lot of the recommendations that our our working groups in our subcommittees really laid out for them during this year long process that we had.

Keith Edwards
But I really appreciate it because Rutgers is such a massive place serving such diverse students with so many different life circumstances and locations in New York City in Jersey and and the size and scope and multiple campuses. I think it’s a really great model that you can do this at such a large scale by really empowering offices and departments, common expectations, but individuality, you kept using the equity. What I didn’t hear though was equality, right, we’re not saying everybody has to do the same thing, or can only do the same thing. You’re saying these approaches need to be equitable across these units, but they’re going to be really different. For some folks, they may not want to work from home, but a compressed work schedule where they can leave whether they’re coming in on Fridays, but coming in early and staying late, Monday through Thursday, that could be transformative for a childcare need, or my partner lives in another location. And wow, the possibilities that opens up. So much exciting there.

Rick Gatteau :
I think the transition’s going to be, once we start posting jobs that actually indicate the degree of remote work or compressed work week. Cause I think the beginning has been challenging because everyone’s role was an onsite role. And then it, the equity issue becomes who gets to work from home and who doesn’t, because obviously we have facilities managers, that’s really much more of a challenging role. to say, how can you work from home, maybe on a project per project basis. We’ve done that a bit, but on a more consistent basis, that’s a challenge. But I think when we get to the point of when we post jobs to say, this is not a remote job, or this is partially remote some hybrid, I think that’s going to, I think it’ll change the view of everything because you know, you’ve opted into that model from the application stage

William (Wil) Jones :
And I think that’s actually, we’re starting to see more of that now. You know, we’re part of the higher, big 10 network. And so we’re seeing career positions that are posted by other universities right now that highlight their flexible work arrangements as a way to draw in candidates. But I think you’re right. I think there’s a, there’s a point to be made where people can select into these options versus, okay. The job is written to be primarily virtual or primarily on campus, and then they can make decisions based off of that.

Keith Edwards:
Well, as Wil mentioned Rutgers pulled a lot of good learning from what folks at Stony Brook did Rick, where, where you lead the student affairs division what are some of the things that you’ve found have really worked that as you’ve generously shared with your colleagues, not just Rutgers, but with others that you, you become you’ve become even a bigger believer in as time has gone. And then what are some lessons learned, right. What are some of the things you’ve changed your mind about become more restrictive here, more expansive here?

Rick Gatteau :
Sure. A great, great question. So it was, I’ll say it was a, maybe a labor of love it took, it took several months and a lot of conversations with everybody making sure that we were thinking through every possibility. And so, so the document we prepared really around expectations was to walk through every different scenario. So for example, this isn’t a substitution for childcare and if you’re sick for the, you know, take your sick day and we just were trying to make sure, again, it it’s really trying to create a fair system that everyone was very clear on. And, and so in the beginning I would, I would agree it was much more restrictive in the beginning in the sense that you had to formally write a plan, what you’d be doing from home every day. Some of these work within the SUNY system had required it as well, just because it was all new to us and we wanted to make sure it worked well.

Rick Gatteau :
And I, I appreciate some of my colleagues who led certain areas said, Rick, we want to make sure we’re not the ones messing this up. We want to do it right. . And to know that you can trust in us that we are going to continue to do our job well. And, and so I’ve appreciated that everyone in our team, I think took that from the beginning. But it was a matter of, of truly crafting our own policies and practices that we thought were reasonable and fair. In that model. We starred that in fall of 21 and then did some tweaking. So for example, one tweak we made originally we had a policy that said no work from home at all for the first year of employment, then we changed it. We knew, and we thought it was going well for those that did get the chance to work from home occasionally.

Rick Gatteau :
And then we changed it to no remote work for the first six months. Now we’ve changed it the first 90 days. So we’ve just realized as we’ve had a greater comfort level with knowing that people can do well. And we always say, what’s the rationale for the decision we’re making? So in my mind, the 90 day rationale is really to get people, to know their team and work more collaboratively together before you venture and start working from home. The other change that we’ve made over time, and it is certainly in our area. And I think it’s true for all of us. It, we are so focused on student density. We have 10,000 resident students on campus. We can’t be in a situation where there aren’t enough student affairs, professional staff on site as needed. So we have operated with our model to look at on average, about a day a week for most people.

Rick Gatteau :
So it’s an 80 20 kind of rule about being working remotely. But during January break, spring break in the summer, we’ve moved to a two day a week model for many areas. So especially the summer when we have density is incredibly low. And a lot of that time we know is spent on advanced planning for the next academic year. You don’t need to be in your office for that. And I say, I put myself in that same situation. I can certainly work home. And in fact, many employees else, they work even more hours cuz they’re not commuting. They, they don’t have to get dressed up. And I say, they’re really focused on, on planning ahead. So, so it actually benefits the campus tremendously in that, in that model. But so to answer your question, cause we have, I think there have been lessons learned through the process. But overall I’ve been very, very happy with the way it’s rolled out. We haven’t had to pull back really on anything that we’ve already let, set it to. In fact, we’ve expanded it more.

Keith Edwards:
So you’ve become, as you’ve done this, you’ve become more expansive and more permissive as things are working and opened up. I love what you’re saying about you know, the density and doing some of that. I live here in Minneapolis, St. Paul is across the river, right? It’s a, it’s a bridge and it’s a small one. and I hear from folks who say, I used to go to St. Paul three times a week for meetings. I’m never doing that again because to go, you know, the 15 minute drive, then you gotta park and you gotta pay for parking. You gotta get in there, you gotta leave. You gotta get outta your office. You gotta do that. Then you gotta come back. The ability to just eliminate that half hour before and half hour after now, I can meet with more clients, meet with more students, do some of that.

Keith Edwards:
And just remembering, you know, at the university of Maryland to have a meeting across campus, it’s an hour meeting. It was a two hour outta my life. And if we could have just have done some of those meetings virtually that would’ve been great. I would’ve been able to be more of service to students. So I want to, I want to come back to Colleen, you, you started this, you were curious, you’re thinking about this. You’ve been thinking about this. These folks have been thinking, we’re talking about some possibilities, some options, some concerns, Colleen, what’s exciting about what you’re hearing today and what worries you about what you’re hearing today.

Colleen McInerney :
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll kind of start with the more center to me and then the bigger picture, but a lot of what you just said, Keith, the idea of how much more of our lives can open up with this idea of being flexible. You know, I work at Kalamazoo college, but just last week I moved to Grand Rapid. So for all my Michigander out there, you know, it’s a straight shot, but it’s about an hour on the road. and that’s just because life happened and it kind of pulled me up that way, but I love the work that I do and the role that I have and I, I wasn’t ready to, to seek something different yet. So the idea that like this flexibility can, can be a reality and what that means for the quality of work that I can do.

Colleen McInerney :
And, just like what that looks like, that really excites me. It also excites me to hear these new ideas from folks that have had the chance to roll this out and talk to others because if there’s anything I’ve learned in my time from grad school to now, you know, kind of getting my start in the field is that the work we do is filled with so much passion. And the last two years have really been hard for so many people. And it’s been sort of a survival mode for a lot of it and just figuring out how to adapt and no matter what level you’re at, you’ve got somebody you’re responding to that. A lot of it has been in crisis mode for, for the last couple of years. And so the knowing that we’ve got people thinking about how to adapt to that you know, will you spoke a lot about what’s happening in the corporate world and, and what that means for us here in higher ed and the thoughts around that?

Colleen McInerney :
I feel really energized around what that means for us as we move forward on the flip side, what worries me if I’m being honest, being in the beginning, please. Oh yeah. I mean, if I being in the beginning in the first couple years of my career, I have, I’ve got my friends in the field and my friends out of the field who are, I’m watching get these the flexibility afforded to them and the changes that it brings. And, and so it makes me nervous to watch people like making the jump and sort of thinking like, oh, am I in the right place? Like, are, are we going to make, are we going to do the thing to move forward and, and, and meet employees and students like where they’re at and how do we balance that? And yeah, that worries me. That makes me nervous. But right now I’m feeling like the excitedness definitely outweighs the, the worries. Yeah.

Keith Edwards:
And I think we’re, you’ve all highlighted this notion that we can think about employees want to work from home. That is intention with meeting student needs. , but you keep, you, you all keep saying, but students don’t always want to meet in person. So where do student, how do we do this so that we’re thinking about what do students need and what do students want and how do we align employees with that? So that there, we’re not having these be intention with each other. And I think it’s, to me, it sounds like a very dated idea about what students need and what students want and their experience that they would always want to be in the office that I always want to be there. Even student activities, even, even residents, life want to meet or text or chat or things like that. And so I think, you know, if 30% of students requested in person who are given that option, there’s a lot of students who would rather meet.

Rick Gatteau :
And then what, what’s the downside of that, right? Where, what isn’t as effective virtual, what are, what are the downsides and what are the downsides of in person, what what’s not as effective. Right. I just think about all the, we’ve got some career center folks, all the assistant directors of the career center, who I may do resume workshops in residence hall, lounges 12 in a row at 9:00 PM at night with like three students who showed up. like, that was a bad idea. We should have had that person do a recorded scripted 30 minute, amazing thing one time. And we could have shared that with so many people cuz they could have watched it on their schedule, on their demand, watch it again, send it to their parents, watch it again when they actually do their resume. Like there’s a better way about going about that.

William (Wil) Jones :
I think sometimes we have to collect data to make that case for the, for our own office, for career services. You know, we, we, we survey students once a year we do a stratify random sampling approach. So we’re able to take those results and generalize it to the larger population. And this past year we, we just asked them what are some of the type of resources that we offer and what would be your preference for, in person versus virtual? And you know, we started to see some of the results. They would love to have employer information sessions of which we had 2000 with them last year virtually. So then does that mean my assistant director, they handles information sessions. Does that mean she needs to be in the office while all the employers are virtual? No. and I think there are some ways to collect some of that data to be a bit more data driven.

William (Wil) Jones :
to identify where those places, those spaces, that students want things to be more virtual versus in person. And then how you take that information, utilize what your staff needs and are, because this let’s be honest, wellbeing of our staff should be just as important as the work that we’re doing with students. Cuz if they’re not taking care of themselves, they’re not going to be able to take care of your students. And so how can we find that balance by looking at both of these data points and figuring out whether those overlaps or those opportunities? I think it’s going to be important.

Keith Edwards:
I think that assessment of what’s working, what’s not working. How are students experiencing things differently? We don’t have the same students. We had three years ago. They’re really different. And what they’ve been through has changed them as well as us. What are other things folks are thinking about that maybe we haven’t gotten a chance to, to mention yet in this conversation before we move to concluding.

Vaughn A. Calhoun:
Yeah. I, I think, you know, we can all agree that, you know, COVID made it clear that institutions, we have to be nimble. We have to be agile, right? Not just sometimes a crisis, but just in our everyday operations. And, and how can we continually challenge our thinking our assumptions and, and really build this into our business model. Right? Cause everyone, we can make a quick pivot when something, you know, bad happens, but how can we kind of normalize innovation? And, and at the same time, you know, we, we, we, we must teach our students how to navigate a world that is really becoming increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Right. You know, college students today I think will have upwards. I think some stats as, you know, 15 jobs and five different industries across their lifetime, you know, so we have to prepare our students also how to learn unlearn, relearn, otherwise their skill sets will become obsolete. Right. So just as much as we’re talking about, about innovating students and making sure that, that they understand how to change and be nimble, we have to do that as well and operationalize that how it’s done. I’m not really sure, but I think we’re at a point now where we’re talking about it and I think that’s a good thing.

Keith Edwards:
Right. I guess I’m curious about what kinds of things do we want to make firm in terms of policy and I’m thinking about the Rutgers policy and where do we want to leave that Ambu, ambiguity, that openness about the role also about the human being. If I had Colleen’s job, I’m not sure I would do it the way that she would do it. Cause we’re different people. We have different circumstances. And so I might want to do this. So where do we tailor it to the role? Where do we tailor it to the person? Where do we want to make it formalized and strict? Where do we want to keep it flexible and adaptable? You’re reminding me of that on.

Vaughn A. Calhoun:
Yeah, no, I think, you know, a very simple term, we just have to be in like almost a constant beta mode, right. Where we’re, we’re, we’re testing, we’re, we’re failing, we’re learning, we’re doing it again. And, and I, and I think, you know, yes, we need a framework, but we need flexibility within that framework. Because you know, more times than not, we, you know, for, for example, right. I, I have staff members who come ask me questions, right. And that’s a wonderful thing, but more times not, they know the answers, right. They sometimes don’t want to, you know, fail or be wrong. But if we can create a culture where innovation in trying new things is cool, right. You know, that’s going to push us forward. And I think something, we get stuck in saying we don’t want to make a mistake. And, and, but, you know, that’s where good things happen, right. Once you move past the mistake.

Keith Edwards:
Well, and the key to that is when people try new things and it doesn’t go, well, we celebrate that rather than go, oh, you messed up. Right. And right. So the failures gotta be a part of the equation that’s rewarded as well.

Rick Gatteau :
And Keith, can I also add, I think a lot of you mentioned this the very beginning, we need to have a competitive advantage. And I think for other schools and universities that aren’t doing this, they are going to lose talent. And so this is an opportunity for us to use our flexibility. I like would want say the framework, we’re still getting the job done and meeting students’ needs. That’s the important, how are we meeting students’ needs, but, but developing our talent as a result and providing the flexibility, because I would say in the evidence I’ve seen so far, we’ve actually done better in the model than if we stay with a traditional or the older ways of saying there’s no remote work. I think we would’ve lost more talent. I think we would not have served students as effectively. And so as long as we’re looking at it from those vantage points, I think we’re moving in the right direction.

Keith Edwards:
Well, and I, and I we’re, we’re running out of time and so I want to get to our last question, as you all know, the podcast is called Student Affairs Now. And we’d love to hear what each of you are pondering or troubling or curious about now might be related to what we’ve talked about might be related to other things that are just really pressing for you. And also if you want to share where folks can connect with you that would be great. So Rick, let’s, let’s kick off with you. What are you troubling now and how can folks connect with you?

Rick Gatteau :
Sure. I, I think as I mentioned earlier, this is an evolutionary process for all of us and making sure we don’t want to make a bad decision I think that we might regret. And sometimes when you kind of give a Liberty, it’s hard to pull that back if it isn’t working. So that’s part of the struggle I think we are facing. So far I, I look at so far so good what we’ve been doing, but in the end, the, the two words that’s just come to mind, one is communication, it’s critically important. And the other one is just setting expectations and making sure people are clear about what we expect in terms of a work from remote or work from home policy. In terms of reaching me, I am on Twitter and Instagram and LinkedIn under Rick Gatteau. And my email address I can share is Richard Gatteau, stonybrook.edu. So I’m happy to share what we’ve done at Stonybrook and, and, and talk more about our planning process as well. Yeah.

Keith Edwards:
And we’ll try and get some of the resources that you’ve mentioned and others have mentioned linked in our show notes on our website Vaughn what’s what’s troubling you now.

Vaughn A. Calhoun:
Wow. great question. Well, I think, you know, for me more so I’m, I’m pondering a lot of different things, right? I’m, I’m a nerd. I love to read a lot. I love to like listen a lot you know, and lately I’ve been reading books on user experience and the general thing that’s really coming out is that too many companies really focus on the products and service and not really on the user experience. Right. and that really got me thinking of, you know, do we do this in higher education, right. Do we overly focus on, you know, new programs, new curriculums and rankings at the expense of the student experience. Right. You know, and how can we create more more moments where students will remember vividly you know, you know, what, what can we do to create more wow moments, right.

Vaughn A. Calhoun:
You know, from, you know, admissions tours to dining, to advising to just the random Wednesday in the fall, right. Could hire ed learn from like the hotel industry or the pro sports industry or circ day LA. Right. You know, you know, the experience. And, and I think that’s something that we can’t lose sight of. Right. It’s always putting more in, on, on, on the input side, but what’s the output, you know, how are students experiencing their time on campus? And that’s really just been on my mind as of late and you can find me on Twitter at Vaughn underscore Calhoun Instagram vVaughnCalhoun one word.

Keith Edwards:
All right, Wil, what are you troubling now?

William (Wil) Jones :
Let’s see work related wise. I think the, the biggest thing that we’re focusing on right now are ways to continue to bring people together especially in this new hybrid world that we live in. So whether that’s we’re experimenting with a common Workday where every staff member works on a Wednesday in the office also quarterly gatherings to create more of a, a sense of belonging especially for our new incoming staff member. So these are all things that we’re looking at at the moment so that we can ensure that the office culture, as they say sometimes is not changing for the negative just because we are doing more things in a hybrid fashion, if anyone would like to, to chat with me or connect with me LinkedIn is the best way. My username on there is William Jones, Jr. So it’s just by full names with no periods, no spaces.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. I love the word that you used that I loved is experimenting, right? We know this is what we, and we’re, we’re dabbling with these different seeing what works and what doesn’t keeping with that nimble and adaptable that Vaugn was talking about. Colleen, you started it all, we’ll end with you. What are you troubling now? What’s on your mind. And where can folks who want connect with you, connect with you?

Colleen McInerney :
Yeah, I think right now, I’m, I’m just excited to kind of sit down after this and write down the thoughts and the things I’ve kind of gathered and go back tomorrow and say, Hey, here’s what we’re, here’s what I got to talk about. Here’s what, here’s what I’ve learned. Some of the ideas on my mind lately, I’ve also been reading a book it’s called the art of gathering, why how we meet and why it matters by Prya Parker. And I was reading that last night and I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately specifically with my student staff meetings. And just how that kind of can expand out above just with that, to our you know, professional staff meetings and whatnot. So I’ve got a lot of ideas buzzing in my mind. So I’m feeling excited. As far as how to reach me, probably best would be through LinkedIn, Colleen McInerney or by email. My email address is Colleen.McInerney, ksu.edu.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Thank you. I love they’re bringing in the art of gathering, got a great newsletter. She sends out about once a month. That’s really now about the virtual. I’ll also mention a great book out of office which is really about the, the managing of this and the future of this and the troubles of some of the things that we’re talking about. Thanks to all four of you. This has been terrific. I really appreciate you sharing your perspective, your experiences, your ideas, your innovations, and your curiosity. I really appreciate all of you and thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode, Simplicity and LeaderShape. Simplicity is the global leader in student services, technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institution. Simplicity supports all aspects of student life, including, but not limited to career services and development student conduct and wellbeing, student success and accessibility services learn more, visit simplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and LeaderShape partners with colleges and university to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtual and in person.

Keith Edwards:
See their hybrid as well for students and professionals with a focus on creating more, just caring and thriving world. They offer engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building to find out more, visit leadershape.org, to connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, a huge shout out to Nat Ambrosey. Our producer she’s formerly our production assistant. We’ve promoted her to producer for the podcast and Nat does all of the behind the scenes work to make all five of us look and sound good. Thank you, Nat, and if you’re listening today and not already receiving our newsletter, please visit our website@studentaffairsnow.com scroll and bottom of the homepage to add your email to our MailChimp list while you’re there, check out the archives. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to our fabulous guest today and everyone who is watching and listening, make it a great week. Thank you all.

Rutgers Future of Work Report

Rutgers Future of Work Task Force Website

The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker

Calhoun, V (2022). Slow Embrace of Work From Home and Why its Important

https://www.naspa.org/blog/the-slow-embrace-of-work-from-home-and-why-it-s-important

Out of Office by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen

https://bookshop.org/a/19615/9780593320099

Lessons from Out of Office by Keith Edwards

Lessons from Out of Office

Rethinking the Workplace by Keith Edwards

Rethinking the Workplace