Glenn DeGuzman:
Hello, and welcome to student affairs NOW. My name is Glenn DeGuzman. I use he, him, his pronouns. And I’m your host for today’s episode. And I’m coming to you from Livermore, California, the ancestral homelands of the Ohlone people. Student affairs NOW is the premiere podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in, alongside, or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope that these conversations make a contribution to our field and restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays, you can find us@studentaffairsnow.com. We’re also on Twitter and now Instagram. So today’s topic is something I’ve been weighing in on both on a personal and professional level. And it’s around this topic of trauma and its impact on staff, students, and just faculty across higher education. Our student affairs field has always operated in this context, by which we always help students overcome a variety of obstacles, both inside and outside the classroom. But what happens when this trauma amongst the providers becomes too pervasive for many student affairs professionals who try to support students to overcome this trauma, we’re now becoming overwhelmed. I mean, I’ve got parent issues helping my kids with their schooling. I’ve got health concerns with my parents, the politics outside the intersections of my social identities. It’s just coming from all directions. So joining us today to discuss this very important topic are, Dr. Jayne Sommers from the University of St. Thomas, Steve Herndon from the University of Dayton, Amanda Knerr from Indiana State University and Dr. Keith Edwards, a former university administrator turned independent consultant. So, welcome. And I’d like to start by having each of you introduce yourself, maybe the professional roles in a little bit more depth. And just what you’d like to share about your work, your scholarship, your research in general. Why don’t we start with Keith.

Keith Edwards:
My name is 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 guess I come to this, I get to work with lots of different campuses every year. And I see this issue from campus to campus, to campus. And each campus seems to think this is a unique thing that they’re facing from the student crises to the new professionals and what they’re facing and what they’re experiencing, and then supervisors trying to manage. It just seems to be showing up in so many different ways. And so I was been thinking about this a lot, and it was great to work with these folks to think about it more thoroughly. And I’m looking forward to the conversation today.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you Keith. Steve?

Steve Herndon:
My name is Steve Herndon. I’m the Assistant Vice President for Student Development and Executive Director of Housing and Residence Life at the University of Dayton. My pronouns are he, him his. Why this topic has particular relevance for me is because the University of Dayton has a very high touch, very residential institution. We are 80% residential across all four years. So my staff and the staff in the Dean of Students office have a very intimate understanding of our students’ lives. And I think in the process, we’re constantly being introduced and having to introduce to others trauma as we’re managing our own. And as our work is becoming more intense and complex, the difficulty of that has increased. And so having strategies for managing trauma’s impact on you as you’re called to be present for others is, is really important.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thanks, Steve. Amanda?

Amanda Knerr:
Hi, I’m my name is Amanda Knerr and I go by she, her, hers pronouns. And I currently started as the Executive Director for Residential Life at Indiana State University. And you know, I’ve spent my entire career in residential life and housing and similar to what Steve said our teams are constantly working with students who are bringing all sorts of trauma and crisis into the residence halls, or they’re struggling to work through that in order to be successful. And over the years I’ve watched our teams struggle as they’re coming to assist to help to support these students, and then having to work through that after the fact often on their own without a lot of support and resources. And then in the current climate watching our team struggle with racial fatigue, watching our team struggle with the pandemic and uncertainty of what’s going to happen with their job and careers. I would just watch that impact of that daily trauma and how they do the work and how they support our students regularly.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thanks, Amanda. It’s good to have another fellow ResLifer, along with Steve. And Jayne?

Jayne Sommers:
Yeah. Hi, my name is Jayne Sommers. I use she, her hers pronouns. I am an Assistant Professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. I teach primarily and in and direct our Leadership and Student Affairs Master’s program. So the graduate preparation program for you know, one piece of the next generation of student affairs folks and I also teach in our doctoral program, we have a EDD in educational leadership and learning. And so I have observed a lot of what the other three have talked about in students that are making their way, these masters students were making their way to this profession and learning, being socialized into this profession. And there’s sort of this disconnect between what we talk about in the program around balance. And we try to talk about boundaries, which I know we’ll talk more about how hard that is, particularly in live-in positions. We talk about the importance of balance. I have them read about balance, really great pieces about balance, but then when they’re in their professional positions, in their assistantships, and as they rise in the ranks, they don’t. We are socialized to, as, as we said before you know, not practice balance very well. And so, you know, we see, we see a lot of burnout. We see also this, as we’ve identified this management of the trauma that students bring to us and then also at the same time, need to pay attention to our own trauma that we bring to our work. And that’s, I think what our focus will be today is to talk about not only how to support students who are experiencing trauma, but how to recognize and work through and manage our own trauma in our work. And so my aim is to figure out how we infuse these conversations into professional preparation programs. And then of course our professional organizations that will support those of us who continue to do the work throughout our lifetimes.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thanks Jayne. So this is actually a good segue because what I want to do is to make sure that we launch into this topic by establishing for the audience, how we even define trauma or even trauma stewardship. I know that you all have collaborated and I’ve reviewed some of your written pieces, which are amazing. And so I’m going to, I’m going to looking to you Jayne, and I’m looking to you, Keith, if you can even speak to how you define trauma for the audience and even the, this concept of trauma stewardship, how did you get invested in this topic?

Keith Edwards :
Yeah, I’ll just say, I mean, as, as we’ve heard us do our introductions, right? Like I’m even getting a little overwhelmed, just listening to this, all the things that we’re dealing with and that were going on. And I, you know, I think we started this conversation, noticing that in ourselves, seeing that and the professional staff that we work with, seeing it in students, seeing it in our families, seeing it in our kids. And so we really came to this because I think a lot of us fall into the trap of waiting for the world circumstances to change, waiting for this thing, to stop waiting for this thing to pass. And then I can go back to normal. Well, the reality is the reality of the world is not going to change to meet your needs. You have to figure out how to meet your needs, given the realities of the world. And I’m someone who I look up to Tara Brach, who’s a psychologist and meditation teacher says you have to stop arguing with reality. And I think trauma as we’ve defined it, we’ve defined trauma. I’m using definitions from a lot of other smart people as the short and longterm direct and indirect response to deeply distressing events. I’ll say that again, trauma is the short and longterm direct and indirect response to deeply distressing events. And we got a few of those, right? I was just taking some notes before this. As people have said, we’re, COVID global pandemic, quarantine lockdown, fear of getting sick. Every time I get a tickle in my lungs, I’m like, Oh, no. Seeing racial injustice in our communities and protests and response worried about loss of jobs. Some people already experiencing loss of jobs, furloughs I’m doing fifth grade and third grade at home schooling at home. There was a presidential election that is stressing me out. Forest fires, inability for some people to breathe, clean air hurricanes mom’s breast cancer diagnosis is coming up. We’re worried about dad’s dementia, the kids cough. And then for our students, all of that, plus they may be lost prom, which they probably thought was going to be awesome, whether that was going to be the reality or not. They missed graduation. They lost a, an athletic season. They’ve been leading up to their whole lives. They’re trying to have teenage romantic relationships via text and FaceTime, which is a disaster. They’re living at home, which some of them like, but some of them are dreading the entire anticipated college experience they looked through their whole life is not happening the way they imagined it. And then the things that have been going on before this sexual violence, impending DACA decisions, micro and macro aggressions, mental health issues that are emerging at this time in their adult lives and being exasperated by the circumstances around them being mis-gendered in class and worrying about climate change. And then just going through with all of that, and then just doing the scrolling on Twitter and Facebook, and just hoping for some good news and seeing more bad news and more bad news and bad news. And so there’s just so much for us to respond to and how do we not wait for all of that to pass and clear up, but how do we figure out how we’re going to navigate that? And that would be trauma stewardship. And so maybe Jayne wants to say a little bit more about that.

Jayne Sommers:
I do. And I, I first need to say that whenever I think about this concept of trauma stewardship and the book that we use to sort of frame talking about this you know, I’ll never forget. I mean, Keith and I, we were sitting in a coffee shop, and I’m sure at some point I was either had tears in my eyes or was shedding tears about sort of managing a lot of what Keith just listed. And I’m sitting here trying to take deep breaths as you’re listing all of these things, Keith. And you said, have you heard of this book, trauma stewardship? And I think you sent me the link and I mean, you know, the subtitle is an everyday guide to caring for yourself while caring for others, which whenever I, you know, that phrase to any of us who do this work, I mean, it’s so compelling. How do I care for myself while I’m caring for others? And so, you know, I’ll never forget that gift that you gave me and recommending this book and this model and I’ve, I’ve used it you know, moving forward with students. And the things that I found particularly helpful for me was I think about this metaphor of, you know, we say all the time, you can’t pour from an empty cup. We hear it all the time, but we keep pouring because we actually don’t know what our empty cup looks like. Right. We’ve never really thought through when, when we should be actually taking the cues that our cup is approaching empty. So that’s where this idea of burnout comes from which we use this phrase, all the, but we also don’t really talk about what burnout looks like, what are the symptoms of burnout? What are the sort of warning signs of burnout? And so then when we don’t know what we’re looking for, we get sort of to a tipping point where we’re like, I have to take a mental health day, I have to escape the work. But then, you know, I want us to think about how often do we actually escape? How often do we actually step away from the work? How often do we actually not check our email on the day that we say we’re not going to? And do we, on those days, do we actually do what we need to do to return really ready to reengage? Or is it just sort of this bandaid thing that we return at the same place, or very quickly get back to that same place? So what I appreciate about the trauma stewardship model is the, it sort of starts with this idea of thinking about the effects of trauma exposure on us. So our our exposure to trauma and the way we respond to that trauma. And so some of the warning signs that really spoke to me as someone with a long career that started in residence life, moved to orientation. And now I’m on the faculty path. Some, some things that really spoke to me are the idea that the sort of getting the sense that we can never do enough and sort of hypervigilance around our work, right? Anyone who’s held a duty phone can, can remember the effect of that ringtone, a particular ring tone, and sort of the post traumatic response to that sort of my own needs, then get completely negated. And I need to turn my attention to what the students need. And so we’re constantly hypervigilant. We’re checking our email all the time. We want to respond to students and supervisors quickly. And we also, when we are in this mode of sort of surviving all of this trauma, we lose our ability to embrace complex thinking. We think very, you know, in a very binary way of sort of right or wrong responses we get very black and white. We lose our ability to sort of hold the beauty of, of paradoxical truths which doesn’t serve any of us well. And doesn’t allow us to actually serve students and to see the whole picture o, what we might be facing. And then of course, chronic exhaustion, right? Like this is what burnout typically looks like for us. And we recognize this when we are constantly exhausted. Maybe we’re having, you know, physical manifestations of you know, we’re sort of, you know, physical manifestations of handling trauma and we’re always tired. And then, you know, Keith talks about doom scrolling. The thing that was like a huge aha moment for me in this model is naming that as disassociation, that when we spend time on social media, or even when we incessantly scroll through news outlets, we are actually disassociating from feeling and working through the trauma that’s coming from what it is that we’re seeing on our screens. And so we just associate it in a number of different ways, maybe it’s, you know it’s, it’s, it’s binging on a Netflix show maybe it is scrolling through social media. These are, and we do these things right, to sort of check out, but we don’t actually ever check out. We’re not really actually healing from the trauma that we’re experiencing when we check out in this way. And then I, and then I think one of the other ones really spoke to me was this idea of sort of anger and, and cynicism. So like we may start to feel sort of annoyed by very reasonable requests from students or from supervisors, when we feel overwhelmed, when we are living in a state of overwhelm, we naturally sort of resent anyone who is asking us for more. And, and this can happen not only with students or supervisors, but also with family members, right? Like I get to a point where I’m like, I can’t read, I can’t read that text. I can’t respond to that text because I simply have no more to give because of all of all, you know, that I’m holding my own and, and students’ trauma as well. So, so those are the signs of, of trauma exposure that are identified by the authors of this book. And so then the authors then move forward to offer this model of trauma stewardship, which we all on this call found to be super duper valuable to sort of like, okay, so here’s what it looks like. How could we possibly practice perpetual healing and, you know, be able to stay engaged in our work as opposed to burning out. And so there are sort of four key elements to the trauma stewardship model. I haven’t named the authors yet. They are Laura van Dernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk. So again, brilliant, brilliant thinkers that have really helped us think about, you know, approach this trauma zeitgeists in a different way. So there are these four key elements. So the first one is creating a space for inquiry. So really on a daily basis, waking up and asking why we do this work, why do we stay and really thinking about the concept of identity versus vocation that yes, we should feel called and fulfilled to do our work, but our work is not our identity. Our work is not who we are. We should have a healthy sense of separation from our work and not be completely defined by our work, and be able to recognize an answer that why question on a daily basis. And this has a lot to do our confusion of identity and vocation has a lot to do with boundaries, which I know Amanda will talk about later, especially in live-in positions, how we don’t, we’re not socialized to practice boundaries right away in our work with students. So, so this is the idea of just coming back to our why the second element is choosing our focus. And we, in our thinking about this really thought a lot about the idea of mindfulness and the value of mindfulness in our work. And again, this like this intention of where do we, once we answered the why question, then we go deeper and think about what is my focus for the day. What’s my intention for this day. And we’ve talked as a group about you know, when we engage in mindfulness, we can sort of get through the paralysis that sometimes our pain and our trauma can bring for ourselves and recognize what it is we truly need. Maybe we need to find a mental health professional to help us in our own lives. Maybe we need to engage in community in a different way. And, and one of the things that Steve said in one of our conversations, that’s just beautiful and will stay with me forever, is that there’s a difference between showing up from our woundedness and showing up from our wholeness. And so if we can get closer to wholeness for ourselves, then we will serve our students that much better as well. The fourth, or excuse me, the third element is building compassion and community. So we really latched onto this community part of this model that, you know, recognition that we are not actually in it alone the value of, of of building community, of recognizing the role of community in, you know, what we’ve historically called self care recognition that if we actually want to instill or move toward any sort of social change, we have to be engaged in community. The compassion piece of this is also about finding compassion for yourself. So again, that’s recognizing what your needs may be to truly kind of practice this perpetual healing. And then the fourth element is finding balance, which again, we talk a lot about and then don’t do very well. And so we’ve talked about the challenge of, you know, the whole idea of work life balance, and what does that actually look like? And instead invite people to think about how can you build a very, very full life that has elements that fulfill you and heal you, and that integrate work into that very full life, as opposed to trying to find what, you know, it never really works this idea of work life balance. And then there’s this also this invitation at the end of the model to center ourselves daily in these four elements of creating space for inquiry, choosing our focus, building passion, compassion, and community, and finding balance. So really kind of daily thinking about how we’re putting those four elements into, into practice. And we all have found it to be just an incredibly useful model to help us slow down and bring intention to this to staying engaged as we continue to navigate trauma.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you, Jayne. And thank you, Keith, really for laying an understanding and foundation of trauma and also the the trauma stewardship model and in what you’re, what you shared Jayne, you spoke to the connection to live in staff, and it’s a perfect segue to Amanda, Amanda, you know there were multiple themes that Keith and Jayne laid out and I appreciated what they were sharing, particularly the ones that were tied to residential life and in part, because obviously as a person who’s leading a large complex residential life program, I am, and I like the term that Jayne use burnout. Particularly amongst my staff, I’m really concerned about our younger professionals as well. I know that Amanda, you have an interest in mentoring, student affairs professionals and obviously supervising and developing their professional identities. Can you speak to the impact of the trauma that you are seeing on your newer professionals and the strategies for self care?

Amanda Knerr:
Sure. I think it’s first important to go back and think about the traditional student affairs and campus housing culture, right? So for years I’ve been brought up to believe that a good residential life professional is one that is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that when they retreat to their apartment, the door is kept open and that they are attending all the events in the evening, and they’re always, they’re always sitting at the desk, always playing pool with the team, with the students. They’re eating in the dining hall, they’re accessible all the time. And also this expectation that they know everything that’s going on with their students, staff, with their students. And when I think about the times that I have held up to high regard, those new professionals, that’s an outstanding new professional. My metrics have oftentimes been, they’re always taking on the extra tasks they’re going above and beyond the 20 hours a week or the 37 and a half hours a week, or they’re available in the evening, or they know all other students, can we set this really high standard? And then at the same time, we say in our staff meetings and senior leadership team and say, I just don’t understand why they seem unengaged at times while they’re exhausted all the time, whether they’re not making good, critical thinking, they’re not using good, critical thinking to make decisions. They’re just coming to us and asking us to tell them what to do. And I think a lot of that has created this expectation with SA professionals, that this is what I have to do to be successful in my field. I’m as successful in my career. And it goes back to the the piece of this is not only who I am, and this is my identity. And we talk a lot about residential life being a lifestyle, and not just a job. And so we’ve kind of continue to build that sense that your identity is who you are in residential life. And I think that sets the stage then for our staff to really have and show up with, with dealing with a lot of trauma. Not only do they have all their experiences that Keith and Jayne mentioned earlier but they’re the first responders to some of the students, worst days of their lives. They’re the first responders after a title IX situation with serious, serious mental health issues, student death situations where they’re having to sit there with communities, And with first year students trying to help them make sense of all of this. And so then, then it, then they have to try to work through that. And often times we go and we send them out as first responders to these situations and we don’t follow up with them afterwards to help them work through the impact of those experiences. We check in on the students, we check in on the student staff, but we expect them to be professionals and just manage it. So how does this show up in, in the work or with the students or the students staff members that I see? I think that Jayne mentioned some of them, but I see a lot of this hyper-vigilance, right? That they have to constantly be on their phone checking email. If a student texts texts them at three o’clock in the morning, I’ve gotta be right there to respond. If an email happens, I need to follow up immediately and having a difficulty discerning between what’s a true emergency that they need to respond to and what can wait until eight o’clock the next morning. And also this expectation that my work is really, really important. I can’t possibly take a day off because I’m on this a one-on-one and that might be an important one on one meeting with a student staff member. I won’t show up to this community meeting if I take a day off. And so getting our young professionals to even take vacation that they’ve earned to get a break, to really reflect on our own experience. I see staff coming into that. The diminished creativity, oftentimes when I get a duty call, I want the staff member wants me to tell them what to do, rather than them being able to think through what is the best way to handle this situation. When we get to a committee structure, they want me to just hand them a chart. This is what the committee needs to do versus exploring and identifying and creating what that should look like. There’s not an ability to think creatively anymore. It’s just very much, I got to go by the book. I got to follow the directions. The chronic exhaustion, how many times our staff, they go, they go, they go to the goal and you see this pattern where you watch them go furiously. And then all of a sudden, just have to fall apart and need two or three days to just rest and regroup. And then they go, go, go, go, go. This pattern happens over and over again. And then finally this sense of persecution, this coming into this to one on one meetings and saying you’re responsible for how I’m feeling. You’re responsible for the fact that I’m exhausted. You’re responsible for the fact that I can’t think clearly, and not being able to take ownership and responsibility for the feelings that they’re having. And so I see our staff showing showing up like that, and then how do we help them work through that? And I know she’s going to talk a little bit from an organizational perspective before our new professionals. Some of the things that I encourage them to do is to spend time every day, whether it be prayer or meditation or mindfulness, just taking time to just sit in the silence, to just put away all the distractions and just be, and just to quiet themselves for a few minutes so that they can regroup and really reflect and, and take a break. I think helping students or helping our staff really think about what is your why? I know we spend time every week in our staff meeting and I spend time in a lot of our one-on-ones, what’s your why? What’s our collective? Why, what are we trying to accomplish? And reminding of that, them that often, but then also having them to find somebody to remind them of that. And I think even as a seasoned professional, that can be challenging. Sometimes I know with everything going on a couple of weeks ago, I just reached my max. I felt like I was coming into the office every day. And I was like, what fires am I going to have to put out today? What’s on my to do list, how many, 300 emails a day, how many get through this? I’ve got five parents to call back and I just sat there and I thought, why did I go into this field? I didn’t get in here to do emails and talk to mean parents and check things off the, to do list. What is my why? And I had to reach out to my colleague and say, friend, I need you to remind me, what’s my, why. Why are we doing this? Why, why am I here? I don’t think it’s to put out fires. I don’t think it’s a to-do list and emails, and helping our staff realize that it’s okay to reach out and have somebody help you remember what your, why is, what your purpose is, why you’re here, not only exploring that yourself, but helping others remind you of that when you lose, when you lose your route. And then finally just taking some time to find some gratitude every day. What’s one thing you’re grateful for. Maybe it’s a hot cup of coffee. Maybe it’s that one student conversation yesterday where you felt like there was some movement in the right direction. Maybe it’s getting that one item off your, to do list. That’s been there for a week. What is just something you’d be positive and grateful for so that you’re not focused always on the negative. And it’s okay to also have a plan B. Sometimes you go through and you’re you’re a housing person and you want to do that. And all of a sudden you reach a space where you’re like, I’m not finding fulfillment or joy here anymore. And is it okay to have that plan B and plan B to be in a different environment, to be a different campus, to be a different department, to be a different line of work and exploring those options and then being okay, digging in and seeing if that might be a better fit. And that’s all okay. I think to help work through that trauma.

Glenn DeGuzman:
And it’s interesting as I hear you speak, I keep thinking about trying to do all that, in a zoom environment because we don’t have that ability to really exercise our, our talents and our strengths were, which really rely on in-person connectivity and community building. So points well taken. Steve, I kind of want to turn to, and I’m particularly obviously as well concerned about how do we support students and staff in these challenges. What advice and recommendations would you give campus leaders to address the mental fatigue and burnout that Student Affairs staff are facing?

Steve Herndon:
Well, one of the things that I would start with and I’ve been guilty of doing this and everything I’m sharing, I’m sharing from my own experience. I know what the living experience entails as I was once a live in professional. And I think some of the mistakes that I have made as a supervisor is continuing to compare my experience to my staff’s experience. And while though the topics that we’re addressing or the work has some sense of familiarity to it. The significant difference is, is that the work has grown in intensity. It’s grown in complexity and it’s grown in volume. And so comparing my living experience to my staff live in experience actually does actually positions us as adversaries or martyr, so to speak who suffered the most and had the most blurred boundaries between work and environment. And so suddenly it’s a competition, but now between who’s the most martyred, rather than this being an opportunity for further growth and development. So the first piece of advice I would give is your experience is meaningful, but it is not the same as your staff’s experience. Now, the work is very different and I think it’s important for you to acknowledge that. And for that to influence how you engage your live in professionals particularly around boundary setting. The other advice is this touches upon a something that Jayne said earlier, helping staff to understand the difference between vocation and identity, the purpose, the calling and Amanda talked about this as well. What is my, why? What is my purpose? What is my calling and that asking yourself those questions or helping folks to, to ask themselves those questions, I think helps you to understand that your job is the vehicle by which you live out your passion. It’s not your identity. And that I love students. I love student learning. I love to be in environments that are situated in learning. I do not love my job. I do not hate my job, but my job isn’t my identity, my job doesn’t define myself worth. And I think particularly with entry level living professionals, those lines are very much blurred. And I think as much as we can as supervisors to help sort of tease those apart and understand, help folks to understand they have a greater purpose and calling but that their job can’t become their identity because that’s the, those are the conditions for producing the overworked overstressed martyrs that we often find in our profession. And that I used to be as I was, you know, in competition about who was going to be most martyred, even when I was a hall director. So I think the other piece is, are we using as intentional as leaders, as supervisors in terms of talking about where recovery fits within our work? So as I think about crisis management, both from the perspective of being a member of the Dean of students, staff on campus, but also as the Executive Director for Housing and Residence Life, are we as forthright about the importance of recovery in our procedures and our protocols. We have lots of protocols around crisis, but rarely do I see us be as intentional around the recovery piece and recognize them. That’s an, a critical piece in addressing the impact of others’ trauma on you and the experiences that that triggers. And I think as, as much as we can incorporate that into our daily practices, then it becomes something that’s normalized and something that doesn’t seem outside of the quote unquote typical experience. I think recognizing that self care is not, we talked about this a little earlier, and we talked about it throughout our various conversations. That similar to how I believe that programming models can, are not effective for sustaining learning for the long term or looking at learning in a more developmentally sequential way. I also believe the same thing around self care, self care is an ongoing process. It’s an iterative process. It’s a process that requires a level of introspection and reflection similar to what what we’ve all touched upon so far. It’s not a menu of options that I can select. So today also like I’m going to get a glass of wine after work, or tomorrow I’m going to go do this. I think those could be part of a larger plan, but without there being more context to the plan than what you see as this sort of menu of option actually can lead to more stress and more trauma. If they’re not managed appropriately or managed within a larger sort of ecosystem, that’s ongoing, that requires a level of introspection and reflection that we are not that we’re not necessarily thinking about when our work environment is at such, and work goes at such an accelerated pace. The other thing I would like the last thing I would offer, is I learned how as a supervisor to ask better questions, rather than asking questions that indict people, or I started asking questions that started with the assumption of that they are an expert of themselves, of their work. So then I got a better understanding of who they were as an individual, so that I could collaborate and be a partner in their learning and development. And again, not the, the adversary they have to work around because I have the positional authority to make their work environment difficult. And so instead of asking, why did you do this? I started asking better questions of what were you hoping to accomplish and walk me through this, or walk me through that. And so, as I started asking better questions, I started getting less defensive responses. And so people didn’t feel like that they had to defend their credibility, defend their expertise, to defend their jobs to some respect, because they were reacting to the question that I was asking, and then I’m frustrated they’re getting defensive yet. I’m creating the conditions for them to be defensive. So I learned as a supervisor to ask better questions, questions that helped me to get at the backstory and less about questions that put people in the defensive and make them feel they’re being indicted.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Steve, I want to stay with you, and I’m gonna actually open this up to the rest of the panel as well. But you spoke to obviously wanting to support your staff to really try to separate that job identity from their personal identity. And I think one of the interesting things that I’m seeing is, is how that’s being blurred amongst particularly black staff. And that can be very challenging and difficult. I think about the anger and frustration that many of them feel from what’s happening on the national level and the violence towards particularly black identified folks. And most recently, the Breonna Taylor decision involving the three officers which has impacted many of my staff. What advice would you give me to support black identified staff?

Steve Herndon:
I would say, you know, our work is as we’ve all articulated, it’s very complex and that often what we are in responding to the issues and topics that were in response to are also impacting us. So as we’re supporting others, we’re also being impacted. And that’s a lot of pressure, particularly when depending upon how various aspects of your identity it would help if I could finish the sentence. So let me back up. I think I’ve had the experience of sharing my story, my experience in having a dismissed, questioned, not believed. And so on top of having the courage to share, I’m now having to defend my experience with others who have no true understanding of his intricacies or complexity. And so what I would say is can we, as supervisors, give people space staff space to be vulnerable, can we listen to their experience and be present with them without dismissing it without fixing it? Again, that’s where I made some mistakes early on in my career as a supervisor is I’m in crisis mode. You want me to fix something? No, you didn’t ask me to fix anything. You asked to just share your story. And sometimes people just want a space where they can just share their story and not necessarily looking for a solution. They’re also looking to be believed. I don’t want to have to convince you that what I experienced that you will never experience is real. Can we start from the place that my story is real? My experience is real rather than me having to be put on trial around a truth that I live, that you will never identify with. So can we give people space to be that? And can we be, can we be comfortable with the disruption that it may create? So we don’t get this project finished on the date that I said, or we don’t get this task completed, as I had originally designed, designed it to be completed, or when I designed for it to be completed. Can we set aside tasks and still be productive and still care for the people around us whom we’re so dependent on in order to complete those tasks. That can we treat our staff as humans and see them as people, and still be productive. One of the things that I have learned is the balance between relationship and task, and I’m a naturally task driven person. So you give me a task, I’ll give you a plan. I’ll tell you when it will be completed. And along the way we get, we get there. But in my past, in my pathway, is a wake of bodies of people that are wounded and beat up on, because the way in which we got to the outcome, didn’t allow us to truly appreciate the contributions of all. And so I think it’s about vulnerability. It’s a bank, those are bleeding, our staff, it’s about giving them space and being careful that as you’re asking questions, what types of questions are you asking? And I’ve learned to do more listening, listening than asking. And can we give people the space to do that? And can we not allow the space being uncomfortable for us to dictate our response? Cause sometimes I was acting out of my own discomfort with hearing someone’s story that I have a high need to respond, to react in a way that appears supportive. And in reality, it isn’t.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you for that. Steve and Jayne, you wanted to add to this.

Jayne Sommers:
For me and I am, you know, far from an expert in this area. But I think a lot about, you know, in this, in this realm to sort of start with understanding that trust is not a given as we build relationships, supervisee supervisor, across social identity differences, we really have to be intentional about building trust. But in these relationships and that, as Steve mentioned, ultimately for me comes down to recognizing the whole person who’s showing up for us. And and showing up on behalf of students and really sort of, as Steve said you know, pausing the agenda when you need to and really you know, embracing, embracing wholeness, I think as often as possible. I think there’s a little bit of a tricky balance here, we’re talking about like trauma centered work and, you know, there’s a lot of stuff out there right now about trauma centered education which is important to recognize and think about how we respond to trauma which we’re talking about here, but not re-traumatizing folks in our response, right? So really sort of allowing, allowing those that we’re serving or working with to, to to identify for us what they need and want in that situation and not imposing a certain kind of response that we would think might be most effective. This week in particular, I’ve been thinking a lot about are black women identified educators who you know, anticipated rightly that they would begin to get phone calls and texts and emails from students who share their identities, who see them as, you know, brilliant wise women and mentors and want them to help them make sense of what’s. What’s happened with Brianna Taylor what’s happening you know, nationally and globally. And that’s an extra tax on those particular educators who also are working through this trauma themselves, right? Who hold the identities that are, you know, we’re seeing directly portrayed in the media as being victims of violence. And so there’s a, there’s an added, added experience there. I’ve just been thinking a lot about the role of black women identified educators and in supporting students and others in making sense of what’s happening and the needs that they also have along, along with that.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thanks Jayne. So you have all this panel, all of you have dropped some serious awareness and knowledge, and I really appreciate a lot of the insights you’ve the brought here. And so obviously this podcast is called student affairs now. So now what are you pondering? What’s troubling you, what are you thinking or questioning about? And I’m not going to call on any of you, so ya’ll can kind of bubble and someone’s going to step up and speak first.

Keith Edwards:
I can do that. I guess what I’m, what I’m generally thinking about, is I’m very worried about my student affairs colleagues who have been asked to do an impossible task and then ask, nevermind, we don’t want you to do that task. We want you to do this other equally impossible task, but you only have three days to do it. But I also know that I want to talk with people who are not in higher ed and student affairs. Everybody feels like they’re being asked to do an impossible task, try teaching kindergarten, virtually that’s an impossible task and people are losing jobs and losing businesses and trying to figure out how to navigate these things. What I’m thinking about today is I’m thinking about the, the lessons that we’ve talked about that I keep needing to learn. And really, to be honest with you, I’m thinking less about my professional role and I’m thinking I need to do that at home, in my relationship with my children, with myself. So this has been very valuable to put it in that context as well. So thank you.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you, Keith.

Amanda Knerr:
I think that one of the things I’ve been thinking about and my team, one of the things that we say is that we need to take care of ourselves first, take care of each other second, and then take care of our students, because if we’re not in a good space, and if our team is in good space, we can’t take care of our students. We say that a lot. But I’ve been thinking a lot about how do we practice that. And especially in light of the last several weeks and being able to, as the leader of my team, verbally telling folks, I need you to be okay. And it is okay with me, if you need to step aside and step away and refill your cup. And like Steve said earlier with the timelines, it’s so easy to get focused on. We have to get this done. We have to rebuild the plane that we’re flying here this year, because everything’s new that we forget sometimes that it is really about caring for each other and caring for ourselves and we have to be okay and verbalize constantly. It’s okay to step away. It’s okay to take a day off. It’s okay to not hit that deadline. Let’s make sure we’re caring for each other and we’re caring for ourselves so that we really can focus on helping our students through a very difficult situation.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you, Amanda.

Steve Herndon:
I think for me, I worry about the constant pivoting and pivoting the, the, the, the fluctuations are significant. And so I don’t know if “pivot” is really is the right word, but I mean, it’s, it’s a significant shift in the direction. We often have to move at such an accelerated pace. So I worry about people’s energy. I worry about people’s exhaustion. I’m worried about my own and are, do I get some times where do, when do I get caught up in the pace? And I’m not able to see outside of myself and see that I’m perpetuating a narrative that I’m often talking about dismantling. And, and I think it’s easy for us to fall in the trap of trying to be everything for everyone, particularly when we felt like our livelihoods could potentially be at stake. And so how do we still continue to push back against that narrative that says to be an effective leader, to be an effective educator means that it has to come at our own expense. The circumstances are ripe for the perpetuation of that narrative. And so I have found myself as I reflect upon my own behavior at times, it’s either times you’ve hit the mark and there’s times you have fallen way below it. And so you have got to recenter yourself because it is your team. That’s looking to you for leadership, for guidance for direction. And so how do you still push back against that very exploitive narrative emit circumstances that really are right for it’s a perpetuation.

Jayne Sommers:
I’m thinking all the time about how the pandemic is exacerbating the injustices in higher education. And so we are seeing, you know, the veil is lifted for many of us. And so we are constantly reminded of who we’re not serving well. And we need to think about how we reform our education to do that better. And then at the same time, we are humans who are also, you know, as we’ve said exposed, we have our own trauma and we have our own response to the trauma that we are. We are seeing an inundated with in the same way that students are which as Amanda alluded to, it reminds us all of this, the idea of putting on your own oxygen mask before you help anyone else put on their oxygen mask, that we really do need to figure out how to find practices that allow us to remain engaged. And I’m teaching a course right now on contemporary and future trends in student affairs, in higher education. And unsurprisingly, we spend a lot of our time talking about really troubling realities in higher education. It’s not a very positive two and a half hours every week. And so we have to, we have to practice what I, I use the term critical hope a lot where we need to be critical of what’s happening in higher education. But again, if we, if we bring that intention and we remember our why, we can remain hopeful about our ability to, to shift higher education, to be better in the future.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you, Jayne. And really thank you all. You know, it’s interesting and I, I appreciate you sharing your insights and your wisdom with our audience. And really, quite frankly, me. I found a lot of the things that you said very helpful. And I just, you know, I, we can keep going, but we have run out of time and I just want to thank all of you Keith Edwards Jayne Sommers, Steve Herndon, Amanda Knerr. Thank you. So for the audience, you can receive reminders about this and other episodes by subscribing to student affairs now newsletter, or browser archives@studentaffairsnow.com. We are asking, please subscribe to the podcast, invite others to subscribe, share on your social, leave a five star review, help us out. It really helps the conversation, reach more folks and build a community so we can continue to make this available to everyone. Again, my name is Glenn DeGuzman. I want again, thank today’s guests on this episode. Everyone who’s watching, listening. Thank you. And we’ll see you next time.