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Heather Shea
I’ll just say really quick there, this has been quite an experiences, this team, this group, and also being able to sit in spaces every week to reflect. I’ve also had this other thing going on working here for with ACPA. So that that has also been a space to think about and process through some of the larger issues that are facing our field. And so when I think about this question, I always go to the big really, we need to be discussing the ways in which we have, you know, quiet quitting, and the great resignation, people leaving and what is what is going on in the field of student affairs. And so I don’t know if that’s the top of mind right now.

Glenn DeGuzman
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host, Glenn DeGuzman. Today we are celebrating the 200th episode of Student Affairs NOW I plan for you a recorded presentation featuring all the hosts of Student Affairs now, during the 100th anniversary of the American College personnel Association Conference, held in Chicago, Illinois on March 19. During this conference presentation, we explored the public scholarship of podcasting, sharing our personal reflections on the growth of our podcast, behind the scenes stories working with each other and answering questions from the audience in attendance. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays find details about this episode, or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com. Today’s episode is sponsored by ACPA, and independent 501 C three nonprofit association which is sponsoring this special episode to celebrate its 100th anniversary, boldly transforming higher education.

Glenn DeGuzman
So let’s let’s go from there and do some introductions. So let’s go ahead introduce the hosts of Student Affairs now. I’m one of them are a dumb introduction. So I’ll get to you Heather.

Guest
Hi, everyone. My god, I’m here Hello, Heather Shea, she her pronouns. And I am coming to you from the Lance’s Initiative, a three fires confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples over on the other side of the lake, which is where Michigan State University is located where I work. And as a land grant institution, we’ve taken some specific strides, I think, to address the ways in which land was forcibly stolen not just from the East Lansing area, but from all over the state of Michigan. And so if that screen that she showed yesterday, land grab universities, I think really does kind of provide some interesting context to the ways in which we’ve revered land grant institutions and also, they have perpetuated the stealing of lands from our indigenous peoples. That’s all I need to say for now.

Guest
My name is Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him his speaker, author and coach. My home is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I feel like I’m reading the intro to the podcast and recording this from my other Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Glad to see you all here this morning.

Raechele Pope
Morning all my name is Raechele Pope, she hers. I am a professor and the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Student Affairs for the graduates, faculty and student affairs and the unit Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education at the University of Buffalo business card. It is a very long Long. And I don’t know if I say that I’m a professor of higher ed at at the University of Buffalo, which is on the land of the Honan Shawnee people.

Mamta Accapadi
Good morning, everyone. It’s so good to be in community with all of you today. My name is Mamta Accapadi, and I use she her pronouns. I generally live in Austin, Texas, which are the ancestral homelands of the hermanos quote with Comanche pache, and tunco peoples. When I’m not on a field or in a dance studio with my 15 year old, I serve as a consultant, hire a consultant with Huron consulting.

Glenn DeGuzman
And there is a there is a sixth person does help us co host the Austin personal podcast, and that’s Dr. Susanna Munoz. But she recently went to NASA got sick, so she couldn’t make it here. And I think the last person we want, yes. The other person who is super important to our team is Nat Ambrosey who is sort of our production person who makes sure all our episodes just look fabulous. She does all the editing and transcribing all the things behind the scenes that we just could not do, it was not for her. So Nat thank you, you know how important you are to us. So with that, really quickly what we’re going to talk about today, we are going to talk about student personnel and just sort of like letting you know about our purpose and vision. We’re gonna talk about podcasts, you want to share some of the numbers, the things that we track to see how we’re doing in the podcast, and what’s important to us. And then, of course, this podcast always has seven origin stories, we’re gonna talk a bit about that and get some behind the scenes stories. We’re gonna talk a bit about what goes into the content selection, how we choose topics, and how we how we select that. And then what we’ve learned sort of like reflections, not only the expected unexpected things, and obviously leave some time at the end for you to ask us questions. Sounds good. Sounds good. There we go. Let’s keep going. So we launched in October 7 2020. And so what I’m gonna do is just play what are our goals was with this episode and you’ll you’ll hear a familiar voice.

Guest
Student Affairs now is their premiere podcast weekly web show, an online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. The host of Student Affairs now our doctors Glenn DeGuzman, Susana Munoz, Keith Edwards, and me Heather Shea. As hosts, we envision this podcast providing a contribution to the field, while being restorative to our profession. New episodes featuring interviews with thought leaders, discussions with book authors and engaging dialogue about current topics affecting our work will arrive to your feet each week on Wednesdays, subscribe now to our newsletter to receive announcements. We look forward to you joining our learning community as we engage together and discuss what is happening in student affairs now.

Guest
Wow, I don’t know, I might have recorded that in like 15 takes only 15 before we had Nat on board.

Glenn DeGuzman
And so what’s interesting for us, at least for me, when I when I joined the podcast, I thought, wow, this is gonna this is kind of a cool thought. This is gonna be really interesting. And I kept I wondered how long this would last but I didn’t really know how impacted podcasting was going to be. And fast forward to now. And as we keep tracking data, I am amazed at what we have found. So this is sort of like one of this page just sort of kind of covers about what’s happened in the last three years basically our lives like that. We’ve we’ve punched out 194 episodes every Wednesday, and our social media followers, our visitors to our website, the newsletter, the folks who are signed up for newsletters, our views on YouTube, just continued to climb. I think in the last year we’ve seen the numbers just passed your eclipse the first two years and so we’re seeing this avalanche effect that we are recognizing and we’re talking to people, faculty are assigning the podcast or they’re encouraging this is an alternative method for learning in addition to reading books, and I think that there’s flexibility when you listen to a podcast, and we’ll get into that later on. But I’m gonna, I’m gonna start by posing My first question to keep key when when you see these stats, what comes to your mind? And I think the other part to it is, let’s just start with that I want to.

Guest
I think that when Heather and I first talked about this in early 2020, if you remember that, we wouldn’t even aspire to that. And so it’s kind of unbelievable to look at that. Someone asked last night by stories asked what our most popular episodes are, which we’ve discussed, or maybe not our best episodes, but our most popular episodes. And what’s fascinating is, it’s different on the podcast than it is on YouTube. We don’t know what sense to make of that. But the number one episode on the podcast is first generation professionals. With Heather’s ex husband, it really bothers her, itwill be fine. The other one is with monta is the guest on student fares for transitions. And the number three is proud and thriving the mental health of LGBTQ plus students with the Jed foundation on YouTube. The number one episode is campus policing and student activism for black lives matter. From equity, talk to equity walk, rethinking the rd role and the impact of sense of belonging. And so it’s really fascinating for us to watch what takes off on audio what takes off on video, we also know that people will watch the video without watching the video and they just run it. So I find that interesting as we think about some of these numbers. And

Glenn DeGuzman
Heather, I know that you know the stats that are undeniable, these are just phenomenal. But what led you to to start this project.

Guest
So I actually credit my career in podcasting to somebody in the audience. Dr. Ed capellan. So Ed was hosting a podcast called Student Affairs Live, which was on the higher ed live network. And I don’t know, I don’t know what time I think you were starting a PhD or EdD program. And anyway, somehow I got the referral from Edie to join that host team. And so I was a participant in they did they have all this behind the scenes stuff, and it was live. So it was a whole nother layer of stress that happened when you had to go live on Google Hangout. You remember that? Gosh, it was terrible. So then, you know, through a series of changes to the management production company, the higher ed live podcast kind of cease to exist for a period of time, I think they might be back. They’re doing different things now. And I also had taken a break at some point and asked Keith to join in as a co host on Student Affairs live. And so when higher ed live went away, I was like, well, we could make our own podcast, Keith. And I was like, Keith, what do you think? What do you think and pretend like ideas, but not practicality.

Guest
Heather and I went to grad school together. And what I learned in two years of taking classes with Heather, is that you never want to present immediately following Heather, because you will go into the presentation thinking I’m a Jedi. My slides are amazing. This is going to be incredible. And then Heather goes right before you and you just want to hide because she’s got videos starring Hollywood’s actors. And so I recommended to many professionals. And now I recommend us that any past and future presidents of ACPA, you never want to go after Heather. And that’s a really bad career decision. If you can go before Heather, but the best is working with Heather. And so getting to present with Heather was always the best option less embarrassing. And so when Heather said I think we should do this. I was like, work with Heather. Yep. This is my mantra. So I remember walking across my kids playground as we were talking on the phone and trying to figure out how we’re going to do this and what it would look like and yes, we’re not going to do it live because that’s stressful. Okay, that’s great. And just talking through some of the things that we wanted to do. And then and then with hosts, we were thinking, who is just broadly curious, is really what guided some of the host decisions.

Glenn DeGuzman
Let’s let’s stay with that. Well, how did you because I think the audience curious. I’m curious how to shoot shoot podcast.

Guest
We thought of lovely people who are broadly curious. I think Heather and I think of ours selves as kind of faculty, but kind of practitioners. I’m not a faculty member, but I’m a scholarly nerd, and a protection practitioner. And so we kind of bridge that space. So we really wanted a practitioner. Glenn was a year ahead of us two years ahead of us. He was he was a very important person when we were at Colorado State, also at the same grant program, also the same drug program. And Glenn had done some things around the higher end live and some open panels and the contested issues things. And so we had had some conversations with him. And, you know, Glenn’s just super curious about so many things, we can’t contain his curiosity. So that seemed like a great. And then when we we wanted a faculty perspective. And then we thought it was Susan,

Guest
who also was in our cohort at Colorado State. So to any of the grad students in the audience, these relationships really matter. 25 a, I don’t know how many years later, it’s been a while. And so I just think that the host, initial host team was really born out of those, those connections. You’re gonna keep going and the host conversation. Okay, okay. Because Because then we had an incredible opportunity. When Raechele reached out to us, and at first we were like, Raechele wants to be on an episode, she’s got an idea. Like we both knew of Raechele Pope and I had interacted with you hear ACPA. But then we read the email again, I said, Keith, I was like, Oh, my gosh, Raechele Pope wants to join us as a host. We shouldn’t be on her podcast. Why does she want to be on? And so we’re like, oh, my gosh, this is such a good idea. So we’ve brought it to the larger group. And

Glenn DeGuzman
well, I’m I was going to add that when you brought it to the larger group. There was silence. We meet weekly sort of a planning team. And I remember when they brought up Raechele as a podcast host, I think there was we were just silent. Because for me as a as a when I was a younger professional. Raechele, multicultural competence. But that was like the book that was such a big part of my professional career, everything I did to tie with the cultural competency to leadership government was based on that book. So I was like, starstruck. I’m like, and she wants to be part of podcasts. So there was a So Raechele, I’d like to hear yours, your side of the story. What Why did you choose to get to outreach and eventually become part of the team?

Raechele Pope
Well, every time I hear that story from them, I’m just totally embarrassed, because my experience in life is that I fall into things, you know, I, and so there’s two, two parts to that. Back when Heather was doing Student Affairs live. She had us, me, and John wouldn’t do it. But me and I get on and talk about the new edition of the book. And so we had this conversation, it was incredible. And she was this amazing host. And I remember walking away from that thinking, gosh, that is such a great way of sharing information, knowledge, etc, with the world, right with our world, in Student Affairs in Higher Education. And so I just let that sit for a while. And then when Student Affairs NOW started, those messages just kept coming back. Now, I would really love to do something like that. And Amy, and I have a daughter that is now 28. And we were I was talking about this, and she calls us the OGs. I’m going to pretend it means amazing goddesses, you know, really means the world. And she keeps saying this. And I said I really love to do something like a podcast and she goes, Mom, you should just put that out into the world. manifest what it is you want. And I’m not saying she lives. But she loves to get advice. And so she was saying that. And so one day, in a moment when I was stepping into the unknown and stepping into my fear. I wrote to Heather and said, I’d love to do this. I think it’s an amazing thing that you’re doing. And I’d love to be a part of it. And I was expecting the answer to be no. You know, we appreciate it. We were good. We got the crowd we need. We don’t need more than four and five, but I was putting it out there that it’s my job to ask it’s somebody else’s job to say yes or no. And when they wrote back and said, we’d like to talk to you more about that. And I first talked with Keith and Heather, and we had a conversation and then I’ve met separately with Glen Susana, and I have never been more enveloped. It was just such a war. I mean, there were some really good pointed questions, essentially, what can you bring, you know, but at the same time, it’s just so warm, we’d love you to be a part of this. And I put all kinds of things into the energy since then, you know, I want to Porsche one did not. But I’m putting it out there just in case.

Glenn DeGuzman
I’d like to hear from Mamta to Mamta to the way that you joined the project, you know, obviously, you know, in your career, you are, at least from my land, you have been such a tremendous person, particularly in our communities. And so when I heard that you were joining the podcast, I got really excited as well, because it was a chance for you to get spent time.

Guest
I’m a Mamta Accapadi fanboy. And I have been for years, I saw her do a webinar that I sold last night that I years ago, was sitting in a coffee shop. Josie did a great interview with Mamta on her podcast, that is just incredible, you should go find it. And so I’ve seen Mamta followed Mamta from afar on many, many things. And when I saw she was transitioning out of Penn, I thought, we don’t have a necessity, oh, let alone someone who’s been a multiple time I say, Yo, let’s shoot our shot.

Mamta Accapadi
And my reaction was like, you want me? What can I possibly offer this amazing collective of colleagues. And I’m so forever grateful. For that email, that initial conversation, just, you have no words will capture what that means to me. So initially, the opportunity to participate in the cup podcast was purely, I have no idea what I’m doing. And I have no skills. And so this is a great way to learn. And thank you for the thank you for the professional development experience that you have gifted to me. And that remains to be true. I know that in our profession, we sometimes get the messages of like when an opportunity comes like always say yes, I don’t necessarily fully always believe anything, you know, center, your well being center, your dignity and health and, and humanity. And when it’s possible, like maximize the possibilities for you to say yes, but center your wholeness. And so you all created a space that allowed me to say yes, and I’m really grateful. The things that I’ve been thinking about because I was Keith and very much a life transition and life career. And I feel like maybe it’s a transition series of years with the phases of life that I’m in right now. And there’s some thoughts I’d written out several years ago, and they still hold true for me today. And, and Glenn, you reminded me of where at the roots of this. And it’s actually really coming from the slow process of decolonizing my own energy and spirit. And so. So there are three things that I always think about intimacy, agency and time. And I feel that in our lifetimes, we have been stripped of intimacy. And I don’t, you know, I mean, I don’t mean, you know, sexual intimacy only, you know, but that’s the thing, right? I mean, but but we’ve been stripped of intimate human connections and, and just the the ability to hold on to one another. I think we’ve lost our agency, or we’ve sacrificed our agency in the in the busyness of what we do and how we show up. And then time, I think, time controls us in many ways. And when I think about my own cultural background, pre pre British colonization, I just think about how I hear my parents describing their lives and my elders describing their lives. And they had the center of intimacy agency in time. And so I thought, what a great opportunity. I don’t know if I what I have to offer this podcast space. But what I wanted to do as a human was centered intimacy, agency and time and the stories that we were able to bring to the space just as my colleagues have role models for me beforehand. So for me, it’s, you know, we think about cultures of storytelling. I’m going to tell one brief story from graduate school and how this kind of informs how empowering and healing this experience is for me. I did not go to grad school, but I went to the University of Texas, Austin, this is not a critique of the institution. You know, we’re all learning and growing. And so just want to acknowledge that I had to take a course history of higher education. Now, the interesting thing about the University of Texas at Austin, is you have this wonderful higher ed program. And, you know, it’s a big campus, so maybe a 15 minute walk away. From said Education building, you have like in the top 10 At the time, the number one number two Asian Studies program in the country, right? So back and forth, Harvard, UT Austin in terms of Asian and then South Asian Studies. And so I’m just like, okay, history, I read and write write a paper about, about Vedic institutions. So Vedic institutions in North African higher ed institutions are the first and truly in the world. Out of why higher education seems to start in the 1600s. Whenever we take history, pyrite classes. So I wrote this paper, and there, there were a lot of great resources because the people who did this research, so right there, I earned a C on that paper, because my professor did not believe that ancient Vedic institutions were considered legitimate higher education. And even down to like, what we would call doctoral experiences seen as oral tradition, doctoral programs, kind of chronicled based on artifacts left behind. And I was like oral tradition, also, as a result of colonization has been strict. And when you strip away people from their storytelling, you take away their agency, intimacy and time. And so I feel like this is our small and beautiful way of recentering.

Guest
My fanboy has been validated.

Glenn DeGuzman
And so the this, our group, that we engage in this, this storytelling, I’m sharing, sort of like, a way to orally discuss topics and issues that’s pressing in our profession, is something we talked about, behind the scenes, behind the scenes, we spend a lot of time trying to decide what topics to cover. And so I’d like to hear from a couple of you, maybe, let’s go with Heather to start. How do you decide what topics to cover?

Guest
So there’s a, there’s a, there’s a funny story about my iterative, imaginative, nonlinear abstract random process for identifying topics because I am interested in everything. And I have a sometimes a really, like, lineup, interesting lineup of topics that are in the queue. Sometimes they follow with me, and sometimes I can get organized around that. But usually, I hear something and I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this would be such a great episode, we have to do an episode on this. And then, you know, sometimes the executions the harder part. For me, it’s like, the idea is great. But then the team like, we come together, we talk about, oh, that this would be really great person thought about this angle. Or maybe you could, you know, could approach the subset that that’s a really big topic, either. Maybe you should tickets assigned to it. So I don’t I don’t have any, you know, I go to sessions. I’m interested in things here. I did a number of sessions after I came back from emcor that were based on things that I had learned there that I talked to the people afterwards on the podcast, would you be willing to come in and share your session as an episode? And they’re like, Oh, sure. Wow, I have no idea who you are. Okay.

Guest
You, Gallup folks, that’s activator in the basement. Last year, on our social, she had seven different ideas for a podcast in the midst of the social, we have a Google doc of over nine new topics that we haven’t gotten to yet. And then we have an active agenda, where each of us has between six and 10 topics that we have yet to get organized around scheduling and getting going. There’s many struggles with the podcast ideas, is not one of them.

Raechele Pope
Yet, when I think about the ideas, I sit at those Thursday meetings and understand because this is where the hard work comes, we can come up with the ideas and this is a very interesting and creative group. And you know, I mentioned that I have a role of the dean’s office. And so and that is, it just seems nonstop like all of our student affairs, higher ed roles and sometimes more busier than others. And so then it’s that for me, it’s that, okay, got the idea. I sometimes even know who I want to contact, right? And yet, it’s like, okay, now I gotta make these contacts and so it takes time so it bogs down. And so I know a lot of people who have started podcasts, and maybe their first five or six sessions are great than after that it falls off because it’s the organizing, of getting people then finding the time for all of the people that are going to be on that you’re gonna need to Talking about at the same time and then dealing with if they have to, to cancel. But I’ll tell you one of my favorite components of this is listening to my colleagues. You know, like when I first started, I couldn’t figure out how my colleagues hear how the other hosts were having time to listen to each other. And because I’m a YouTube person, I want to watch it. And I literally am one of those persons that sits there and watches it, that takes more time than someone who’s listening to it as they take a walk or as they do something. But I’ll tell you every single time, I’ve listened to one of my colleagues, but I go, Oh, man, that would have been a great one to do. Oh, man, I really wish I was a part of it, especially since it’s all organized and done. But one thing that stands out to me is this collection of hosts. So for those of you who are thinking about I want to do this, or I want to expand a podcast that I put together, it’s really a collection of hosts that are amazing. I mean, I look at Keith, when I watch his and I listen to him, and even in our meetings, and I’m thinking, This man is so intellectually curious. And so when he is sitting there asking questions, he’s serious, I just want to know, and I and so I always take that from his and from Heather’s, I take this really creative, organized and just warmth that just spews through her. Her host I look at Glenn, he’s the Everyman. He is the everyman with, and I don’t mean that in any kind of sexist way, I just realized, I will say that I mean, that I’m thinking of every man from like Jackson Browne, you know, he’s helping you, you know, the person who you just see, he’s you out there, doing this same thing. And he’d ask it in a way that you would, and so it just brings this authenticity to it, and mopped up. You know, it’s really interesting that you use the word intimacy, because that’s the word that I have for you, when I watch yours, there is a warmth and an intimacy that just comes through those. And so I look at these hosts, and I’m like, they haven’t figured out that I don’t bring that. And so I am just stunned at that. So I want to have done, what they’ve done. And I grow so much in, in their presence and listening to this and the time that we spend together. So

Glenn DeGuzman
it’s just beautiful words, you know, a question for the parent to answer is, okay, we choose a topic we, you know, we, and when we pick it to pursue guess, right? Sometimes we have an immediate connection that we know someone like you just mentioned. But then there are times really who asked me yet. So I’d love to hear from the panelists. How do we share what what our process is like behind the scenes on how we choose guests,

Guest
or what not to do? Or what not to do? So I last October for recursion, Student Affairs month decided to do a three part series, it was first first it was a two part series, and then it expanded to a three part series. The third part was going to be hearing from current graduate students. So faculty in the audience might know that there’s a listserv called CSP talk, that all of the faculty are on. And so I posted a, a call for graduate students to appear on Student Affairs, now to share their stories about being graduate students in their programs. And all of these programs are like, Oh my gosh, we’re gonna get our best student, we’re gonna send you their name, plus three more students names. And then we’re gonna have, you know, free marketing, right? I have a list of 35 Incredible grad students and I ended up choosing 1112 12 people total. That was that was chaotic episodes, I don’t remember, I don’t recommend doing an open call to a listserv where people are very motivated to send their students represent their programs.

Guest
I think you know, once you have a topic, usually there’s something that is prompted that someone posted on LinkedIn, you heard someone say something, someone came up with a book, books are easy, because you invite the authors and the editors and, but other topics, you sort of start with someone, and then we usually talk about it. And, you know, once a week, we span the time zones. We span geography, we span roles, we span identities, we spend lots of different things. And so I want to talk about x. These folks know people I don’t know. I think one of the things that’s really cool, is we get to find people who we think are fabulous, that maybe aren’t well known yet and elevate them and say, Hey, everybody, look at this person, right? Let’s get them out there. So they’re more known and that’s a real treat. The other thing is people who wouldn’t talk to me will be on the podcast episode. So you say Hey, Laura Vander Lipski. Would you talk with Keith Edwards? No, I don’t have time for that. Would you be on our podcast? I would love to so there’s been some shoot your shot moments for sure that have turned out some haven’t turned on yet, but we’re working on that. But Oh, you who you should talk to is this and oh, this To be a great person and what you’re not thinking about is this perspective. And so then we have to sort through that. One of my favorite stories is George McClellan is was here, he just left. George McClellan was on an episode around gambling and the NCAA and student athletes and things like that. And he’s thoughtful about those kinds of things. So I invited him and suggested former college president at Texas a&m, who just kind of retired President loose cannon. So that was great. And then I invited Timothy Fogg, who runs the gambling, the gambling program, not the gambling program, the gambling and addiction program at UCLA, because I saw something online that he had posted about that. So we’re getting ready to have the episode and I know I kind of know each of them, but not really, and I’m just sort of getting them ready. And we’re talking through this. And Timothy Fon says, George, did you used to work at Northwestern? And because yeah, I did. And Timothy Fong says, George, did you run a fantasy football group out of the second floor of Papa John’s Northwestern journalists? Yeah, I did for medical students. It was really fun to get those. I was a medical student at Northwestern. You were a legend to us, and proceeded to tell this story about how George McClellan sort of organized a little bit of fun for these medical students who are underwater, and just needed something that was probably gambling. And I’d say I probably was gambling. And that these medical students really looked up to Georgia mentor, I think he was like an informal therapist to them. He was guiding me he was doing all of this stuff, completely by happenstance. And I love that serendipity. When two people you know, on Facebook, you find that know each other through things that aren’t connected. I love those moments.

Speaker 1
And you know, they’re fun stories when choosing guests or interesting more.

Mamta Accapadi
Well, you know, I was really, so Well, I’ve loved every episode that I’ve had the chance to host the most loving one that I you know, I’m always on the search for the college president who gets it maybe that’s therapy of healing for me. And Mary, Dana, from Rollins College, gets it. She’s a phenomenal human being. I’ve never seen a college president kind of integrate their humanity and their spirituality and their sense of purpose in such loving, active and present ways. And so yeah, I you know, drawing from Keith’s mentorship very much like, she’s not gonna want to talk to me, but invitation to a podcast. And even that took some time, right? I mean, obviously, presidency to protect their time. But spending time with her and really understanding the roots of her journey and her why restored, I needed faith to be restored for me. And she she was very restorative to my faith and energy. And, and it’s interesting, I didn’t know that she was working on a book that addressed a lot of those very issues that we talked about the podcast, but she recently had a book release, so that that probably touches my heart in a really powerful way, the first

Guest
episode, like Yeah,

Mamta Accapadi
I was gonna say the other thing, my very first episode, and I have you all to think for this, you know, our stories and how they’re told and who was presented, and who, the people in spaces. You know, we think about that, depending on the identities we hold, right. And so, one of the things that was meaningful to me, if I’m not the first I’m among the first senior student affairs officers, South South Asian descent, and I know the rest of my hand, right, because we’ve all grown up in the profession together. So to be able to honor our ancestors ancestry, through who we are now was really important to me almost as an active prayer, to the commitment and storytelling for this group. And so I’m really, really grateful that the team was like, Yeah, we get where you want this to be. So that was my first episode. For that reason. Within the foundation spaces, you know, we’re all complicated. We there are things we need to work on. But it was very important to me, that our religious identities, which are all different, our ethnic identities within and our countries, I mean, that’s colonization, but still countries of origin are all different as well. Our immigration identities are all different. So to have a truly intersectional South Asian women, an homage to South Asian women was really important. So

Raechele Pope
I’d love that. Can I add one other thing that we do every once in a while? We host someone who’s been around for a long time. You know, I’m thinking and who are often really close to retirement or they have already retired, but what they have given to this profession is so much. And I, you know, probably because I’m closer to that end of the spectrum than the than the rest of the house, I think that I don’t want those voices, those individuals, the work that they did to get lost. And so one of the things that I really think is amazing is when we host some of those folks, and we ask them to tell their story. And I know right now, ACPA is coming back to a generativity projects that we had done a number of years ago, but it’s saying what did we learn from before? What’s that thru line? And where are we now? And where are we going? And I think those are really important in terms of some of the guests we choose. We don’t do it all the time. But if you go back through our list of, of people that they’re there, and I think that there are people that each generation needs to know. And it’s

Glenn DeGuzman
a great reminder for the audience, on your way out to make sure if there’s some folks that you would recommend to be part of that specific topic, please let us know about that. I want to be tend to have a time. So I’m going to ask you a couple more questions. And we can keep our responses, concise, brief, and just kind of go through this. But, you know, try being part of this project, we, we learn a lot about our profession. I mean, this is straight up for us professional development. But I so we there’s a lot of expected learning, but I’m kind of curious to see if you could share some the unexpected learnings that has occurred for you, as you’ve been part of this project.

Guest
The thing I keep coming back to something that Susanna said before we even started the podcast is we were just getting organized. And we say on every episode is that contribution to the depression and restorative to the field. And she said that is like a brainstorm and it is stuck for a long time. And I think moving from only critique which has absolutely has its value and is important and essential, particularly in such messed up systems. But if all we do is critique, then what are we creating? And I think we need to add that and the DEI lens, we need to add to that anti oppression analysis of a vision for liberation. And so I think for me, the podcast is about shining a light on some of the challenges and struggles but that line from Susanna that I read, every episode reminds me what are we creating? What are we building? What would be what would better look like? How can we move closer to doing that? We just hear from so many people need that restorative for whatever reason, need that we can do this. And I think so many of our conversations have have helped bring which has been nourishing and revitalizing for me.

Mamta Accapadi
In my own self work around infusing indigenous wisdom into just how I tried to show up in the world. I think all of us you take Maslow and throw it away. And so when I look at what the Blackfoot nation, and peoples initially had their framework upon which Maslow kind of took some context and took out of context, I think is important. And so I feel like everything in our profession, everything that we know about caring for people that such as our profession, anything that has to do with well being of humanity is grounded in a model that actually strips people of humanity, right? So we think of self actualization as, as the thing to achieve. And that was never, that’s, that’s not what we’re indigenous 10s of 1000s of years of indigenous wisdom, tell us 10s of 1000s of years of indigenous wisdom tell us community actualization is our goal to achieve and when I think about, you know, we’ll be the first to admit that we are making mistakes and learning all the time. I’m making mistakes and learning all the time. But my heart and spirit is around how are we a vehicle for community actualization? Whether it’s access, whether it’s, you know, the, it’s the story, like, if you want to read the edited piece, I think that that’s important, right? The edited journal article or chapter that’s edited and things I’ve had pieces were things that I really love, were taken out of a particular piece. This is the story below the story. And so you, you get into the earth, you get into the the genesis of hope, and that’s important.

Raechele Pope
I think a real quick what is it reminds me of what I don’t know. You know, I am, you know, I can get all caught up in you know, you know, I have my doctorate or I’m a professor and I’ve been a professor for a long time, and that I’m in the Dean’s office and you can start to think Well, I really know what’s coming next. And I know I can anticipate the seasons of the years that we have. And I watched some of these Some of our podcasts, some of other podcasts, and my response is, oh, my gosh, I don’t know anything about this. I know very little about this when you add all that up, and that’s, that’s not a knock on me or anybody else. It’s, it’s that reminder that there’s so much more to learn, I

Guest
think the thing that I have learned the most, and it’s actually comes back to something my mom mom just said, is also tied up in the origin story of this of this podcast. One was, it was October 7, it’s our first episode. That was right in the middle of the heart of the pandemic. And I know I was, I was not, I was not handled it well, right. And so the need for connection and community and belonging, I think, has been fundamental. And I don’t think I knew that, more than the episode that we recorded in the aftermath of the shooting at Michigan State University. This team held space for me to talk about the the incredibly raw experience that I had experienced. And I am so deeply grateful for that, and the humanity that we were, you know, present with each other in that space. So I just really learned, like, how important even though like, we’re on the Zoom, right? Even though we’re in those spaces, we are still closely connected. And I that is the that is the link in the glue for our field is forming and building those connections. I’m

Glenn DeGuzman
going to answer this answer this one, but one of the why I did an episode on microaggressions and was with actually the entire housing staff at Western Washington. And I posed a question that I wish I didn’t ask. And I remember, after the episode, I was checking in with the team, I was like, I didn’t really like to question. My thought process was, I wonder if that could edit it out. And we had this conversation about being being authentic and just It’s okay to not be perfect. And, and it was such an interesting thing, because I would always tell that to other people. But then when I had to apply it to myself, I kept thinking, No, that’s not how I operate. And it was it was, it was a really powerful learning for me, because it was it was sort of like, okay, I have to sort of think about practicing what I preach, and the difficulty of it is to practice what you preach. So that was a huge, a huge learning moment for me. And it allowed me to have good conversations with staff at Western Washington. And, and sorry, just think about it and talk it through with them. And that was that was that was an incredible moment and a learning thing for me, I’d expect it. So I want to share with you some time for questions, but the leading up what I wanted to ask the question that we always ask, Oh, we always ask this question. You don’t think we know? You don’t know this question is coming? Well, maybe you don’t? When we go to podcast, we always close our podcast with a question that’s tied to really what our purposes about, which is the question well, we’re Student Affairs NOW. So he always has a question. After just after this episode, after you’ve discussed and listened to other people, what are you thinking about now? What’s troubling you now? What are some of the the thoughts that are just in your mind at this very moment? And so I pose this question to the panel. You can share what do you what’s running through your mind at this very moment? Apparently,

Guest
Frank Shishak did this to me turn it around on me? I was completely unprepared. Right now I did, I wrote down intimacy of agency and time. So that’s what I’m thinking about. Thank you.

Raechele Pope
I’m thinking about you all. I’m thinking about you all, you know, what are the questions that you have? What do you want to see us do? What? What’s what’s next? And so that’s where I’m sitting here like getting antsy, like, what are you? What do you need?

Mamta Accapadi
In the Strengths Assessment profile, my number 34 is empathy. I know it’s really It’s wild. But but it’s because I’m a systems thinker. And so on an individual level, I don’t think it shows up maybe in a way that it should but from infrastructures and systems of humanity, like I’d like to be a partner in that work. That being said, what I think a lot about is what WHERE IS LOVE activated within our systems and so it’s, it’s wild. I never thought as a consultant full time in the corporate space. Like I actually We sit with Chancellor’s and presidents of ups and say, Where’s love in your plan where you show me that you love students? And I can get away with that. And I’m like, wow, like, and I say that with with hope. Because even the fact that I said, I can get away with that, somewhere along the way that was stripped out of me in my career progression. And so I would ask that you not that whatever your magic is, center it and feed it. That’s what I think about now. How are you protecting your magic? Because that’s what the world needs? Yeah, that’s really cool.

Guest
I’ll just say really quick there, this has been quite an experiences, this team, this group, and also being able to sit in spaces every week to reflect. I’ve also had this other thing going on working here for with ACPA. So that that has also been a space to think about and process through some of the larger issues that are facing our field. And so when I think about this question, I always go to the big really, we need to be discussing the ways in which we have, you know, quiet quitting, and the great resignation, people leaving and what is what is going on in the field of student affairs. And so I don’t know if that’s the top of mind right now. But I think it’s one of the things and then the other thing is just gratitude. So yeah, yeah.

Glenn DeGuzman
Lots of gratitude. I think Gratitude is the answer. The answer is gratitude. I think I’ll put it up there that I’ve taken, I’ve been out of work for a little bit of leave of absence, from my role because of a personal tragedy. And this is actually one of the first things that I’m returned to. And I have a very supportive team at UC Berkeley, told me to pick and choose what I am wanting to focus in on and spend my time. And I wanted to choose this. So being here at Mesa kids, it’s hard. But at the same time also with people I consider work families. So thank you, guys. So with that, we’d like to open up to the audience for your questions and the questions that sometimes comes with maybe a prize or something right? Oh, there they are.

Guest
Hey, everybody, my name is I’m interested in that you’re talking about love. Because like, when y’all are talking, I literally feel the love and me kind of makes me a little emotional. I’m not sure why. But I’m a layman to wit. And I just love that y’all have this dynamic. And it seems like the dynamic is why it works. So my question to y’all is, like, as time goes by, we know higher ed is going to be here. What does that next generation of Student Affairs now look like? With your dynamic? Like, what happens when people leave? What happens when y’all move on? Like, how does that work? And how do we all keep that same feel of love in the same thing that makes your house success? We all are?

Glenn DeGuzman
Oh, my incredible question,

Guest
by the way. Sure. Andrew Davis works in my office.

Mamta Accapadi
Love your show. So I’ll say this is I was a newer, a newer addition to the team. And, you know, we didn’t talk about it, but it’s embedded what I’ve really appreciated, particularly as a woman of color in our space, though, we don’t, you know, I understand the importance of us owning the privileged identities, that and the dynamics that come with that, but even in our conversations, but there’s never a Oh, like, it’s not a diagnostic moment in our spaces, like, we own our stuff, or we reflect and go, Oh, maybe this would have happened this way. Or oh, I’m not gonna have that say it. Like there is space for humanity and forgiveness. And accountability is understood. Right? And so love is to me hard work. Love is an unconditional commitment. Again, central your dignity and wholeness and well being and no violence, but Right. So but but unconditional commitments, we do stand up with each other. And so I think my assumption as a new member being added in that once those expectations are clear, you could have operate within that framework.

Glenn DeGuzman
I’m gonna I’m gonna take a stab at the question. One of the things for me that comes to mind when when I heard your question is that within this group, I feel lots of love and support and you know, obviously, there’s huge respect for just the work that I’ve seen them do. When I think about what I can do back at my institution. I’m at UC Berkeley, it’s a very large administrative r1 You can draw conclusions from that. Reputation is important to UC Berkeley. And within my department, I have over 400 Students volunteers. I got over 20 or 30, maybe 40. I don’t know, professional staff. But I can tell you the one thing that I tried to do I hold the position in that at UC Berkeley, and how do I physically, demonstrably show love, in the things that I initiate? Or the question that I asked, and how I empower my team, because if I do that, I’m setting the bar for them that that is acceptable, that should be part of what we do. Because I’ve also seen people who don’t, and they just follow sort of following the, the sort of like a management kind of like very principle principle, and, and we sort of lose sight of the fact that we are people doing very difficult work. And so I have a responsibility to demonstrate that. And I, and I think what helps is, I authentically believe in that. So I think that’s where we need to think about when we’re hiring people, how do we make sure we’re getting people authentically care about what we do, and we care about our students, and our staff?

Guest
We’re gonna we’re gonna try and sneak in to questions and responses. Yep, you’re next. So

Guest
hi, everyone. I definitely did this for the merge. So I was very I just wanted to say thank you for creating this podcast. I think, for me, as a professional, this was a time during COVID, where, you know, hiring freezes were happening, it was unknown. And I want to say thank you for just developing this because it helped me even interview for other positions in the future. Get ready for being a student affairs professional. And I’ve even started to podcasts throughout my university. But you know, one right now because I’m in a different role, but what I’m currently it’s called scrappy start at the University of North Texas, scrappy

Glenn DeGuzman
start scrappy start university, where University of

Glenn DeGuzman
you went to, can

Guest
you empty? Not the plugin, but just want to say thank you for that. And also, my question is, what does the creative process oh eight, when the actual meeting look like for you all? And what has it looked like in the beginning versus now?

Guest
Oh, that’s fine.

Glenn DeGuzman
I jokingly say with a 60 minute meeting every morning, eight o’clock morning for me. So the first 45 minutes is just waking up. And then the last one, I’m just kidding. But um, I think that we do cover a lot of different topics, we have to talk about logistical P, we’d like to be checking in and checking with each other. And there are times our meetings, that’s a bulk of the meeting. But then when we do I think keep keeps us in making sure that we get to all different things. But we do definitely talk about making sure we have episodes queued up, we make sure that each person in our group has what they need to be able to move forward. Because I think that’s where our production person that joins your meeting, because sometimes we just, we’re stuck. We don’t know how to do the tech or the you know, the thing on the computer that’s supposed to make things like you know, do the thing. But then there’s other times where it’s like I need I can only find one person on this topic. And this group will come up with ideas and suggestions and people. If

Guest
you were asking about the podcast conversation, it’s so simple. It’s introduce yourselves. Three questions. Final question. No,

Guest
I know do that. It can be that simple.

Guest
One of the things that one of the ones that awakens, em pronouns from Florida a&m, I came to this because I’m definitely interested in the podcast, follow the follow the platform while I was sitting here as well. One thing that struck my interest because I want to start a podcast at a university for students, staff, professionals, everybody has a kind of use the knowledge that they got and spread it. Yeah, I see you guys grow from a professional standpoint, but have you guys get it from a student standpoint as well?

Guest
No, we’ve had students on with our grad students on we’ve had college, student body presidents we’ve had other folks on. What we’ve found is that the infrastructure behind the scenes of starting a podcast is really convoluted and complex. Once you get that up and running, and you have a Nat, things move along a little bit smoothly. So I think for those of you interested in starting podcasts will reach out to us we’re happy to talk about some of the tools and things like that. Josie has a comment. Not a question. That’s a faculty move.

Speaker 2
Well, I just am so the that scholarship and podcasting is in the same sentence that words matter and its narrative and whether it gets published or not. And obviously, we have to play that game. But I just also want to pull to the point we’d love to talk about love, but also who is going to be the next generation of essay now, like, I mean, not to put you on the spot. But what if you had another show made up of mid level new professionals, that then you’re mentoring and because podcasting takes money and time? Now you have the pipeline? And I’m positive there are people in here that would potentially be your new

Heather Shea
idea. That’s a past presidency idea. No, but seriously, I I do think there’s generative generativity, in this particular space, and I think once you have it set up, and you have a Nat, I mean, we we kind of do that, like, jokingly, but literally, I think Nat’s capacity could be you know, leverage to benefit other podcasts as well. So Keith is like hilarious. But like, truly, I think some kind of production you know, kind of network is like, like, Hire Ed Live was right there were all these off to podcast. Three. Okay, we’re a little over.

Glenn DeGuzman
We are a little over. So with that, I just want to thank everyone for coming to this session. And, and I believe we have a few more. We have a few more beanies. If you’re interested in governing a beanie, this kind of front image again, we have information in the back, please tell us suggested topics suggested guest and we’re and if you haven’t subscribed to our newsletter, please subscribe to our newsletters.

Heather Shea
One last thing I do want to also honor and appreciate is our sponsors. We have five organizations, some of them are out there in the marketplace that have been extremely generous in offering support, which with that, which does truly make a lot of this possible because there is some startup costs. If you are interested in the details behind the scenes, that kind of thing. Please do let us know we’re happy to pass along kind of the how do you get a podcast going? My partner did it at his campus. He has a podcast called concussion headliners. It’s kind of it’s kind of cheesy actually. But it’s Steven we love you. It is pretty good. It is a somewhat of like, you know, like you did this I can do this. So truly.

Glenn DeGuzman
Thank you for being here.

Glenn DeGuzman
Thank you doesn’t fully capture my feelings of my co hosts who presented at the ACPA conference in Chicago with me and grateful for all their time we spent together behind the scenes, but especially for this episode, as I was coming back from a personal leave of absence. So I want to thank them. And I also want to thank Ms. Nat Ambrosey for producing this episode all our episodes, and just being a great colleague and friend. And I want to also thank the sponsor of today’s episode ACPA. ACPA college student educators International, celebrating its 100th anniversary is boldly transforming higher education by creating and sharing influential scholarship, shaping Critically Reflective practice and advocating for equitable and inclusive learning environments. ACPA aspires to be higher education and student affairs most inclusive and community driven assertion by leading our profession in centering social justice, racial justice, and decolonization as defining concepts of our time and foreseeable future. The ACPA annual convention was held on March 18, to the 21st of this year 2024. In Chicago, and throughout its anniversary year ACPA is publishing interviews and think pieces about the past, present and future in ACPA developments, we encourage you to consider contributing to ACPA ongoing conversations about the future, visit my aca.org or connect with us on Instagram, Facebook and X to learn more about ACPA. This is Glenn signing off, and look forward to the next 200 episodes. Go Student Affairs NOW. Take care and have a great week.