Aja Holmes:
Now, if you think about our profession in our functional area, we were always the ones who had the money who had the funding and you, you looked to your campus partners was like, oh, you need to partner with housing because they have the funding. And we also have the audience for what you want to do. And we need to get them from our residence halls to the particular venue, just in the general second, but when COVID hit and them folks went home, cuz their classes was online. Oh baby people said, how are we gonna pay these bonds for these buildings and this insurance and what we gonna do?

Glenn DeGuzman:
Hey everyone. Welcome to Student Affairs Now I’m your host, Dr. Glenn DeGuzman. We are smack dab in the middle of black history month. So I hope you take time to preserve and celebrate the achievements and sacrifices African Americans have made in our us history. I’m an administrator in residential life. This top is particularly very important and of great professional interest to me personally. So I am super lucky to bring in some folks who I know and respect known for a long time and listen, and we’re gonna be able to listen to their thoughts and perspectives on our functional area residence life. In today’s episode, I’m joined by this panel. We’re gonna be discussing multitude of topics in residential life. We’re gonna talk about the RD experience. So sit back, relax, listen in. Or if you’re tuning on a YouTube, let’s get started.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Student Affairs Now is a premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside our 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. Also because we care about our listeners’ opinions and you taking time and choosing to tune into our podcast or watching us on our YouTube channel, we’ve launched our first ever listener survey. So please take a moment to take, to share with us what you like and what you’re looking for in this podcast. And at the end of the month, we will draw three names and send you a Student Affairs Now mug. So for those who are watching online, looks like this, and our link is tiny.cc/sanowsurvey, and that’s all one word, but take a peek complete it, and you enter into this drawing.

Glenn DeGuzman:
So let’s give a quick shout out to our sponsor for today’s episodes. Thank you. Vector Solutions, formally EverFi, the trusted partner, 2000 plus colleges and universities. Vector Solutions is a standard of care for student safety, wellbeing, and inclusion. Also to LeaderShape. This episode is also sponsored by them. So go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you to create a, just caring and thriving world. Again, my name is Glenn DeGuzman. I’m the associate Dean of students and director of residential life at UC Berkeley. I use the he series as my pronouns, and I’m recording this episode from Livermore, California, which is the anscestral homeland of the unseated territory, the Pelan tribe of the Aloni peoples. So let’s meet our panelists. I’m super excited to welcome back to the show. Steve Herndon from the University of Dayton, Dr. Aja Holmes at University of San Francisco and her first time guest informally at CU Boulder, Crystal Lay, who is now a doctoral student at Miami University. Welcome to Student Affairs Now. So let’s get started and have let’s get, let’s make sure our, the audience gets to know you a little bit. So if you could introduce yourself and tell them a little bit more about you. I know all of you have a deep, rich professional track record in residential living residential life or education. If you can give audience a quick overview of who you are and your connection to the topic we’re gonna be discussing today. And let’s start with Aja.

Aja Holmes:
II am Dr. Aja Holmes and I am currently coming to you from the University of San Francisco, which is also too the, in central Homeland of the Aloni people. I use, she, her and sis are pronouns now, and I am the assistant Dean of students and director of community living. I have been in student affairs for over 20 years, and I have been in housing and residence life. For most of that time, I took a little side step during my graduate program. It was in multicultural affairs, but knew that I was returning home to residence life.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Woohoo, Steve

Steve Herndon:
Hello everyone. I am Steve Herndon, assistant vice president for student development and executive director of housing and residence life. My pronouns are he, him, his and I work at the University of Dayton and I have been at the University of Dayton. Now for 18 years, it was gonna start out as a two year experience. And 16 years later here, here, here I am. I have been in housing and residence life for all of my career for now over 20 years, I’ve worked at NC State, the University of Arizona. So I’ve worked at different size institutions, you know, public state, public now, you know, private and faith based. So I I’ve had a very diverse experience in the profession and look forward to the wonderful dialogue that we’re gonna have, I’m gonna have with my colleagues. So it’s nice to see everyone

Glenn DeGuzman:
Nice to see you too. And Crystal,

Crystal D. Lay:
Hello everyone. My name is Crystal Lay. I use she, her pronouns excited to be be here. I am currently a doctoral candidate looking at teacher preparation programs that say they’re about anti-racism and social justice and looking at white graduates and their application of what they learned when they’re working with black children. So very excited to learn more about that topic. I am a mom, three kiddos, and so I am spending my time cooking, pick up drop offs to school and really reconnecting with them. While I work on my, my doctoral program, my career has been in residence life. I did a small stint in multicultural affairs and just really, really enjoy connecting with students when they live on campus and helping them navigate the world.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Outstanding. That’s really fun question for all of you, pretty much what I’m hearing all of, and we talked a little bit about this before we start recording, but for your professional student affairs career, you’ve all, you know, lots of experience, if not your entire professional experience in residence life and education, but if you had to choose another functional area in student affairs, cause you know, we work with so many different areas in on campus. What part of student affairs would you do if it wasn’t residence life and Aja you first,

Aja Holmes:
I’m gonna go with student activities. Cause I think that next to residence life student activities is probably another area that can be a generalist as well and get to know that area. And you also can have so many different ways to go with it in terms of like late night programming, sometimes student activities incorporates orientation and the speaker series. And so I would have to say maybe student activities, I’m gonna go a little bit more specific, maybe at a large land grant institution. They got some, they got a little bit of budget there. I’ve known that.

Glenn DeGuzman:
I like that. Steve, what would you do?

Steve Herndon:
I think for, I think for me it would be student conduct. I see that I, I think student conduct and housing and residence life are kind of already intertwined interwoven. It speaks some my love for process. I’ve also as I think back to my experience as a hearing officer some of the more transformational interactions and conversations I had was it was in a conduct hearings that we got to explore, not just the policy, but a little bit more of the student’s backstory, their history, how they’ve come to understand the world and how that might be influencing their decision making in the moment as we think about decisions that need to be made beyond the moment. And so I, for me, I love the transformational impact of, of that experience as well as the, the love for procedure in, in process.

Glenn DeGuzman:
That’s really cool. Prior to me joining residence life at Berkeley, I was in our conduct office as well. And that was a really fun experience. Crystal, how about you?

Crystal D. Lay:
So I was a broadcast major in undergrad and something in me really wants to do marketing or communications. I think capturing the story of student affairs, what we offer to students via a videographer editing makes my heartbeat. And so I would totally love to do marketing.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Maybe, maybe with Student Affairs Now. So let’s, let’s jump right in because I think this is a this is a topic that we’ve been hearing from our listeners they want, they wanna hear about. And so, so let’s start and let’s talk about the rest directors and I, I want a, all your thoughts on this writer in an article a really good article. The, it was called the resident director. The author commented that the RDS quote have some of the longest job descriptions. You are likely to lay eyes on with pages upon pages of risk responsibilities. Now we know what comes with the role. We also know that past research speaks to the attrition of just student affairs in general. I mean, one article cited that new student affairs professionals had a 50 to 70% attrition rate.

Glenn DeGuzman:
And this is, and it plateaued in the nineties. Now I imagine many of them are these and they left for a variety of reasons lack of career advancement, maybe the supervisor wasn’t that great, job that satisfaction the long hours of the other assigned duties, right? And then they also spoke to campus crisis and emotional burnout. Now the burnout term is not, is nothing new, but then COVID hit and this just feels different. Now, Steve, I had you on a podcast back in October, 2020, we were literally just in the, in the thick of the beginning of the, the pandemic and, and you, and it was your episode. The panel that we did was on navigating burnout and trauma, and it was one of the most top. It was one of the top podcasts in 2020 in, Student Affairs Now. We spoke about trauma response. We spoke how to care for yourself, but I want to hear now we’re February 20, 22. Can you speak to how RDS and maybe resident life, resident education has fared since we last spoke? Is there a great Exodus of RDS from the field and that’s not by this pandemic?

Steve Herndon:
You know, I think we are in a different place. And as I think about the pandemic in 2020, I think all of what co the experience in COVID, it was also very new. None of us had a, a blueprint or a book on, or an instruction manual over on how to navigate a pandemic. So we were literally making things up as we were doing them because we were really out of necessity having to be creative. And I think in some ways we felt like, okay, we have to survive this. This is all new to all of us. And I think we also saw that maybe there’s going to be some light at the end of the tunnel whenever that end of the tunnel comes. Cause we’re still not out of the pandemic. I would say that fear around the pandemic has subsided to some degree, cause we’ve just become more accustomed to managing it in ways we just were ill prepared to do in 2020.

Steve Herndon:
I think the problem has shifted though. I think we saw during 2020, that much of what we made permanent much of what we made absolute was not that we had the ability to change. We had the ability to be creative. We had the ability to create new, and we were doing that out of a need for survival out of necessity out of a need to stay relevant in the midst of circumstances that were foreign to all of us. And I think we also saw that perhaps because we can be different and innovative and new once the fear of the pandemic subsided, what would be the outcome. And I think what we’re seeing is that many of our employees, particularly our frontline employees in particular know that we can be different, know that we have the capabilities and saw that we could be different and think and approach our work in ways that we’ve never approached it before.

Steve Herndon:
And yet our institutions still are trying to return to normal or business as usual. And I’m not sure that normal was a pleasant experience for a lot of people. And so we’re now trying to revert back to a lost past that, that some to some degree we’ve romanticized, because it’s what we know. We’re recognizing that in order to be who we aspire to be, we’re gonna have to be able to know and name and interrogate our past to understand its influence on the present, but we’re gonna have to sit in the, the discomfort of the present and the unknown that it brings in order to aspire to be who we aspire to be. So I think the problem in my opinion has shifted in that we have this, this tension in that we know that we can be different. We know that we can be innovative, but yet there seems to be a, a trend now to move back to a lost past that people are unwilling to revisit because they’ve recognized that in order to revisit that past, I have to compromise my health.

Steve Herndon:
I have to compromise what’s important to me, I have to compromise all of that. And so COVID for me has only brought to the surface. What’s always existed. There’s a lot of backstage behaviors and narratives that have always guided our approach to how we actualize our work. But now it’s, there’s a spotlight on it. And we as leaders and educators have a responsibility to pay attention to what’s spotlighted and choose to be different. That’s not gonna be easy, or we can ignore it and revert to a lost past. And we have folks that are not willing to do that, but a lot of folks that earn more than they do wanting to go back to that lost past people aren’t willing to compromise their health. And the days of us being, we talked about this right before the broadcast, the, the days of us being the, making the impossible possible, cause we can do it so well. And to, to to many, it, it looks easy, so easy that others believe they can do our work and not have the credentials or experience to do so because we’ve done so well at that. We’ve recognized that in order to be sustainable, we can’t continue down that path. And so we’re at a bit of an, impase not just in housing and residence life, but I would say student affairs and higher education as a whole.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Oh my goodness. You are coming outta the gates hot. Aja. Do you wanna add to what, what’s your take on this?

Aja Holmes:
I, I think that this pandemic has rocked housing and residence life to its core. Now, if you think about our profession in our functional area, we were always the ones who had the money who had the funding and you, you looked to your campus partners was like, oh, you need to partner with housing because they have the funding. And we also have the audience for what you want to do. And we need to get them from our residence halls to the particular venue, just in the general second, but when COVID hit and them folks went home, cuz their classes was online. Oh baby people said, how are we gonna pay these bonds for these buildings and this insurance and what we gonna do? And people, you, people in residence life, especially our front liners, as you said, felt it because many of them was like, they were shut down the entire buildings.

Aja Holmes:
Those folks have no work. What do you do? You’re now laying off people who you’re gonna need in a couple of more months, you know? So you, those folks understood that. They could replace me in a dime that didn’t feel good. It did not feel good. And gone are the days to where it’s like, oh, you get housing in a meal plan. That’s not enough of people anymore. It is not enough for people anymore to compromise their help. And I think that also too, when you look at that Jack of all trades, we became door dash and Uber real quick. Okay. Real quick in terms of delivering meals, because we didn’t know the impact of this particular pandemic COVID and all of its variance, we just, and it still it’s evolving. Right. And I think that’s one of the things that really shined a light for me was that none of us are stable.

Aja Holmes:
None of us is safe, you know? And we were, we really, it really shocked us to the core as we had to shut down buildings, some old buildings I am from the Midwest, you don’t shut down buildings. We keep our heat on at least 60. So the pipes don’t freeze folks out here in California, shutting down all buildings all the way down. And I’m like, oh, this is not gonna be good. You know, for our systems when we bring these buildings back up. But that’s also one of the things that we’re trying best to do was to save money at every angle that we could. And it was the utilities and you know, because you can leave lights on and house the residence life, leave your TV on, you know, all that. It’s not sustainable. It’s not help folks cut the stuff off. You know what I mean? But because you don’t have to pay the bill, you know what I mean? But when you look at that, you know, from a long run, we were trying to find ways to do that. Not only was it, did it affect our, our buildings. It also affected our staff members because they realized they were replaceable at a snap of a finger.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Crystal. I know you have something to add to this.

Crystal D. Lay:
You know, I think what we have to realize is that our residents life staff have been on for two years. There has been no let up, they’re exhausted, they’re tired. And we turn into almost a hospital or a hotel. Right? I agree with Aja, this piece of it’s meals, it’s temperature. It’s, it’s all these different things that no one signed up for. And then I have parents yelling at me, screaming at me. When I go to my apartment, I have to walk past folks who may or may not be sick. Like my home has turned into this place where there is no set between, you know, work and personal life. I mean, we already knew that was rarely existent, right? It, it wasn’t a thing. And so I think there’s this piece of, can I find something else where I can go home? I don’t have to respond to this folks are not going to yell at me and I can have some sense of peace and respect and kindness.

Crystal D. Lay:
And I feel valued. I think we came forward and said, here’s another pizza party. Here’s more t-shirts, here’s the fancy cheese cubes. I don’t want cheese cubes. I don’t want folks to yell at me anymore. Right. And so I think as we move forward, knowing that we need these folks to do this work, we have to treat them with kindness, with respect and like folks who can have a seat at the table. And they have to have relief. They have to have a break and we have to be able to answer their question. Why do I need you to be here in person?

Steve Herndon:
Exactly.

Crystal D. Lay:
Right. If we’re not programming, right. We’re not doing all these things. Why do you have to report in person if everything’s online? I don’t think we’ve answered that question. And when I was in leadership, I couldn’t always answer that question either. So I think that’s important to sit back and really think about why are we asking folks to do things when they may not need to, there has to be an answer.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Yeah. So all of you kind of hit on this, this topic of this question and, and really spoke to the fact that in, in some places and some campuses, you know, maybe the RA staff wasn’t needed and in other places we’ve become the Jack of all trades. You know, they might be delivering food to to different locations or, or and, and, and that adds to the, to sort of like the, the fatigue that they’re already experiencing that burnout. I, I know that I’ve had some conversations with some folks because we know this is happening to our staff. We also know that it’s happening to the residential students who did come to campus. Right. And so we know that they’re, the, the students are also dealing with a lot of stress and our staff who has to help them with that stress, they’re experiencing their own stress.

Glenn DeGuzman:
So that we’re, it’s this cycle that’s, that’s occurring. And the conversation that I’ve been part of or have been hearing from other folks is, and they start, they start to wonder, should we start looking at licensed social workers that are potentially needed in the res halls? Now that can go down another different type of rabbit hole, like, like sort of like, but, but the idea is that if, if we have students whose mental health wellness, and we’re starting to see students a concern just elevate, right. And it’s becoming almost like we, we know this is becoming an essential part of the RD role is just for that first, that first contact, right. Is there merit to this idea of licensed social workers coming into the space, or is there a way that we can prepare the RDS for this type of work, but knowing that if we add this type of work, what does that do to the wellness of RDS? Steve, I wanna direct this to you to start. And then if Aja and Crystal, if you please add on.

Steve Herndon:
Is there merit to that? I don’t know. I, I think we’re, we’re starting the discussions. I, I, what, what pleases me is that we’re having the discussion, we’re exploring something that is that, that, that is different than how we’ve typically approached the work cuz you’re right. It’s the work feels familiar like the various topics and issues that surface in all aspects of housing and residence life feel, feels very familiar, but it’s different. In, in many ways, which is forcing us to have to to re, to, to sort of reorient ourself to work that for so many of us is, is, is so familiar. But now it’s not, it’s growing in complexity, it’s growing in intensity and it’s growing in volume and that’s not gonna change. And so should license, social workers or counselors be in the residence hall? I don’t know the merit of that.

Steve Herndon:
I think we’re too early in the discussions, but I think the fact that we’re having the discussion is something to hang onto because it’s going to be, this is when I was saying in my previous response, sitting in the discomfort of the unknown. This is that moment that I don’t know if it’s gonna work out, but if we don’t have the conversation, if we don’t explore possibility, then we’re gonna continue where we are hoping for different outcomes. And I think we’ve seen that that’s not a very useful or deliberate way for us to spend our time in energy, whether the RD should be doing it. I’ve had this question for a long time that my answer is no, I think we’ve gone from the casual wellness check has become something way more complicated than it was when I was a hall director or when a resident director area coordinator, whatever the title is at at the respective campus.

Steve Herndon:
There we don’t, the, the wellness check now means that in some ways our, our live-in staff are becoming case managers in many ways because the wellness check comes with so much. You know, I’m a member of the Dean of student staff and my department reports to the Dean of students. And so I, I, you know, as I sit in our care teams and recognize our students are past the point of just casually mentioning that they may harm themselves, they’re coming with plans and an experience having tried to execute previous plans, the complexity around mental health alone is, is more than our staff is capable of. And so my question is, as we’re talking about residents life, are we having this conversation in conjunction with conversations about Dean of students offices? Because I’m finding that they’re not really resourced or staffed or staffed and resourced with the folks with the right credentials or the proper credentials to manage case management and its complexities in ways that doesn’t fall by, by default on the shoulders of live-in staff who are still just getting acclimated to their positions and having to take on so much responsibility that rely that, that places so much stress on them and their wellness.

Steve Herndon:
We’re seeing an increase in student deaths in our community, unfortunately for a variety of reasons. And I see the impact that that’s having in particular on the living staff to be like, I did everything I could and it still wasn’t enough. And so having to manage the guilt and the weight of that. And so I’m not sure that the RDs, area coordinators, hall directors should, should be doing that. I think we, you mentioned earlier the quote about the job description and that the job students really long, because we have found our identity in being everything to everyone. We have moved from educators to saviors for our institution, and none of us should be, or our qualified to be anyone’s savior. But yet that’s the burden that we carry because our way of getting around the table and finding our place was to be everything for everyone at our institution.

Steve Herndon:
And now we’ve got to redefine what is our purpose and how aligned as our practice with our purpose. And I think the first place we have to art is with job descriptions. What in these job descriptions is no longer, sufficient is no longer, healthy is no longer ethical for us to expect of our live-in staff who are on the front lines. And I, I know this is not a part of the topic. I feel this way about my operations staff, because they were every bit as much on the front lines managing this stuff as well. And I know that’s not the topic, but I think as we look at housing and residence life departments in general, we have deviated from our purpose. We’ve gotta find our purpose again. And now the task is to make sure that our practice aligns with our purpose because we have, we have veered off course significantly. So the answer to the question is, I don’t know, but what I do, you know, is that I don’t believe the RD should be case managers and that we gotta look at not only right sizing jobs, but also where are the, where the other locations where resources are missing. And for me, that’s in our Dean of students office. And I’m speaking from, from my experience, because that’s where case management most likely should fall, or should the staff with their credentials and experience to manage the complexity.

Glenn DeGuzman:
I wanna, I wanna make sure that Aja and Crystal can add to this, but I wanna add this. I wanna add 2 cents here, cuz I think you hit a, on a, a really important point about residents, like really partnering with the the Dean of students office. And, and at least for, in my case, I use the Berkeley working also with a university of health services because I think team is we’ve been doing a lot of tracking of, of cases, case management that’s been occurring in the res halls. And I think that that type of data can inform leadership. Like these are the, this is a new type of work. This is how the type of things that are starting to emerge. And we cannot put this on to the shoulders of just RAs because that job description just gets longer and it’s probably not appropriate. It is appropriate. And so how do we start looking at creating potential new roles that need to address the evolving student needs? So I just wanted throw that out because I think that assessment is sometimes oftentimes what is needed to, to drive change at higher levels. Aja, Crystal, you wanna add to, to Steve’s response?

Aja Holmes:
I think I just wanna talk about two things. I also think that, and along with our Dean of students office, we have to be partnering with caps right now, caps across the country, from what I’m hearing and understanding and reading is that they are also understaffed low staff, or they have been, you know, leaving places who are gonna offer them more money at other places. Right. And so I think we also need to look at how do we partner with, with with our caps, which is counseling and psychological services to be able to do that and also, you know, bring them into our halls. So that way, you know it it’s much more accessible it’s right there where our students are needed and finding space and time to where caps can come into our halls and provide and deliver some of those services.

Aja Holmes:
I think the other thing is I really need parents and guardians and family members to assess, is this student ready to be here? Are they ready to live in an independent environment to do this? And to be thousands of miles from home? Are they ready? Just because you’ve been dealing with it, but 18 years don’t mean we need to get it for four. I need you to, to understand and recognize that if they’re not ready, to live in an environment to be that far from home, we have created systems and also other institutions that will work and get them to their final goal. You know the community college system is evolving. It’s a great opportunity, the word community in their means that there is a community around and to really help them get to where they need to go. That’s the part that is, that has been really, I think we need to have a conversation with parents and families and guardians to make sure that their person that they’re sending to us is ready, has some coping skills, has some resiliency to be able to back from some of the things that they may be experiencing here.

Aja Holmes:
And I think that’s important. I really want to make sure that we understand and, and, and also engage in conversations with families and parents and guardians, to be able to make sure that student is ready to be here.

Glenn DeGuzman:
That’s a real talk, cuz I think that’s, there’s always, sometimes I, when I have conversations with parents, I have, you know, two high, well ones now in a community college and one in high school, oftentimes they always feel like, oh, the next path is going to a four year, you know, and, and disregarding the community college experience and the community college experience is phenomenal. And I think, but we, it is, we just, sometimes there’s this, you know, this thing, the back of our head that says, oh no, we need to go to a four year. It’s sort of like driving, but is it really in the best interest of the student? Right? So those are the conversations that parents should have or gardens should have with their, with their student.

Steve Herndon:
Well, our universities are becoming treatment centers and we are just not, we’re not equipped to, to, to, to manage that. And regardless of the credentialing of any of the staff, universities are just not capable of ever meeting that need yet. That, and I really appreciate AJ’s point about, because you’ve, you’ve managed it for 18 years. Doesn’t mean that we should or can manage it for four or five or however long the student’s gonna be here. Cause one student can occupy a significant, a lot of time of someone’s time. And yet we are in this environment where we work in a pace where we’re expected to move at such a, a, a, a fast pace. The, the depth and complexity is not aligning with the pace at which we’re expected to work, which is also contributing to the stress and anxiety that that staff are feeling.

Crystal D. Lay:
But, and I would, I wanna counter, because I, I think we know that on a college or university campus, there are more resources available to that individual student than there are in the greater community. And so for some of these families college or the university may feel like their only opportunity for their person to get what they need. And then some parents are tired and exhausted, or sometimes these things don’t show up until they get to our campus because we know things don’t really onset to 19 to 25 years, you know, years of age. And so, you know, I’ve also heard the phrase of dry cleaner parents drop your kids off, make sure they’re perfect press and then send ’em back, right. Like fix my kid. And so I think there’s this piece of what is our responsibility as a university setting. And then also what are the expectations of our families?

Crystal D. Lay:
So we can help them level set and find out what is going to be the proper place. But again, we’re up against so many different things at play if they have first gen parents, right. Or if they, you know, if they’re student is gonna be first gen the university, is that place to fix or save or help? My, my, my, my person. So I think we’re up again, a lot up against a lot there. I think going back to the resident directors or hall directors, you know, they never know what’s on the other side of that door. And that’s what I think about. And so how are we preparing them for what’s on the other of the door? That’s going to be crucial. I think the other piece is you have to do an assessment on your campus. Are you a high crisis campus? And if you are right, and you look at the trends of not just campus, but our country, what are the services that need to be provided to make sure that you don’t have those entry level folks going in and to trying to tackle these issues?

Crystal D. Lay:
What’s the follow up? What’s the care that we’re providing to these folks at a previous campus? I remember one year we had 20 students who passed away. And when you think about it, we’re managing small towns and people are going to pass away, unfortunately. And so we have to be prepared, you know, and I signed up to be a hall director. I didn’t think, oh, someone’s going to pass away in my care. And then what do you do? It’s a scramble. You don’t know what to say. You don’t know what to do. Everything’s focused on the student and the family, which we wanna do. And what about that staff member who’s trying to recover, or they’re trying to get into a counseling. How are we providing care for everyone who touches, whatever situation may occur,

Glenn DeGuzman:
Outstanding lenses and perspectives. I wanna shift a little bit here and Aja, you brought this up at the beginning. Well, let’s talk about compensation for living staff, right? So room board, maybe a salary, and that’s been the carrot for, if you call it salary, that’s been the carrot as far back as I remember. And, you know, it’s a cost effective way for the campus to bring in highly educated student development specialist into what is, what is now becoming even more difficult of a job. I started, you know, know when I was, when I was thinking about this, I started thinking about my salary back in the day and I, and it’s not far off from what it is now. Right. And I

Aja Holmes:
Wonder, oh, I hope not Glenn.

Glenn DeGuzman:
I wonder how this is resonating with newer RDS. Right? And because I think it plays out in recruitment retention of the Hall staff. What are your thoughts on this?

Aja Holmes:
So one of the things that I have been trying to do when I provide my leadership and vision for RDS is looking at, are there other skill sets that they can also get while being this generalist? And so at a previous institution had an opportunity to partner with our academic, a good advising area to be able to provide opportunities to academically advise students who are on probation after their first semester. And we work with them in the spring semester to kind of get them back on track. And these are really conversations that we’re having with students that talk about, Hey, what went wrong? Let’s put out a plan to do together, and then let’s get you ready for registration. And if you’re about retaking something, here’s a list of community colleges that can work for you, for you to do over the summer and start a fresh and new for your sophomore year that had played really well to where RDS were coming to this particular institution.

Aja Holmes:
They had an opportunity to do academic advising, and that was embedded in their particular, you know, position. But also too, once they are done with being a residence hall director, they could then go into academic advising easily. Right? And so what are some ways that we are setting up our RDS for success to be able to provide that particular person with competencies, that they are able to kind of master and also get more experience in over their years? You know, we have looked at this thing to where it is three years, four years, five years contract, because if you have somebody who’s not, they’ll never leave because it’s housing in residence life, you know, you get a free apartment, you get a meal plan and you get, you know, awesome do programming, you know, but if you look at those three to five years, how are we progressing and, you know, and increasing that competency level for that person.

Aja Holmes:
So that when they’re leaving this position, they’re able to, you know, one, maybe leave residence life and go to another functional area or two get ready to be an assistant, you know, an associate directors, you know, someplace, how are we preparing them for what’s next? I believe that is my duty as a director to prepare my staff and for what’s next, you know, based on where they want to go. I had somebody tell me that is no longer room. A meal plan is no longer enough, you know, anymore. And, and I understand that we need to also, you know, be able to give them, you know, skills, to be able to move and transition in and, and out outta housing. I remember someone telling me that I don’t wanna go the traditional route to only be in housing and then go someplace else.

Aja Holmes:
But I really believe in the fundamentals of housing. And I believe in the foundation that we give our, our folks to be able to transition out and go anywhere. It’s hard to be anywhere else and try to transition in because we need that foundation. You need that ability to be able to manage programming and manage crisis. We give them a lot of skills and we have to teach them and have them also understand how those skills are transferable to the rest of the world, to the rest of the, you know, you can transition to a corporate America as well, and you, and, and many of these Silicon valley companies and internet companies and things of that nature have education division. That’s looking for somebody who has that generalistic approach that can be able to then move into those areas would make some of those connections between hey, we have this awesome product and you understand the students were trying to get that product to how can we bridge that gap?

Aja Holmes:
I think that’s also too another way for us to, to look at that there’s opportunities as to where you can teach. When I was at a previous institution, we all taught a course. That was a grade level course. That means that you’re also figuring out, Hey, maybe I do wanna go back and get an advanced degree because maybe I do wanna be a professor because I’ve had two years now of teaching underneath my belt to be able to figure that out. Or, Hey, I also approach student conduct from a developmental perspective. You know what I think I wanna go on into student conduct full-time because life, like Steve said, I like that transformational movement that happens for our students. We have to be able to provide nuggets and carrots for our staff members that will then transition them out of the, these, these places and be able to set them up for success, to be able to move into other players other areas of campus.

Aja Holmes:
I had somebody text me the other, an old staff member. They’re leaving housing and residence life and going academic full time. Thanked me because of the partnership I created with our academic advising, to be able to have that opportunity, to know that, you know, what it lit a bug in me, it lit up a light in me that I’m able to also work with these students and see them, you know, graduate and also work work with them from an academic academic affairs side through it advising because that’s also another pressure point at many institutions. If you have advisors, you know, or not, or maybe your faculty are trying to do this and research and teach and publish, you know, as well, how can we make sure that those folks are on the right track to get out to one, not spend more or money than what they needed so that way they can graduate at a certain time. And so I think those are just some of the nuggets that I think we need to think about. And that’s how you redefine our hall director experience to be more beyond living on campus, all electricities and utilities paid, and here’s a meal plan. So you can eat this awesome food, you know, on our campuses. You know, that that’s, that’s not gonna play a fly anymore.

Steve Herndon:
Right?

Glenn DeGuzman:
Steve Crystal, you wanna add?

Steve Herndon:
Sure. Everything that Aja just said really strongly resonates with me, because I think it goes back to if we’re the ways in which we, we want, we, we talk about the holistic development of our students being the, the focus, the goal for all, for all of us at, at any institution. But for that to truly materialize, we have to be, we can’t create models that do not take into account the needs and the development of the folks that are facilitating them learning, and that’s our staff. And so for that equilibrium to be maintained, we have to look at their experience developmentally, too, which is why I appreciate everything that, that, that Aja said, because it really speaks to me as someone who values the curricular approach to, to learning. I think we often market the meal plan, the apartment, a furnished department, and all of that as a benefit for staff, it’s really a benefit for the university because it, it benefits the university for staff to live on and over time, that’s how they’ve become everything to everyone.

Steve Herndon:
And so to me, it speaks to that sort of exploitive narrative. That’s always been there that we mask behind, look at how we are offer you all of these benefits. Whereas the real benefit is to the employer. And so the, and, and our staff had figured that out. It’s not enough because it never was enough, but when things weren’t as complicated and as complex as they are now, it was difficult to see that. And now folks have seen it in light of COVID folks have now seen it and aren’t willing to buy in or participate or pet or perpetuate any narrative that requires their exploitation in order to matter. And to know that they’ve had impact.

Crystal D. Lay:
Ooh. Yeah, I think that’s, I think you named it, this piece of this apartment and all of them are not created equal. Right. We know that this apartment is for the university, it’s for you to provide a service to us and that technically, maybe shouldn’t be considered as compensation. Right. I think the tricky part that I want to highlight is when you do factor everything in, right, if you’re at the 47, for instance, and you’re getting the room, you know, you’re getting the board, you’re getting the cable utilities, the apartment, all the things you could be making about 70, 75,000 a year. If you think about it that way, you’re ready to leave to find that new job, what job are you going to find? That’s going to pay you $75,000, right after that, there’s very few assistant director area coordinator jobs that are gonna pay you 70, 75,000.

Crystal D. Lay:
And so most folks take these lateral moves, right. Or they just tr they scramble, what am I supposed to do? And there’s also compression issues that happen, right? And so some folks end up stuck or staying longer than they may, not than may, they may want to, because they don’t know what to do financially. So, you know, I would imagine like, why aren’t we doing more financial literacy, right. That could be a piece of it, right. We need to continue to do these salary reviews in our departments. And I know budget is, is tricky, right? And we don’t mandate all of those pieces, but, you know, can we do a, Hey, you can opt into this program where you could put 5% of your annual salary into this little pot. And when you leave, that could be your down payment on a house, right? Like, are there ways that we can differently prepare our folks to be ready so they can have something to show or have some type of support for themselves once they leave, knowing there might be this huge salary difference? I think that could be a start.

Glenn DeGuzman:
You know, I did a episode not too long ago on side hustles in student affairs. It was this idea, you know, similar to what you were kind of speaking to Aja where, where you’re trying to give comp opportunity experiences within the higher education setting to get additional skills and whatnot. The, the episode I did, they were speaking to even experiences outside of higher education, because to your point earlier some folks are gonna wanna move away and, you know, you know, on higher ed, maybe they wanna go into corporate. Maybe they wanna go into a nonprofit or, you know, different type of profession in general. So I think it’s really interesting that you know, what are the type of opportunities or what is it that campus leaders are? How do they view or perceive the, the resident director and are, are they hush and quiet about no, we just want ’em to work on the stuff that’s happening in res life, or are we really trying to provide them with that holistic, you know, it’s a trampoline it’s like that stepping stone to something else to what they want to do, whether it’s in, whether it’s still in residential life, whether it’s in some other part of the campus community, or maybe it’s something outside, cuz there’s still at the beginning of their journey.

Glenn DeGuzman:
At least that’s the philosophy that I, I like to take with my staff and talking about like, where do you want to be? And sometimes it’s, you can see the, the deer headlights. It’s like, oh, I want to be in res life. Do you really having a real conversation?

Glenn DeGuzman:
Let me let me I skipped this question and don’t wanna come back to it. Because it’s tying to this idea of what was mentioned, the very onset about the resin director position. And is it evolving is the scope and duty of the RD position evolving. And that’s really what I want to just kind ask you all, are there new skill sets that are necessary to prepare RDS for the work? We know that they play an essential role. They’re the, on the, on the ground professionals who, who have to make like a analytical and practical decisions to ensure that our residents are safe, they’re healthy. They’re getting, they’re getting support pieces to, for the academic learning. But my question is, you know, is, is a job changing are the students changing and do we need to be better at responding to them? And what should the supervisors of RD’s be doing to support the living staff, Aja your thoughts?

Aja Holmes:
I believe that it is definitely changing and we need to be able to look at how do we better partner. I think with our campus partners to be able to provide and deliver the services to our students that whole duty to care that was the standard that we were looking at. It is our duty to care and that has now become an arching umbrella for everything that falls underneath it is, you know? And so I do think that we need to look at how do we provide some more training for our staff members to help students with some of those mental health issues and student crises and students of care that will help get them to a place to where, you know, more than the next business day, I then can take you to caps and caps can take over, right? So we need, I think a little bit more, but I think that will also trigger some of the developmental for our staff members to be able to also realize and see is a scenario I wanna continue in, you know, or will this gimme some other skill set to be able to do something else, but will it also be able to translate to something else that I wanna do?

Aja Holmes:
I think the other part is looking at ways that we can partner with our campus partners. And, and I cannot say that enough, we cannot be an island that just gives money out to folks. We have to be able to partner better. We have to bring folks into the residence halls. We have to bring the experts to them to the students who are doing some of these programmings. And we need to, as a university stop looking at this as a nine to five because our students are not our students. Don’t say, oh, it’s four 30. Let me hold my crisis till 8:00 AM in the morning, that’s not happening. And we have to be able to shift our thought process and shift to be able to provide some of that support. We also know that the student, the RDS that are coming in need just a little bit more blueprint on what’s next and what, what needs to be next and how we need to do that.

Aja Holmes:
And, and that’s okay because this is a different generation that that’s coming in and being able to provide those opportunities, to be able to say, I need you to do A, that’s gonna lead to B, that’s gonna lead to C. So it’s picked a little bit more in terms of explaining things and stuff like that, which is fine. But I also think that we need to be able to look at how are we preparing folks in their master’s programs for this particular position and these particular jobs, you know, what are we doing? You know, in there, social justice is awesome and great, and we need those there, but I need some administrative things that I need you to master before you try to burn the world down. You know, I need to understand that you need to put in paperwork, you need to do the follow up with that.

Aja Holmes:
I need your writing to be at a certain level to be able to communicate some of these things, right. You, the way you write on Facebook is not the way you be putting in incident reports. I need, you know, a little bit of that. I need you to learn some of the basic and fundamentals of supervising folks that way, when you get to these, these humans that you’re gonna supervise, and everybody’s not running away from you because you are that horrible. We need to be teaching some of that in our master’s program, when they’re in a safe environment to practice how to fire somebody, as opposed to it be in it. You know, when we can on that, I might have changed the direction of where we’re going Glenn, with that question. So I’m sorry if we, if I jumped to another question.

Aja Holmes:
That’s real, but I was just, I’m thinking about this, you know, as somebody who receives the students that are in these master’s programs and, and what I’m getting, I need, I need y’all, let’s, let’s, let’s talk about this. My lovely faculty who, who, who, who, you know, who maybe have not supervised anybody, you know, ever and, or worked in administration, but I need you, if, if that’s what we’re preparing them to do, then what are some things that we need to do on the master’s program to kind of prepare them be good employees?

Steve Herndon:
I agree with everything that aha is, is saying those are some skills that are, are not addressed consistently. And, and, and people’s experiences are now trial by fire. So I I’m learning from a bad experience. And I think we’ve gotta change that, that we’ve got to now move to a place where we are being more proactive and more intentional and deliberate around their learning and development. And it can’t come always come outta tragedy or mistake. I would say the other thing that I would add about what supervisors could do is we’ve gotta do a better job of incorporating recovery into our practice that we often treat recovery as something that’s a focus out of tragedy. And I think we are constantly exposed to trauma at varying degrees. And so there’s a need as a result for recovery to be more embedded in our practice.

Steve Herndon:
And I think also when we think about recovery in its role within our practice, it slows the pace down so that there’s more introspection and reflection individually and collectively, that allows us to take advantage of the learning in the moment that can impact people’s development individually and collectively how we develop as a team. And what implications does this have for our practice that might need to change as the experience is playing out. And so I think recovery, if it’s approached more holistically and more as a part of the experience, as a, as opposed to an exception to it I think we then begin to realize that there’s opportunities that we now have that foster greater introspection and reflection collectively and individually, that we just haven’t been taken advantage of moments that we’ve just kind of skirted by, because we’re so focused on the outcome that we are fast tracking the process and the learning along with it, that gets us to the outcome.

Glenn DeGuzman:
That’s a, that’s a really powerful standard you just made. I think the recovery piece is something that if, if there is a, you know, for the listeners and for everyone out there, you know, when I think of residence life leadership, I think that the fact that we have the ability to have conversations with, you know, how do we, how do we approach work life balance a little better? How do we look at the work if it’s evolved? Because we know it has evolved, does it have to be done the way that it’s always been done? I mean, can, can we change work schedules? Do you have the strength, meaning you have backups to fill in when someone had a rough night and, and, you know, I think of like you know, my sister’s a doctor. I remember when she was doing a residency, she had spoken about every time she did an overnight week at the emergency room.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Right. Which is full of trauma. You’re dealing with case like crisis after crisis. Once that’s done, they have time off, they have time to recover, to reflect, to, just to be. And do we do that in residence life? We have staff who are up all night sometimes. And do we, and then are you expecting to be at the meeting 10 o’clock in the morning, the next day? Like, how do we start building in that this is a normal part of the practice for recovery. I’m gonna take this next question, Crystal. I wanna pose this to you and it kind of builds off the a response we just heard about what needs to happen and the student affairs preparatory programs. Right. I think a lot about the data I could like on residential students, it makes me wonder about the skillsets.

Glenn DeGuzman:
The next generation RDs are bringing to campus. And I think about even what Aja said about, you know, I think they come in with phenomen, I’m learning so much when it comes to diversity equity inclusion and this, this new way of thinking. But at the same time, are there other pieces that need to be that needs to be brought to the attention of the preparatory programs. And, so maybe the administrative skills, for example, but the question is what innovative practices are student affairs prep programs taking now, or need to take, to enhance the readiness and preparedness of a professional res life staff and leaders?

Crystal D. Lay:
My, I first thought when I, you know, heard the question was the importance of learning your job, the job that you have while preparing for the job that you want. And just sitting, I think there are a lot of examples of people just moving up really, really fast which is great. And do you really understand the job and what you’re being called upon to do? And I think that sitting in that is something that can be taught and understood and, and really cherishing the opportunity that you have in the moment. I reached out to one of my friends, Eric, so he’s at a school in the Midwest and he’s teaching the SAHE program. I said, what do you think? He said, number one more practical. How are you doing the work? So mental health, legal issues, burnout, how to navigate organizations, budget, supervision.

Crystal D. Lay:
And even when you think about social justice, he and I agreed on this, he said, how do, how do you navigate advocacy in your organization? Right. Like IAja said, let’s not like the world on fire. Right. You know, but I think there’s this piece of, if you wanna do that, how do you make sure you have allyship and you are protecting yourself? Because folks, don’t always like when you speak up, right. And it can be dangerous. So you have to think about your livelihood if I’m being really honest. So what it comes down for me and, you know, things I’ve seen as a practitioner that vicarious trauma has to be shared. Right. You’re going to see some things you’re gonna be managing crisis, you know, indirectly or, you know, directly. And so how are you taking care of yourself? How are you getting, how are you recovering through those processes?

Crystal D. Lay:
I think that’s something that can be taught. That’s an easy training for a class session. I think the political climate and context of decisions that are being made and where you fit, what’s your agency. I think also how do you say no? And then I think the last thing I would add to this is as you’re evaluating jobs, right. Do you understand a description? Do you understand what they’re going to ask of you? I saw a photo on LinkedIn the other day, and it said a job is more than salary and title. It’s also mental wellness. It’s self-care it’s do you have all the things that you need to be set up for success as a human, as you take on that role? So as you’re a evaluating that job offer or what your next move will be after grad school, how are professors helping them evaluate what makes sense for this next piece of my life?

Aja Holmes:
I think if I can also add just a little bit of critical thinking skills, how did we teach them to have some of those critical thinking skills to where they know that if you’ve been up all night, there is no expectation for you to be there at 8:00 AM the next morning. And I’ve mentioned this to you during training, and I need you to understand that, but I can’t manage that. I need you to say and let me know. Cause I don’t know the whole night that you’ve been through. So I need you to critically think and say, I’m not gonna be there that morning, because I’ve been up all night with X, Y, and Z. And we know that I have let the higher ups know that don’t expect staff members always in their offices at eight or 9:00 AM, because we deal with things while you are home with your families and dogs and cats are doing everything we’re dealing with, whatever it is trying to get us to the next morning, you know, trying to make sure of that.

Aja Holmes:
And I think the other part you also need is to understanding the difference in how supervision management and leadership shows up in the work that we do and how we prepare folks to understand that when you’re wearing those different hats, that based on the situations and the students and the staff members that you’re gonna bring into, how do we prepare them to understand when to wear their supervision, their leadership and their managers had. And I think that we really need to look at that and how do we prepare for them with that at least give them a taste in their master’s program, in the preparation program, not everybody’s gonna have an assistantship in housing or an internship of fellowship or whatever you call it, your institution. And so if you know that, then you need to be also teaching them in the classroom on how do you prepare them to do that. Because many of the positions out there gonna be working with students, either from a volunteer perspective, you know, maybe orientation or maybe with student government, you know, or with some of, of your students, programmers, you know, the people who are elected to be on the program board, how are we working to be able to prepare folks to supervise those other humans that are gonna be, you know, working with them. And so I think we need to look at how do we prepare that in our master’s program.

Crystal D. Lay:
And can I add in boundaries, setting healthy boundaries. It’s so important because, you know, I was 23, my first hall director gig. So I was once, two years older than my RAs, they were not my friends. Right. So I think there’s this piece too, of how do you find a network and a community and not create messiness between the folks that you supervise? No judgment on folks who do that line. But I think it’s important to think about boundaries as well. Yeah,

Steve Herndon:
That’s very good. I would the, I think Crystal & Aja have covered just about everything. I would, I’m like I wanna join y’all’s program. Like I wanna go through it. And so you’ve got one student already look right. And so and I’ll take whatever assistantship you got. But I, I think the other thing supervision for me, and then we’ve touched upon it is I think a key key skill, because I think it is the process by how most folks actualize other aspects of their job. And so I think looking at that through the lens of identity is important. I think also understanding that power is not good or bad, but how one leverages one’s power is where we can have value judgment. I think we sometimes like politics. I think politics is one of those topics as well.

Steve Herndon:
We’d say it’s good or bad. It’s not good or bad how one goes about managing it is where we can have some, some, some discuss around judgment and have questions about one’s values, ethics, all of that sort of stuff. And so power is a part of our job. I’m Steve Herndon, I’m a person, but I’m also the assistant vice president and executive director of housing and residence life. And my title in and of itself already presents a barrier, whether regardless of who I am as a person. So understanding that how having it is not necessarily make you a good or bad person, it’s how you leverage it. Based on that understanding that makes you either an a partner in one’s journey or an impediment to it. And, and I think those are some of the, the, the skills that, that, that folks just really need and are learning, you know, again, based on when they make mistakes and it’s always coming out of a deficit. And I think we have to, we have to have a more proactive deliberative, developmentally sequential experience for our staff, both in the preparatory programs, but also as part of the assistantship and part of the experience as well.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Wow. We are getting close to time. And we always close with this question. So this is gonna be an opportunity for you to kinda share a little bit about what you’re thinking right now. And this podcast obviously is called student affairs now. So if you could take minute or two to summarize, what are you pondering? What are you question? What are, was there something that was shared in this conversation that you wanna reflect back on, or what’s troubling you now, if you can take a minute or two to just kind of close up and I, and we don’t have who wants to go first, turn the table.

Aja Holmes:
I can.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Aja you’re up.

Aja Holmes:
So one of the things is I’m gonna need position to where I am a creator of a position right now. This is a new position here at this institution. And it, it is, we are bifurcating from our housing administration side, but the beauty is we still report to the same vice president of student life. So I have a really opportunity to really look at how am creating the culture within housing and residence life here among my RDS and how am I bringing together all of the three areas that are underneath me to better serve students. And so I am looking at the hall director position, which has a four year contract with a possibility of a fifth year. And how are we preparing them for what’s next? And how are we giving them progression in terms of their first year compared to their fourth year? Where do we want them to be their fourth year after being with us for four years? And what type of skillset, what competencies have they created, have they gotten, have they mastered? And what do I need to do to prepare them for what’s next? And that’s important for me to figure out as we create the culture and create the program that we wanna have here at the University of San Francisco.

Steve Herndon:
I think for me, where I immediately go is around infrastructure. And this is something that I’ve been working with my team about this year is that we’ve set our goals around our infrastructure. Where is it lacking? Where is it faulty? That so often we are relying on people’s passion and their love for learning their love for students, something that’s personal to an individual to get them to work beyond. What’s reasonable. And again, I find all of that exploitive in, in nature and not healthy and not learn centered. I think structure is what’s going to, to sustain success. And so for me, it’s, in some ways we, we gotta go back to basics is our infrastructure strong enough that it allows us to to achieve our purpose. And the answer to that is no, by the way. And where, where do we need to focus our time and energy in building an infrastructure that can move us beyond personality, as we think about sustaining success and having the impact that we need to have, and much of what we talked about, I think really ties back to that for me.

Steve Herndon:
So I, I appreciate the dialogue, cause it’s given me a lot to think about in terms of work that I’ve started. And I’m currently working on with my team and wanting to continue, not just for the remainder of this year, but as we go into future years,

Glenn DeGuzman:
Crystal, you’re the final thought,

Crystal D. Lay:
Oh, I was gonna start with my passions and personal beliefs, Steve, but I’ll move away from that. Please

Steve Herndon:
Be passionate and have your personal beliefs. I don’t wanna take that from.

Crystal D. Lay:
So, you know, I always ask myself the question, am I working or a department and a division where I want, I would want my, my kids to go to that school or live on that campus. And so I think whatever framing is needed to think through what you’re providing to the students and to the staff, that’s what you have to apply. What barriers am I creating? Like, am I messing up up people’s hopes and dreams and livelihoods, you gotta be real with yourself. And so, you know, as I go into my, whatever, my next journey is, when I get back into residence life, it’s really being a part of something where there’s movement that can be made good movement, and people are willing to that there, they will listen to you don’t need to come in the next day and everyone is okay with that, right. And it’s safe and you don’t have to have fear. So that’s my takeaway is what I want my kids to live on that particular campus. And are we, are we creating places where voices are truly going to be heard and listened to?

Glenn DeGuzman:
And with that, we have come to the end of this podcast. I wanna thank our guests, Steve Herndon, Dr. Aja Holmes and Crystal Lay for just this phenomenal conversation. I can’t wait for this to be released. And and thanks Nat Ambrosey, who is our production person behind the scenes. She’s gonna make sure that this episode is transcribed, it’s prepared and ready it to be aired. Again. We wanna thank our sponsors Vector Solutions. How will your institution rise to reach today’s socially conscious generation? These students report commitments to safety, wellbeing, and inclusion are as important as academic rigor when selecting a college it’s time to reimagine the work of student affairs as an investment, not an expense. For over 20 year Vector Solutions, which now includes the campus prevention network formerly EverFi has been a part, has been the partner of choice for 2000 plus colleges, universities, and national organizations with nine efficacy studies behind their courses.

Glenn DeGuzman:
You can trust and have full confidence that you’re using the standard of care for student safety, wellbeing, and inclusion transform the future of your institution and community you serve learn more at vectorsolutions.com/studentaffairsnow. And this episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtual and in person for students and professionals with a focus on creating a more, just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape offers, engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building to find out more, please visit www.leadershape.org/virtual programs, or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Again, these shows would not be possible without their support and these episodes would not be possible if you didn’t listen in or watch on YouTube. So to our audience and listeners, thank you for joining us.

Glenn DeGuzman:
And if you are not already getting our weekly newsletter, go to our website and subscribe to it, student affairs now.com and scroll to the bond, the page, and just add your email to our MailChimp list. We’re very happy. We we’re over 30,000 downloads y’all and, and since we’ve started, so, so please check it out. This is just just appreciative of our audience, who just listening and also giving us feedback. So again, my name is Glen Guzman. I wanna thank everyone for listening or watching and wherever you are, go out and make it a good day. Bye everybody.

Naifeh, Zeak (2019) Social Connections Matter: A look into new student affairs professional wellness and attrition intentions. The Journal of Campus Activities Practice and Scholarship. Volume 1. Issue 2.

Marshall, S.M., Gardener, M.M., Hughes, C., & Lowery, U. (2016). Attrition from Student Affairs: Perspectives from those who exited the profession. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice 53(2), 146-159.