Shelah Crear
I would inform my past professional self, that, you know, things don’t always go to plan. Don’t always go to plan when you’re parenting. And, you know, I think in my earlier parenting years, I thought that I was there to I thought that I was there to shape a little bit more, and to influence and to steer. But I realized that I’m really there to sort of just guide and to, to help them reflect and to think critically. And to almost like the bumpers when you when you bowl when you’re little right to sort of be there to kind of help them stay back in the lane, right, but the lane is their own. And I think in my mind, I’ve always kind of compartmentalized, right, the developmental theory pieces from the parenting pieces. And at times, you know, seeing them as being overlapping, but neither of them have exact plans, they both have a lot of fluidity to them, right, the developmental theories obviously do and then your students pathway has a lot of fluidity and changes, and they’re evolving and morphing and sometimes showing up differently than you’ve always known them to be, right, as they grow and develop.

Glenn DeGuzman
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs. I’m your host, Dr. Glenn DeGuzman. I am joined by our panelists of parents who happen to also be student affairs professionals who have graciously decided to have fun with me this morning and just have a personal conversation about their parenting journey and knowing that they all have kids who are about to go or are currently attending college. So let’s get started. 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 You can find details about this episode or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms and empowers institutions like mine to make data driven decisions. So stay tuned at the end of this podcast I’m going to share more information about Symplicity. So again, my name is going to use when I’m the Associate Dean of Students and director Residential Life at UC Berkeley. I use the he him his pronouns, and I’m zooming in from Livermore, California, which is the ancestral home of the unceded territory. So let’s meet our panelists. I’m so excited about this episode, y’all because this is, you know, we’re parents first right so let’s get started. We have I’m gonna have, lets see who’s gonna kick it off. Mari Do you want to introduce yourself,

Mari Strombom
So hello, everybody. I’m Mari Strombom and I work at Colorado State which is on the traditional ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute nations and people. And I work as the executive director when Housing and Dining Services and I use the she her hers pronouns. And I’m excited to be joining you today with the other panelists to talk about my two children.

Glenn DeGuzman
Two wonderful, let’s go to Dave. Dave intro.

Dave Ruble
Yeah, I’m Dave Ruble. I am the Assistant Director of Residence Life for caring conduct at Western Washington University. And I am coming from the ancestors ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish people who have lived in the Salish Sea Basin throughout the San Juan Islands in the North Cascades watershed from time immemorial. And particularly here in the Bellingham area. I’m speaking about the Lummi Nation and rucksack tribe. And I’ll be talking a bit about I have four kids, but two in college right now, and then one that will be in the process in the next few years.

Glenn DeGuzman
Thank you, Dave and Shelah, welcome to the podcast.

Shelah Crear
Hi, everyone. My name is Shelah Crear. I’m Associate Dean of undergraduates at Rice University, which means that I work closely with retention and transition issues. So lots of things that my soon to be college freshmen will be going through, and I use she her hers pronouns.

Glenn DeGuzman
Wonderful. Well, let’s start with first congratulations to all of you and to me, like our our human is finally going to college or are in college. And so we’ve got this unique layers additional identity that as student first professionals, you know, I started reflecting about this episode, we I’m embracing the fact that we and we understand that each person has their own journey when it comes to whether they go to college or not go to college, and but we also work at a higher education institution. Right. So Shelah, I want to start with you. But did you feel any additional pressure knowing that, you know, like, what if your kid doesn’t go to college? Like, I’m kind of curious, what tactics Did you employ? Or maybe you didn’t employ to influence your kids to go to college?

Shelah Crear
Yeah, I think my daughter would probably remember her earliest babysitters, as always coming from the institutions that I worked at. They were always an extremely responsible, reliable student, whether they were watching her while I was at an event or whether they would watch her at her home. And so I think she has a little kid automatically associated positive things with them and with college. So I was like, let me try to establish these core memories where she has a really favorable understanding of what college students are like. And then I think, not you know, she was always interested in fascinated by the students. I don’t know that she until she got older really understood what I did. But the students themselves I think we’re always was a source of interest to her because they were excited to engage with her, they were excited to it that she was funny. You know, it was kind of, I have a theater kid. So it was sort of her moment, to shine and engage and interact with them. So I think that part made it easy when she was young, when she got older, you know, she began to look at it with more of a critical eye, and a critiquing eye, which is, you know, I think what we want them to do, right, we want them to critique and look at things critically. But sometimes in the moment, on the parents side, we’re like, little bit don’t critique too much. Because we want you to go and keep moving forward. So I think once you know, she had kind of middle school, high school, then, you know, it was really her looking at things through a more discerning lens, and trying to figure out, like, what does this mean, and why do people go and, you know, what am I supposed to be getting out of this experience? You know, both in terms of the academic pieces, but also in terms of the transformative, you know, self discovery components as well. So, you know, I think it only ended up being a relatively easy journey, because I don’t know that I think she needed more convincing. But I do think that sort of the hiccups along the way came when it was really around trying to figure out what do different schools offer what does it mean to be in college? How is there variability in the experience? And, you know, what, how does campus climate kind of factor into what my experience is going to be like, as an underrepresented student? You know, on a on a campus, you know, should should I should she not elect to go to an HBCU?

Glenn DeGuzman
Hmm, wow, those are some complex and actually really layered conversations that were happening in your household. Mari before we restart recording, I know that you had some interesting tactics to influence your kids to go to college I want to share.

Mari Strombom
Yeah, so both my husband and I work here at Colorado State University. And so my strategy with our boys was I never actually talked to them about going to college. I just always talked to them about going to Colorado State. And it worked. So our oldest son Max is a sophomore here at Colorado State and our youngest son Kirk is a senior in high school and he’s coming here on the fall. So my deviousness paid off, so.

Glenn DeGuzman
That’s awesome. Um, you know, Dave, did you? Did you have any?

I mean, you’ve had you’ve had to go to start and then you have two more in on deck. So I mean,

Dave Ruble
Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I really thought about this, because I would say if anything, I don’t know that I felt Brasher. I was the first person in my family go to college. And so I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of external pressure. I just I think I probably understood with my kids, because they’ve grown up here, both myself and my partner both in my Kayla works in elementary ed, so she’s a teacher. So there’s, there’s probably been some pressure on them with this idea of how important education is. And so if anything, I’ve tried to be really intentional in my conversations with them, so that they don’t feel like it’s a it’s an expectation that they are coming to college. But I think there was just always this underlying thought that they probably would, mostly because they grew up here. I mean, I, Isaac, my oldest we had when I was a resident director here at Western. And so I literally had him in a backpack, teaching the RA class and walking across campus, and they had been to the dining hall. And so this is just a part of their culture growing up. So it’s very familiar that the idea of being on a campus is really fun. So

Glenn DeGuzman
I’m envisioning you with a backpack and Isaac in there. That’s awesome. That’s in visual that I

so so I want to ask this question. Because I think that and Shelah, Mari, I’d like you to kind of weigh in on this question. Knowing all of you and just kind of getting to know you know, just what we do, right? We engage in social justice efforts, multicultural competency and inclusion as a big part of our work, our professional identity. And my goodness, we have been through a lifetime training in connecting our professional practice to just our personal values. And we have experienced, you know, real situations, both good and bad. In our work setting, but as a parent, we know this and so before I even got to college, I’m curious to know how you approach this learning or this awareness with your human. Shelah, I’d love to get your thoughts on That’s one.

Shelah Crear
I mean, for me, it was about trying to be as transparent as possible. You know, I mean, I think that the blessing and the curse is that we know how the sausage is made. We know. We know how things move, and how things you know, sort of evolve on a college campus. And so I didn’t want her to be surprised. But I also recognize that part of what she needs to experience through her own development is self discovery and navigation of these situations, right? So I often found myself in a tension of how much do I tell her? Right at versus how much does she need to discover on her own? You know, I mentioned to you guys earlier, I have input is like, number one on my strengths quest, and I’m always sort of trying to collect the data, trying to read the reports, you know, and she will oftentimes tell me when we were touring, when we’ve gone to different events, she said, can you just show up as my mom and not as a professional? Yeah, I’m gonna do my question to the group, can you just pull the person aside? And ask that question? She’s like, because then everybody knows, like that you probably do something in this field, like Okay. So, you know, for us, it’s been sort of navigating the tension, I want her to be knowledgeable and prepared, and also when she’s making decisions, because we’re still in the decision making process. For schools, I wanted her to think critically about things like, you know, diversity, demographics, climate, what resources a particular campus has to support you across a variety of different identities, how does it support students for whom you don’t share those identities, but but your peers? Well, your roommate might, your partner might. So because all of that, to me speaks to kind of this culture of support, right? So for us, it’s been an ongoing conversation, and one that I found at times to be hard to balance between not sharing so much that I have an incredibly fearful child that I’m dropping off on campus, right, but sharing enough so that she’s engaging eyes wide open, right, that she’s aware, and that she could factor those types of things into her decision making process. Beyond sort of what I consider to be like the footprint, the face of the university, right, the things that you see when you’re touring, or when you’re looking on the web, or those things, but the real sort of meat and potatoes of what they’re like.

Glenn DeGuzman
So that’s pretty good. Mari, how did the conversations go in your household?

Mari Strombom
Yeah, so from a very different angle, right. So being a person with a whole lot of different areas of privilege. And my boys having a whole lot of privilege, that was always a conscious thought, in my mind, I grew up in a very rural part of northern Wisconsin, where those conversations didn’t happen. When I was growing up, right, we just all were, and we didn’t talk about privilege or differences very much. So I had a lot of learning, starting when I was in college, and continuing through today and tomorrow, not into the future. And I wanted my boys to be good humans. And so since they were little for me, it’s always been about how can I talk to them about the ways that things might be easier for them than other people and the importance of compassion, and the importance of stopping to listen and learn from other people. And not to make a burden on other people, but just to truly hear when they talk about their experience being different from your own. That that’s legitimate. Just because you don’t share it doesn’t mean that one of you is right. And one of you is wrong. It’s it’s different. And being open to that. And, you know, we continue to have those conversations today. And I’ll often share with them, oh, I just read this book, or I just had this conversation or I just went to this training and what I have loved as I’ve seen them grow, especially my youngest son will say, Mom, I saw this really cool podcast, or I saw this YouTube video, and he’ll engage in those conversations with me. And it’s been wonderful to see that compassion in them and I’m I’m looking forward to that continuing to bloom as they they grow. I have similar conversations as much with my eldest son Glenn, you mentioned easy conversations with your youngest and harder with your oldest and maybe it’s because our boys share a birthday I don’t know. Our oldest are born on the same day in the same hospital but you don’t have to prob those questions with my oldest are those conversations with my oldest, but they’re good. And we have them.

Glenn DeGuzman
Yeah, I tell that story all the time. Mari that I don’t know, Dave and Shelah would know or now now I guess the world now. I Mario was my supervisor at Colorado State and we had our sons were born yet, same day, same hospital, thank you for loaning the anesthesia. So, a lot along this similar kind of like vein a little bit, Dave, you know, given your work, I know you work a lot with care. I know you’re in, you’re in housing. We know that college unfortunately, isn’t always a better roses, as a student, first practitioner, who we know and we see things frequently, that can make a college experience for anyone just go south in like our hurry. From a parent perspective, how did you approach that reality? With your later really kids? Right? Or? I know you did. So, um, you say, how did you do?

Dave Ruble
Yeah, um, I think it’s a hard one because I as a parent, you know, it’s hard to not bring my professional self into that parent role, and vice versa. But I, I, I’m really process oriented. So a lot of times, it’s as things would come up, like, work in, in Student Care and conduct like I at the dinner table, but really present case study sometimes to my kids on things that had happened. And, and so we I talked to him, you know, to all my kids about consent and the importance of communication. And you know, how different it is now from when I was growing up, and how much more information there is, and, but just not only an understanding of protecting yourself, but protecting other people, too, that’s really important. And that sense of having really authentic relationships and, and trying to be as engaged as I could, not only in my kids lives, but being a house where their friends would come over and engaging with friends and seeing how those relationships went. Because I know how important that is to when they you know, if they choose to come to college, having that roommates having the people that they interact with. And so I was really intentional. And and, and I would say my wife, Kayla is also really intentional about that. And, you know, I said before, she’s an educator and early education, so she, she did a lot about doing much more intentional structural pieces as they were little. And then I think my focus has been more as the kids have gotten older, is that change in relationship from going from structural pieces to much more ambiguous, and having them kind of understand and see the world? I want them to see the world in a much larger way than I did growing up. And Am I successful? And I’m not sure that’s really I don’t think I can determine that. But they’ve been pretty successful in school and in the relationships that they have. So yeah, that’s been my approach.

Glenn DeGuzman
I’d love to hear from Mari, Shelah, if you have any additional stories or conversation, I want to add this piece because, Dave, you brought up about this broadening awareness. You know, I think that’s something that’s interesting. For me, given my work, I’ve been in multiple functional areas. I mean, we’ve had case study conversations about sexual assault and harassment and alcohol consumption that difference in you know, I feel like I’m a I’m a walking alcohol and drug class sometimes with my kids, because it’s really interesting, the most interesting one I will share, because, you know, my, my daughter just recently selected a college to go to, and they were doing roommate stuff, you know, and I’m like, hey, look, I kind of do on the like, the double takes, I know, this is going to be nerdy and geeky, but I can hook you up with a roommate agreement form. So you can have these organic conversations in advance with your roommate to kind of right too much information. And we can get into that question about helicopter parents later on. But I don’t know, Shelah, Mari, any other interesting thoughts on this question?

Shelah Crear
Or, for me, I think the piece that kind of just sticks out is, you know, the four years don’t have to be perfect. It’s not going to be error free. You’re going to make mistakes. There are going to be moments where you feel like you have completely messed up and nine times out of 10, right you haven’t, there is a small, there is a small percentage in there where we’re talking about some more serious ramifications to your actions, but the vast majority of the of the things are not going to be you know, sort of career or college ending. And the biggest piece that I’ve tried to really reiterate to her really starting in high school was this idea of don’t have to have all the answers and that the best thing What you can learn to do if you don’t master skills is to learn how to ask for help. You know, the, I guess maybe because I work in a capacity where we talk a lot about help seeking behaviors, probably is, you know, sick of hearing you say, you know, help seeking behavior, and some of them. But I said, a lot of things can be solved by you seeking out help. As soon as you get underwater, as soon as you start to feel like something’s off before actually you’re drowning, you know, whether it’s, you know, struggling in a class, whether it’s sure about how to navigate an interpersonal situation, whether it’s, you know, feeling off in terms of your mental health, you know, whether it’s just feeling lonely or not feeling like you’re connected to the institution, like, there is power, and there is real bravery and strength and asking for help. And, you know, I always the example I always give her that now I think she can recite is I’m like, you know, the kids in your classes who are sitting in the front row, and I call them the Ubers. Because they’re like, ooh, calling me calling me, they want to answer every question they’ve been doing that probably the entirety of their lives, was like, they’re usually the highest performing kids in the classroom. I was like, because they’re going to get their questions answered. And they’re going to doggedly pursue getting what they need. And I said, and that is actually a trait to take with you, you know, be persistent about saying, I need help, or I’m unsure, or I don’t know what’s wrong, but I know something’s not right. Because what we, as professionals have all been trained to do is to help you sort out the ambiguity that was like, you don’t have to have the answer, you just have to know that something’s off. And we can help figure out whether that’s academic interpersonal connection, you know, homesickness, whatever the category is that it falls into. So that’s really, you know, I’m like, if I don’t, if I can’t teach her anything else, which what I’ve taught is still TBD, you know, at least I can get her, you know, being open enough to not think that she has to have all the answers.

Glenn DeGuzman
That is just phenomenal advice. You know, as a first generation student, I know, I’m glad I asked for help, because and your advice is just point a spot on because, you know, I didn’t know what the problem was, I just knew something was off, right. And just being able to ask questions with with a resource on campus was just super beneficial for me to graduate. So thank you for that.

Mari Strombom
Let’s get to that. One of the things I’ve always worked with my boys on probably starting in early high school was one not wanting them to know, they can always come to me or their dad, with issues, but also knowing there’s gonna be times they don’t want to come to us, right. And so talking to them about who are your resources, so similar to what you were sharing Shelah, but helping them make connections to other adults, and feeling comfortable making those connections, so that when those times come up, where it’s like, yeah, I don’t want to talk to mom or dad about this. They’ve got somebody other than just their peers that they can go to, to talk about things. Now. I have no idea how often they’ve taken advantage of those connections I’ve tried to make for them. But that’s, that’s another tool that I think is important for our kids to have is to know that there’s safety and in other people, not just in family and not always in just the professional resources too, right. So

Glenn DeGuzman
that’s, so my daughter has an Instagram account. And I learned a while ago, but I know that they engage in conversations. So shout outs, AnnaLynne Cruz and Wendy Sasaki both in higher education who you are part of the helping Allie get the college so that’s that’s really good advice as well. Oh, go ahead. Yeah,

Dave Ruble
I was just there was a couple of things and what what everyone else said that made me think what is just anecdotal is that I also like, I understood my my daughter, Hannah is a sophomore here at Western. And we’ve had this conversation too, because there’s also pressure and Amari I don’t know if you feel it like not you but you know your boys feel this is I want Hannah to make mistakes. I want Isaac to make mistakes. My son Josh just makes mistakes. But I want Hannah to experience those things. But there’s also a pressure because I’ve told her like and just know that if an incident reports written about it, like I read it, I’m one of the responses that reads it. So just a heads up on on how to make those mistakes. Just probably better that I read it than her mom does, but but that’s a lot of pressure on her being here with that. The other thing is, is I was gonna say you were talking about stories last year when she was a freshman and she was living in a residence hall. Like I knew there was a pretty Pretty serious sexual assault situation. In the end, the the alleged perpetrator of two different sexual assaults was living across the hall from her. And as a knowing that, I had a conversation with my, with my supervisor on like, you know, like how I, I’m a parent first. And so I’m going to breach some protocols here in a way that’s appropriate. But I want to make sure she understands and isn’t fearful of a situation, but that I can have a conversation with her to make sure that as this process is going through the conduct process, that she I, as a parent feel that she’s protected in that too. That was probably one of the more difficult things for me last year.

Glenn DeGuzman
You know, I’m gonna pivot from the script y’all a little bit, and I want to stay with you, Dave, and just skip a question and go to and stay stay on that vein, I think you bring up a very powerful thought, you know, you have this role, we all have this role, right, we have an obligation, we’re employees of an institution, and and we’re parents first and foremost. And we talked about this, this concept of the helicopter parent and and just the hovering parent, right. And being connected, and but we also have student affairs professional, we have information, we have access to information. You know, how do you how do you manage your balance that I’m this is a really interesting question, because we have this privilege to some extent, right. And and it is, it’s a tough one. I know that it’s tough on it. And I’m in housing too. You know, like I’ve had, I’ve had parents who are friends of my son and daughter who just contacted me, like, can you call me if anything emergent. can do that. But but you know, but this now we’re talking about your own your child like, I’m kind of curious, how do you manage it and maneuver then you kind of alluded to it? I don’t want to say, you know, and just your thoughts on there. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker
I’m not gonna say anything that’s gonna get me fired. Right. Okay. Yeah. So I can think of two things. One, actually, it’s been fairly easy for me to navigate it with Hannah here. Although I worry, because, you know, access to grades access to a lot of things that parents call me asking for. I have access to that. And so I have to be for my own integrity and for the integrity of the system. I need to be really careful around that. And so I’m mindful to ask Anna questions about like, Hey, how are you? Great, you know, that I’m asking her, I’m not going to source things. I love it. Colorado State when Isaac went to CSU, that you all have bam, Web. Yeah. Which we don’t have here in the same way. And it was very nice to be able to, for Isaac to go on and give me permissions for things that would be FERPA related, that he was okay with me seeing I really liked that system is wonderful. You’re out about thinking about something like that. The more difficult one for one for me, Glenn was Isaac, he. He’s graduated in 2020. So he, he went through that last semester of high school that was just decimated. And I saw this kid who, who knew he wanted to be an engineer from the day he was born, and got into Colorado State and was so excited about it. And it was my alma mater. And I was so excited, much to my wife’s chagrin, that that he was heading 1800 miles away. And then COVID happens, and we had to make that decision whether to send him or not. And we didn’t know no one knew what was going to happen. So he did, he went off. He actually made friends there and stuff like that. But it was really difficult from an academic standpoint. It’s a tough engineering program. But he was teaching himself because professors are trying to figure it all out. Same way that we were trying to figure it out here. And he started seeing having mental health issues. And I so bad, wanted to be the Assistant Director of University Residences for care & conduct. That’s I don’t work at Colorado State. And so I had to be the parent. And I had to try to help him navigate systems. And I had the benefit of knowing systems. I also had the benefit of knowing some people that I would make suggestions that he would connect. And then when those things were happening at some point I, I called the resident director, and I’m like, I don’t want to be that helicopter parent. But I just want to give you this heads up, and then you run with it. And then when things got really bad, I called Jodie Donovan. And I was like, Hey, Joe Jodi, Isaac’s haven’t he’s not, you know, I don’t want to get too involved, can you have a conversation with them? That was amazing. But I knew. And so what happened for me then as a practitioner here at Western, they gave me a whole different viewpoint of what I thought about helicopter parenting, and helping them navigate and really being humbled into understanding the parents don’t have the information that I have. And they’re struggling, because they have the same dreams and aspirations for their, you know, for their kid. And they just most of the time, they just want to help. And so I am much, much more patient with parents now. And I have an appreciation, but I can also have that conversation because I can relate to the experience that they’re going through.

Glenn DeGuzman
That’s, that’s wonderful. And that’s a shout out to Jodi Donovan, who is a colleague of ours who works with students a concern at the institution, right?

Mari, I’m gonna go back now, actually, I’m gonna go back. I’m just gonna, I was gonna ask, you know, well, actually, let me know, I’m gonna go back with bluffing here. Mari and, Dave, I know the and you’ve shared in this podcast that you know, your your student is attending where you work. As a parent, that sounds incredible, maybe for my daughter, and she would not like that, or they would not like that. But did you talk about that with your student? That the about that reality? I know, Omar, you kind of said something beginning about, you know, like, they weren’t gonna go to Colorado State. But I’m kind of curious. How did it go for you all, like any fun stories or interesting anecdotes?

Mari Strombom
Yeah, I think even though I was a little devious and always talked about them go to Colorado State, we absolutely had conversations about what would be right for them. And I know that both boys were concerned at one point about well, but you and dad both work at Colorado State. And you know, when we see you all the time, well, we run into you all the time. And so I shared with them stories of other colleagues who’s like, had their children here. And then the children would go to their office and say, I haven’t seen you in like three weeks. And it’s like, yeah, campus is big enough. And we’re on our own circles, you’ll only see us if you want to see us. And so when our oldest son was a first year student living in the residence halls, what I’d said to him, and I stole this from a colleague of mine, who didn’t have her son go to her institution, but went nearby, and said, I’ll take you to lunch anytime you want me to take you to lunch. But it’s up to you to make that decision, how frequently and it ended up being almost every two weeks, he sent me a text and say, Hey, can we get together for lunch, I learned quickly, it was less about seeing his mom and more about seeing the dog. We would get takeout and we’d go home. So you can see the dog. But I got to spend time with my son, which was wonderful. And then I take him back to the residence hall. And so I think, Max having had that experience, he was able to talk to his younger brother to say yes, issues are really good school. And you won’t see Mom and Dad unless you want to see them. And so I think that helped Kirk make his decision. And CSU was the only place he applied. And we also talked about, you know, we get a tuition discount. If you’re here. And you after getting your undergrad. If you choose to go on for further degrees, that can be a great time to go someplace else, because this is a great place to get your undergrad. And Max I think would say it doesn’t feel like he’s still in Fort Collins. When he’s on campus, it just feels like this different community than what he grew up with. Because it’s, you know, we all know campus is a different kind of insular world, right. And so even though we, you know, I did my pressure, we talked about what’s right for them, and I feel really lucky that I’m able to have them both close enough that I get to see them more than just a couple of times each semester.

Dave Ruble
In my my experiences, some is somewhat similar. I knew with Isaac like he needed he needed that separation, he needed to go away. He’s back now he’s at Bellingham Technical College, still working in in mechanical engineering, which is great that there’s a program here that he can do that and Hannah, Hannah wanted to go away and then found that Western was a good fit and ended up being here but same things. It’s like it’s right here so it was hard for her to understand how of how good a university it is because it’s the one in her hometown. I love having her here, I would not have pushed it all about her coming here, except I could see that it was a good fit. And I had her apply at many different other institutions. But same thing with Mari as you’re saying, like I said, this is great. You’re you’re going into psychology, great degree. And you’re going to probably really want to think about, you know, getting furthering your education beyond this, and then that go, go wherever you want to go. And I pushing right now, this is probably answering part of a question before, but I was also like, study abroad, Western, great study abroad program. And you can, you can do that as well. So I love it, she actually not only lives on campus, but she works in the office right next to mine. But she and I have that relationship where she just comes in steals my food. And so it works out well. Like she’s not bothered by the fact that she, I think she actually we have lunch every couple of weeks. And that’s, that’s amazing. To be able to have that experience.

Glenn DeGuzman
Shelah, you already told us that your daughter has not made a decision yet. But would you want your daughter to go to the college you work at.

Shelah Crear
And it’s not anything on the institution. The institution is smaller. And so and I’ve been there, you know, for almost 15 years, and I, I wanted her to have the opportunity to be as known or as she chose to be. And I knew that she would not be able to do that, in the context with me. I also knew that it was going to take all of my will to not be I don’t even know if helicopter is the right word, we need something that’s probably more extensive and more. I just am I just I had to be honest with who I am, and I have good self control around all of it. She never really she never really looked closely at my institution. She also, as I mentioned earlier, is interested in theater. And so there wasn’t necessarily Oh, it is an academic fit. But I think it wasn’t even a part of the conversation because she was looking at different types of institutions. So fortunately, we didn’t have to have it. And I didn’t have to really grow and develop as both a professional and a human in managing my own emotions around just all of the the information I would have had access to anecdotally and from from colleagues, so it wasn’t on the table for us.

Glenn DeGuzman
Thanks for sharing that. That was That’s great.

This group, this group right here, you or you guys are funny and wonderful. We collectively have over 100 years plus of professional experience in our in student affairs. So yes, we are old. We, we also because of this experience, know that there are a lot of student affairs services out there it was, you know, they can be at your institution, or they can just be generally everywhere and other institutions. So you know, your child you know, you know, you know them inside out what student affairs service, will you volunteer tell them that they gotta use they gotta utilize, and I’m curious why? Who would like to go first.

Mari Strombom
I’m gonna go first on that one. So we have a wonderful, wonderful program here at Colorado State called key. And it’s provides additional mentoring and support for first year students and there’s a key community for undeclared majors. And when my oldest son Max chose to come to Colorado State, he had no idea what he wanted to study. In fact, at one point, he said, Me Maybe I should go to college because I don’t know what I want to do. And I said, well, that’s kind of what college is for. He said, Maybe I should go to technical school. And said, Okay, what do you want a good technical school for? And he said, I don’t know. And I’m like, well, then you can’t go to school, to go to college. And I really encouraged him to apply to the key explorer program, because there’s a additional mentoring component and they take a class together, that help them explore different majors. And by the end of his first year, he declared a wildlife major, and that was just an incredible resource for him. He’s very introverted. And the other piece I loved about that program is it created that cohort to help him make connections that I think would have been harder for him to make otherwise. So that was my volun-tell for him and now he’s encouraging his younger brother to also look into that program.

Glenn DeGuzman
That’s great. Shelah, Dave?

Shelah Crear
for my daughter, I think it’s more so a particular function, not necessarily department because I think it could live a lot of different places depending on the institution. But for her, you know, I will be really looking for her to find a connection place where people practice complete holistic advising. Because I think that if she can find that, whether that is through a Student Success Office, whether it’s through Multicultural Affairs, whether it’s through academic advising, whether it’s through some type of campus leadership and engagement entity, she’s going to find people professionals who are going to be excellent at diagnosing and triaging and, and I think a lot of times, first year students sort of feel like they’re in the wilderness, trying to navigate all of the new. And so I think having someone that she connects with an office that is used to dealing with students who are trying to figure it out, right, who don’t kind of have all of the answers will be helpful, as she is trying to figure out and make meaning of who she is in this new context. So once she has made a decision on where her home is going to go to be for the next four or five, six years, the next piece will be really looking specifically at the campus resources that practice what seems to be this kind of holistic support, so that she can, you know, have a definite place where I where I say, start here, and they may push you out other places or refer you are connected to other resources, but this is where you can always go to begin.

Dave Ruble
Kind of along the same lines I that that piece, like, I don’t know that I have an answer. Because it really depends, I think of listening, as I’ve listened to Isaac, and I’ve listened to Hannah’s experiences, it’s, it’s trying to steer them in some directions, the biggest thing is just finding a home, like finding a place where you find people, and you’re able to connect, and you find some mentors, and there’s lots of avenues at any university, but I didn’t know here at Western I, I didn’t understand the Counseling Center and the Student Health Center as an undergrad, and really even as a graduate student. So I really have also talked to my kids a lot about, like, utilizing just understanding those services. And, and, and what’s offered there, because there’s so much more than just I just a reactive piece, it’s a lot of the proactive pieces about staying healthy, you know, utilizing the Rec Center, joining an intramural. And then as I said, with Anna, like is the study abroad, like get in and understand the opportunities that are here, because you’re here for such a short amount of time that you don’t want to graduate and not have connected and, and really become more that filled out individual that we were all trying to build in other students. Right. So I want to do that for my own kids too.

Mari Strombom
Yeah. And it makes me think they have to the other piece for me was encouraging my son to join at least one student organization. Yes. Right. I think we all know that the involvement theory and the importance of getting involved and connected and I think that’s another really important thing and all universities offer that right.

Glenn DeGuzman
You know, it’s funny, my when, when my daughter declared like where they want to go. So shout out to CSU Fullerton, Go Titans. It was interesting. My strategy was let’s go on to their website, and let’s kind of peruse, take a look at the different services that were available in you know, knowing what I know, and allowing my daughter to just kind of peruse it, I did the same thing with my son, we were looking at the community college website, right, like looking at the services that are available. And I know that you can see how their personalities and their you know, their their temperaments. Link gravitated to certain things that definitely think they did was look at the clubs and organizations for sure. So they were there. That’s like almost the first thing that sticks out. But to the point that Shelah made it was find that place where you can that triage that home because that’s that’s when when things like you know, the earlier point she made if they start to feel like something’s amiss, or you’re starting to be a little bit underwater, where can you go and know that that that is that is there for you. So that is that’s great to hear all that this podcast is called Student Affairs NOW and I want to close it’s always our last question. And you know, it’s funny because we can always repeat the question and we want it so I’m gonna reframe it a little bit. It’s called Student Affairs NOW, but I want you to close the reflection of your own experiences of parent as a student first practitioner? And specifically, what did you learn from raising a child that you didn’t know before? And you would inform your past professional self before you had kids? So like, what advice would you give to your self before you had kids, and I have Shelah you can kick us off.

Shelah Crear
As a professional, I’ve always been a little bit of a developmental theory junkie, I love it. It’s interesting to me, I think it’s helpful in the work and, and provides context. But I would probably now tell myself, I would inform my past professional self, that, you know, things don’t always go to plan. Don’t always go to plan when you’re parenting. And, you know, I think in my earlier parenting years, I thought that I was there to I thought that I was there to shape a little bit more, and to influence and to steer. But I realized that I’m really there to sort of just guide and to, to help them reflect and to think critically. And to almost like the bumpers when you when you bowl when you’re little right to sort of be there to kind of help them stay back in the lane, right, but the lane is their own. And I think in my mind, I’ve always kind of compartmentalized, right, the developmental theory pieces from the parenting pieces. And at times, you know, seeing them as being overlapping, but neither of them have exact plans, they both have a lot of fluidity to them, right, the developmental theories obviously do and then your students pathway has a lot of fluidity and changes, and they’re evolving and morphing and sometimes showing up differently than you’ve always known them to be, right, as they grow and develop. So I probably would tell young me to have a lot more grace, both with her and with me. But to also recognize that, you know, I’m, I’m not driving the ship, you know, I got to be the architect of my own life, and she’s architecting her life. And that doesn’t always mean that we will be in agreement, but we can always be in support. And we can most importantly, always be in dialogue about, you know, what she’s thinking and feeling, writing and the rationale behind those ideas. So, as we get ready to, you know, t minus three months, four months to, to move in, you know, those are kind of the pieces I’m thinking about. And you know, I’ve had two more coming behind with a little bit of space in between. So, you know, I’m hoping maybe I’ll have it a little bit more figured out by the time we get to get to two and three, I need to consult with you guys that I’m trying to get to in terms of decimal, you know, progress with the kiddos. So we’ll see how it goes. Maybe we should do a recap a year from now. Surviving the first year, right.

Glenn DeGuzman
That is great. Dave, your thoughts?

Dave Ruble
Yeah. So I would say I love Sheila that you said grace, like, my first thought was patience. But grace is so much a part of it. I think, you know, I used to monitor, I used to use recidivism as success. Like if students didn’t repeat mistakes, then that was successful. Like I’ve totally rethought that it’s like, it’s much more like the work we do, the important work we do is really relational. And to get away earlier, the transactional nature of of conduct and Student Care and those things and just how important that relationship is. And and parents have taught me that students have taught me that but probably, you know, and certainly what my wife has taught me that but my kids have taught me that, and I teach the resident directors now is that it’s okay, if students repeat mistakes, even the same mistake, because you’re that first meeting is just setting up the second meeting. Because that second meeting is where magic happens. That’s where you can now dig into things and really have real conversations with students. And it’s the same things with my kids. That’s what I learned with them is, it’s, it’s the second time they do something, it’s the you know, when they they’re a little bit more ready to talk about it. And then, you know, in these cases, I get to be a professional but with my kids, I get to really pay All right, when their walls come down, because the the excuses are different now.

Glenn DeGuzman
So really good. Mari, let’s have you close those out?

Mari Strombom
Sure. I think one of the pieces of advice I would give my younger self would be to be more patient with parents, who are my employees, and who are my colleagues, because being a working parent, is really hard. And I thought I had some understanding of that, before I became a parent, because I have friends who are parents and siblings, I had no freaking clue. Right? And especially the brain fog that is consistent when your children are infants and toddlers and trying to balance everything just isn’t possible, right. And so I think for me, it’s going back to grace of, I’ve learned so much more about how to give grace to my staff who I know are working hard and doing their best, and being pulled in so many directions because a child is sick, and they have this deadline. And all these other things are looming. And so I think I’ve gotten a lot more empathy, and a lot more understanding so that I can hopefully support my staff to be successful and support my colleagues in the same way and extend that grace to them that I sometimes got didn’t always get right when I was a parent of young children. And then even as my children got older, there’s other things that come up. So it’s different than the stressors of having infants and toddlers. But we all go through challenges, right, as we’re growing and learning. And then, as we’ve said before, my first job is being a mom being a parent. And so I need to be there for my family first, and I also need to do a good job. And so, you know, helping my younger self, learn that earlier would have been great.

Glenn DeGuzman
Wow. This was an amazing conversation. And I appreciate each one of you. And thank you, right, so we need to wrap up. I want to thank our guests, Mari, Dave, Shelah, for just joining in what was a fun and very insightful conversation about being a student affairs professional. And first and foremost being a parent. First, I want to thank Nat Ambrosey Again, our production person who behind the scenes takes care of everything about getting all our episodes repaired, transcribed, and just online. And our sponsor of this episode, thank you so much Symplicity. They’re the global leaders in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institution simplicity supports all aspects of student life, including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being student success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and whatever new technology platform pops up in the next couple weeks are our podcast would just not be possible without their support, so please visit their website or visit our website. You can click on the sponsors like there as well. My name is Glenn DeGuzman. I want to thank every one of our listeners or people who who watch us on YouTube. Thank you, and we’ll see you next time. Bye everybody.

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