Episode Description

Rejecting outright the Student Affairs “Legend” title we ascribed to her, Susan Jones joins us to discuss her career as an award-winning professor, prolific author, and valued mentor to many in the profession. Listen in as she shares her hopes and fears for our future and the future of student affairs and higher education. BTW, we stand by our description of Dr. Susan R. Jones as a legend.

Suggested APA Citation

Pope, R. (Host). (2023, April 26). Susan Jones (No. 149) [Audio podcast episode]. In Student Affairs NOW. https://studentaffairsnow.com/susan-jones

Episode Transcript

Susan Jones
Years ago, I think it might have been Harry, Ken, and you talked about student affairs as the moral compass of the campus. And, you know, I think if we spin out some of these legislative proposals, it’s going to significantly limit what folks in student affairs can do, and what we know, is the right thing to do. And not just because it’s a moral compass issue, but because we have years of educational research, and years of people in the trenches doing the work, who know better than politicians about how to create educational environments where all students can be successful.

Raechele Pope
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m Raechele Pope, your host. Today we have planned a special conversation with another student affairs legend Susan R. Jones. Susan is an emeritus professor in the higher education student affairs program at The Ohio State University and prior to rejoining the faculty at Ohio State, she was an Associate Professor and Director of the college student personnel program at the University of Maryland at College Park. She has published a number of books, many of them ubiquitous to our field Student Services, a handbook for the profession, affectionately known as the Green Book, college student development theory using a critical framework using critical frameworks to name just two. She also has more than 28/30 book chapters and just numerous journal articles, mostly in our top tier journals, including the Journal of college student development, and the Journal of higher education. She’s also received many of our professions top awards, including this year’s 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from ACPA. So this should be a great conversation. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays and 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 that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Raechele Pope. My pronouns are she her hers, and I’m broadcasting from Williamsville, New York near the campus of the University of Buffalo where I serve as the Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs and the unit Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education. I’m also a professor in the higher education program. And the University of Buffalo is situated on the unseeded ancestral homeland. Susan let’s get to you. I am so grateful for you joining us today. And I’m so ready for this conversation. Now, I know that you were rather reluctant to join us on Student Affairs NOW because we were going to talk about you and your career. And especially as we place you in one of our student affairs legends episode, I know that you’re uncomfortable with that label. But so many of your faculty colleagues and students, and both seasoned practitioners and those who are just entering the field see you as just that, a legend. They, we want to know more about your journey and learn from you and your experience. We’ve all been reading your words for years, and now we’d like to hear them. So let’s just begin by hearing a little bit about your career, your journey, your leadership, and essentially just tell us about you. So spend a little bit of time, tell us about how you got to the positions that you eventually ended up in and then ended up leaving

Susan Jones
Great, it’s a great chapter. Thank you very much for having me. It’s a privilege to be with you today. And I’m looking forward to our conversation. Um, let’s see, I you know, I probably started on this journey like others, which was somewhat unintentionally, I had no idea that I could be an RA for life. After being an RA in my undergraduate years and thriving in that role. I went to a liberal arts institution in upstate New York, I fought going to that institution because the guidance counselor at my high school said it would be the best place for me. And so that was a surefire indication that I should not go there. But Darn it, she turned out to be right. And I thrived. Intellectually, I was a student athlete, and I was an RA. And this will date me, but maybe that’s why I’m a legend, because I’m still around long enough to recall that there are deans of men and women at a point in our history, and it was the Dean of Women at St. Lawrence, who said to me, you know, you’re really good in this role. And have you thought about graduate school, which of course I hadn’t. But I went to the University of Vermont for my master’s program. And again to Distinguished myself by working at Ben and Jerry’s at as one of the original ice cream makers and would go to my master’s classes with my Ben and Jerry’s t shirt with ice cream all over it. But I also again encountered incredible mentors, like Jackie Gibbons and Gil Carnegie, who nurtured me and my little bit of a rebellious spirit. And, in many ways paved the way for me to begin to think about the kinds of contributions I might make to Student Affairs. So after I got my master’s, I spent 10 years working as a student affairs practitioner before beginning my PhD I was I started out in Residence Life, I still believe that anyone who works in Residence Life has gained experience in the microcosm of the entire university, and that it’s absolutely invaluable training, whether you stay in Residence Life or not. So I started out there. And then I went to a small liberal arts college in Burlington, Vermont, and held just about every role that there was in student affairs. When you’re in a really small college, you wear many, many hats. And when the President realized that there were things I could do, then she would just pass that off to me, which included being the tennis coach for a period of time. But again, outstanding training. And I, when I look back, I think my experiences in liberal arts institutions really shaped who I became as a teacher, what I valued in educational environments, the importance of creating community, and so on, I then decided that it was time to pursue my PhD because I thought I was going to be a vice president for student affairs, and I went to the University of Maryland, where I once again encountered amazing people. It was like after working for 10 years in the field at most recently, as the Dean of Students, when I went on to start my PhD. It being in my PhD program was like being on an intellectual vacation. It was incredible. You know, when my phone rang, I didn’t have to worry that it was the president of the police or someone’s parents. So I thoroughly embraced that opportunity. And originally thought I was going to run in, get my degree and run run back out into the field of practice. But because of the people with whom I worked at Maryland, I began to think about what it might mean to be a faculty member. And so I began my faculty career after then 14 years after my master’s program with a good amount of professional experience and went to Ohio State where I was a faculty member, but I also was the director of the Student Personnel Assistantship program that’s finally referred to as the spa program. And no, there are no pedicures or manicures offered. But there are so many incredibly loyal spa, alums, I think, you know, one very well for Shell. And it was really an honor to, to direct to that program. So I had somewhat of a unique faculty role initially, which was I had some pretty significant administrative experience. And I was in the classroom teaching and advising, what that administrative experience required of me was, because I was overseeing all the assistantships, I needed to develop and maintain really strong relationships with the student affairs folks that Ohio State. So I, I felt like that really helped me keep my keep in touch with the realities of, of student affairs practice. And I think that ultimately made me a better teacher, that when I was in the classroom, and students were asking, like, what are the applications to practice of this theory or that theory that I could draw from the realities of campus Ohio State life to try to make those connections. I went back to the University of Maryland for five years, and then returned to house state. So I’ve really just been to Ohio State Maryland, back and forth, back and forth. And then as you alluded to, I retired from Ohio State. It’s been two years now. Hard to believe. Yeah, very hard to believe. Um, so I think those are the high points just in terms of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.

Raechele Pope
Well, you know, it’s amazing with me even knowing that journey, you know, but there are, I think there’s some parts that you left out. This is a one of the ways in which people know you is through your writing. And there are a lot of people who write there are a lot of people who are professors who write the pieces that you wrote, and that you’ve contributed to are so deeply ingrained in our profession, how did you move from being this really solid administrator to getting a PhD thinking you were going to be a vice president of student affairs, or whatever, and moving into this scholar role, that you have certainly, you know, held that mantle quite well, and, you know, what do you what do you think was that what moved you into understanding that part of the faculty roles? So well?

Susan Jones
Let me answer that in two ways. Because I think, understanding that part of the faculty role, actually took me a while to figure out, but the first way I would answer it is that I have always loved to write. As a young child, as a, as a kid, I loved to write, and I expressed myself through my writing, I was very much of an introvert. Some people find that hard to believe. But I, I found a lot of joy and sort of sense making about my own, who I was and who I was becoming through writing. And I had really good English teachers in high school. In fact, I still have the paper that I wrote, In eighth grade, where I got an A slash F. And the teacher wrote, A for content F for way too many comments. So you know, to this day, I still think about when I put a comma in a paper. So the writing part of it felt like coming home, for me, expressing myself the working out of ideas, and solving problems, felt very natural to me. And again, at Maryland, I had an amazing group of faculty with whom I learned and who supported my engaging new, maybe new ideas for the field newer ideas. When I first went to Maryland, I started taking Women’s Studies classes and had a class on race, class and gender with Bonnie Ford so I was like putting sociological ideas together with students development. And, you know, no one said to me, like, yeah, no, those don’t work. Those aren’t meant to be you can’t put developmental theory with black feminist thought you can’t put those things together. No one said that to me. So the writing part of it, always, I, I love to write, I have always loved to write. And I loved that I got to write as part of my job. The politics of faculty life, or what it meant to be successful as a faculty member, took me some time. And at the risk of being, you know, very blunt. When I first became a tenured faculty member, I had this realization one day that you know, in student affairs practice, you need to develop relationships with people to be successful, and you need to kind of get along with people to be successful, you need to work with others to be successful. You can be a really successful faculty member without being nice or without getting to know any of your colleagues and working in a very insular, isolated environment. And that was not me at all. And so I had to figure out a way that I could be successful in that environment. While staying true to who I was. Now, I think the benefit of having the years of experience that I had prior to getting on the tenure track was that I could say, Hey, I am good at some other things too. Okay, so if this tenure thing doesn’t work out, I can return to being an administrator, which I didn’t not like, I just kind of found my way into, into faculty life. So, you know, even though, you noted that, I’ve been prolific in my publications, I actually think of myself as somebody who was slower in my production of, of writing, I was never somebody who, and maybe it was because most of my research was qualitative in nature. But, you know, I was never somebody who was just like churning out pieces. Because I knew people were going to count the number of publications that I had, when I went up for tenure. I just wanted to do the research and write the articles that were meaningful to me, for whatever reason, and also that I hoped stood some chance of making an influence on on the field in important ways.

Raechele Pope
yeah. You know, that makes so much sense and resonates so much with me so much of what you said. But the one thing that I think we might want to clarify for some of the folks who weren’t around at the time, when it was a surprise to you, or not a surprise, but it was that no one said to you, oh, you can’t bring Black Studies or women’s studies into this work of Student Affairs, that there was a time when there was when looking at issues of, of race, and gender, and all those kinds of things. The things that we see if so central right now, we’re not easily brought in, were not considered part of the core curriculum. And so I know that we would have some students on here listening or some early professionals who weren’t part of that, who didn’t know that, and that we were really pushing boundaries to say, you know, this belongs here, and we can’t understand the experiences of students without looking at these other areas.

Susan Jones
Yeah, yeah, I think you’re absolutely right, that, you know, probably when you and I went through our master’s programs, we learned about Perry and Chickering. And Carol Gilligan, and maybe we were released when I went through my master’s program, Bill Krause, and Janet Helms, the folks who, soon, like the next move, I think, you know, they were, they hadn’t published yet when I was in my master’s program. But even when they were publishing, we weren’t bringing, at least in my, my view, we weren’t putting into conversation with with one another, but black racial identity theories with Student Development theories, right. And so, you know, many of us learn those sort of discrete bodies of knowledge. And, you know, as, as I know, you’re aware, my dissertation really asked the question, globally, like, what happens if we do put them into conversation with one another? What what might identity look like, if you take into account race and social class and religion and sexual identity? And, you know, once again, I was very fortunate to have a dissertation advisor who said, Yeah, go for it, like, let’s pursue this. But we, you know, we had tend to view things in more discreet ways. Whereas, you know, now, I think we may even have lost some of the earlier ways of approaching student development. And think, of course, you know, you have to look at these things altogether.

Raechele Pope
Right. But you know, for me, and I think we’ve had this conversation that my issue with that is, I think that’s wonderful what we’re doing now looking at it all, but I believe that our focus on student development theories, is only now focusing on identity theory. To some degree, we’re forgetting to look at the cognitive development how, you know, we haven’t done enough work there to say, what are the differences? How is this connected here or for some of the other what Bob Rogers used to refer to as the families of thought, right, so, right, but, you know, that’s a whole conversation for another episode, which we probably shouldn’t do on student development. What is it? Where’s it going? You know, and all of that. So I listened to you talk about how you came up in the field I listened to you talk about your surprise that this was actually a field that one could stay in, and all of that, and your, your teaching and your scholarship. And so I have to go back to this original thing that you’ve been so uncomfortable with the the moniker of legend in student affairs. And I guess I wanted to know what this legend mean to you. And if not you who who are those legends in the field? Who would you consider? And I just want you to know, we have a very broad definition of legend people. Different, you know, you got a Lifetime Achievement Award. Now, that’s not the reason you’re here because of the Lifetime Achievement Award, but because of this lifelong, a service to this profession.

Susan Jones
Yeah, well, I appreciate it. And I don’t want to, you know, dismiss the, the honor really, of being identified as a legend, you know, I guess maybe it’s as simple as, I don’t think people should identify themselves as legends, I think other people should identity, sort of how I feel about allies, like I don’t think I should, like, put myself out there as like, I am the greatest ally, I think other people should be the judge of that. I do hope and that I have made a contribution. I mean, I think I grew up in a way where I was educated to believe that that’s what you do is you try to make the world a better place for for others. And so I do appreciate that I have been able to introduce some, which probably now aren’t viewed as new ideas. But at the time, I was able to introduce some new ideas to the field, I was able to, perhaps promote some conversations that weren’t happening. Prior. I know, at Maryland, I was one of the first doctoral students to do a qualitative study. So again, I kind of grew up in this environment where if it’s not statistical analysis, it’s not a value. And I think I was able to show other faculty colleagues that the worthiness of qualitative research. So you know, in many ways, the questions that I pursued starting with my dissertation were questions that I had for myself. So I am a firm believer in comment that she made so many years ago that all research is autobiographical, right? You know, I I pursued this question about multiple identities, because I didn’t see myself in the theories that I was studying in my master’s program. And then again, I was just in this great intellectual environment at Maryland, where I could go and take classes from somebody like Bonnie Thornhill or Patricia Hill Collins. So I have just been very fortunate that I’ve been surrounded by people who encouraged me to bring these ideas forward.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, I think that’s an amazing thing that our profession does is it says, Well, I love you know, one of my colleagues asked this question all the time, he doesn’t ask our students, what do you want to do? Or what area? Are you interested in? What functional area he says? What difference do you want to make? And so I just love that question that that’s what this profession is about, what’s the difference we want to make? And how do we make it? So speaking of difference, who is that someone or someone’s, you know, put as many people out as you want, who made a profound difference for you in this field?

Susan Jones
Well, I guess, not to rerun my biography, but I had parents who valued education above almost all education and family. And so I was very fortunate to be in great educational environments my entire life. I mentioned the Dean of Women, Jenny Schwartz at St. Lawrence. I learned so much from her. And as I mentioned, that was encouraged. I think in terms of my career, the person that had a huge influence influence on me was my dissertation advisor, Dr. Mary Lou McEwen. She was the one at Maryland who turned the corner on what got taught in student development theory classes. And I think, you know, she made a huge contribution to our field. In doing that, and many people emulated her work in that regard. She, as I mentioned them, and she completely supported my foray into this idea of multiple identities. One quick, funny story, when I was taking my doctoral comprehensive exams, we have a question that addresses what you say your dissertation focus will be. And the question that she gave me was about multiple factors of identity. And I sat in that room, I don’t know, it felt like for hours, like factors, what in the world like this is not a factor analysis? Like what does she mean by factors? So I, you know, I probably had like a little mini meltdown, talk to myself wrote my response. And then I submitted my first chapter to her on multiple factors of identity. And she writes back this comment, what do you mean by factors? Oh, my gosh. I’m like, Okay, now I see how this is gonna go. But there’s no doubt in my mind that I would not be who I am as a faculty member, I would not have kind of gotten started writing and publishing, if it were not for her mentoring and encouragement and support.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, yeah. Mary Lou is, you know, another one that we should have on here is a legend. You know,

Susan Jones
she is a legend. She is a legend. I’m a mini legend compared to

Raechele Pope
we stand on the on the shoulders. Absolutely. Right. So yeah. Okay, so you’ve, we’ve talked about how you’ve retired that for two years. And that blows me away, because it still feels like this is your first semester, you’re retired. But we’ve talked about this. And when you look at this long arc of your career, what’s something that’s important that you don’t want to get lost in our work? Or in our profession?

Susan Jones
Hmm. You know, as you know, I, I am a bit of a history buff in the sense that I think we have to pay attention to history, you know, we have to learn from the mistakes of history, we have to understand history in order to understand what’s happening now, and, and how to move forward. And I’ve been thinking lately about. And I guess I should also say that, you know, most of my research has been about college students less about the institutional environment, although they’re related. So I, you know, I’ve been thinking about the beginning of our profession, and then historical commitment to the whole student, right? And what that means now, what that looks like, now, what, what setting students up for success looks like now, you know, we used to always say you have to meet students where they are like, what does that mean now? And if we think about this, from a theoretical perspective, which again, was where my head was a lot, you know, we kind of started with this whole student, with the assumption that if we knew some things, we could generalize it to everybody, and it fit for all students. And then we sort of took the student apart, and looked at them discreetly in terms of cognitive development, and psychosocial and racial identity. And then we have sort of theoretically put the student back together again, if you will, with looking at social identities. Self authorship, some might argue, is a holistic theory. And I worry that given what’s happening institutionally, what’s happening in terms of external influences on institutions of higher education, that we are losing sight of this commitment to the whole student, and how that ought to be driving, policies, practices, areas of emphasis In terms of institutional goals and outcomes,

Raechele Pope
yeah. I think about the external forces, the internal forces, what we we don’t know enough about, and instead of racing towards what we don’t know enough about to learn that there is this hesitation to move forward. But we have some amazing guiding documents. Y Time to go back to and remember, I think about the student personnel point of view right. Now, you know, you know, I think Denny said it in his Denny Roberts said it in his interview that we did with him that, you know, the document has some dated language in it, you know, even talking about student personnel, people aren’t real clear on what that means. But if we could just move past some of that, it does return us to that, which was most important. The Student Yeah, yeah. Our attempts to provide spaces for students to learn, grow and develop. So yeah, I think that that would be really powerful. What do you think’s ahead for us in the profession? Were are the places you have hope for us. And we’re those places where you have some fear around the profession in particular, and more so than higher ed, but you know, the Student Affairs profession?

Susan Jones
Um, I let me start with fears, I guess. And I guess since I’m retired, I just can say things more boldly than I might have said, or, you know, I would I really worry that some of these external influences on higher education, like governors, picking presidents and boards of trustees and reviewing curriculum is going to take us away from this commitment to, but what we, what I think people in student affairs believe is the core mission of higher education. I think it could unravel years of work that folks in student affairs have been doing. I’m thinking particularly, I mean, years ago, I think it might have been Harry, Ken, and you talked about student affairs as the moral campus, I mean, the moral compass of the campus. And, you know, I think if we spin out some of these legislative proposals, it’s going to significantly limit what folks in student affairs can do, and what we know, is the right thing to do. And not just because it’s a moral compass issue, but because we have years of educational research, and years of people in the trenches doing the work, who know better than politicians about how to create educational environments where all students can be successful. I, you know, I think COVID was a are is a game changer for higher education, I don’t know that higher education will ever be the same as it was. And in some ways, maybe that’s a good thing. But I think that if student affairs folks were feeling tired before COVID, they’re completely exhausted. Now, the whole, doing less is more mantra is, you know, people are gonna get tapped out. And I think we do see that in our profession, that people are leaving the profession. So, you know, I guess I just worry that policies and practices are going to be promoted and driven by people who don’t have the knowledge that we do.

Raechele Pope
That’s right. driven from these personal opinions, or, or, or what they see as moral and right. And I love that you added that. Wait a minute, it’s not just because we think it’s more of a right. It’s what our research is telling us. Our research has shown us that this is what makes a difference. These are the ways in which folks that that environment are created so that students can learn that’s all students, not the ones who don’t need us to begin with to learn, right?

Susan Jones
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we are the experts. And we need to think about think about ourselves that way. And this is not a new problem. I mean, I think as long as I’ve been in the field, I think Student Affairs on many campuses has Been trying to demonstrate to the rest of the campus that we are professionals that we’re trained, we’re educated, there’s a knowledge base that undergirds our practice. And I think that’s still going on. And that student affairs academic affairs divide, I think still exists. You know, I see on campuses, now, Academic Affairs, taking on what had been the purview of Student Affairs, which

Raechele Pope
had been the purview of academic affairs 100 years ago.

Susan Jones
Yeah. So you and I have had this conversation, like, is this new? Or is this like the next iteration of what we’ve experienced before? And I’ve been thinking about that. And I think it’s both and like, I think there are some new things, I don’t think any of us have been through something like a COVID before. And I think some of these problems or challenges have been around for a long time, and they’ve been ramped up because of COVID. Right?

Raechele Pope
Because of COVID. And the, the parallel, maybe they’re connected pandemic, or the the newer version of the racial reckoning that we’re in the midst right now. And them happening together in such big, profound and prolific ways, I think are making a difference.

Susan Jones
Yeah. And I think both of those are impacted by these politically driven agendas that are coming at institutions from outside.

Raechele Pope
Yep, you’re right. Yeah, I agree with you there. You know, I was thinking about, you know, we started off by mentioning some of the things and reminding, or at least explaining for people who are newer to the field that Oh, it didn’t exist this way before, or? Yeah, you wouldn’t believe it. But this is how we used to teach this or how. And I’m wondering, you know, again, you’ve been in the field for a while I’ve been right behind you. What are some of the most significant changes that you’ve seen in higher ed or in student affairs over the course of your career? What are some of those things that stand out for you?

Susan Jones
Ah, well, I mean, so I’ve mentioned COVID, that definitely, I was, you know, my very last semester teaching was 20, spring semester of 2020. So I thought I was gonna get through my academic career without ever having to teach online. And I didn’t make it. But I think that relates to maybe I think, I would say this, the biggest change has got to be technology. Yeah. You know, if I go way back, the way that you would solve problems, or communicate with others on campus is that you would type them a memo and put it in campus mail. Or maybe you would pick up the phone and call them. Or if it was really important, you would wander down to their office. You know, just from a communication standpoint, I think technology has changed so much. I think technology and social media have changed so much. In terms of the lives of our students. I think several people have written about this now that students coming to our campuses, expect from campuses, what they can get via their smartphones, music, food, entertainment, relationships. And that, that, that has changed the interpersonal dynamic on campuses, I think. And then I the whole question of virtual learning. And, you know, I think the pandemic showed us that online learning does not mean zoom, that you you teach via zoom, that there’s so much more involved with creating active learning environments via technology and different and different platforms. So I don’t think that’s going to go away. And hopefully, hopefully, hope, hopefully, we can, you know, in the best that technology has to offer. Without my opinion, turning everything over to a virtual campus.

Raechele Pope
Right. Right. You know, the plus is about technology I get to, you know, when I think about listening to music, I get to listen to the kind of music I want, when I want to listen to it. The downside of that is that we have a much more fragmented shared experience. Rap music, I mean, I remember the days of driving down with the in your car with the windows rolled down, you’re listening to the station, the person next to you is listening, you’re both singing together, right? That’s the shared experience, that was a shared experience. And we all knew what the top songs were, you know, and, and, now, it’s so different. So I think education is that way, if I get everything from my phone, you know, my advising my, this my this, you know, like, because I can read it myself, my experience on the campus is different than the student next to me. And so we’ve got to figure out some way of being able to harness that technology in such a way that we have enough of it’s shared, so that we were still together and in community, I think that changes a lot. So yeah, you know, I have to tell you, you know, we are we are winding down in terms of our time, you know, we’re just about out of time for this podcast. So I’m wondering, is there anything else that you’d like to offer anything else that you’d like to say perhaps something that, that you’ve been thinking about, or, or that’s troubling to you or pondering? I know, we hit on a couple of those. But I want to see if there’s anything else that

Susan Jones
I think I probably lead with fear more than hope. So maybe I want to end by saying that I have always believed and I continue to believe that the folks who go into student affairs are are people who want to make a difference on college campuses and want to make a difference in the lives of students. And that those are the people often when somebody looks back on their college experience, it’s those student affairs educators, that they identify as making a difference in their lives, and that I have a lot of hope for the future, when I think about the values and the commitments of our field, and the people who enter the field. And that’s not to say that we don’t have more work to do. And, you know, particularly like putting into practice what we what we know. But I went to all my years of teaching, I would always end my classes thinking I have hope for the future. Because the students in my classes are bright, they’re inquisitive. They’re asking good questions. They want to make a difference.

Raechele Pope
Yeah. Yeah, I do love ending on that hope. Because that’s true. It’s true. At the end of every semester, it’s A to F at the end of every year and it’s true at the beginning of the year. We’re just starting out and we see it so yeah, this has been terrific. You know, I’m really want to thank you for sharing about yourself, sharing your thoughts with us, and your contributions. And I really appreciate you doing it knowing that it wasn’t your ideal goal. You tried to talk me out of it so many different ways, but I appreciate you being here. Yeah, that is me persistence. I want to also thank our sponsor of today’s episode Symplicity. Symplicity is the global leader in student affairs service 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 Symplicity supports all aspects of student life, including but not limited to, Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being students success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Hey, a huge shout out to our producer Natalie Ambrosey. Who does all of the bus hind the scenes work to make us look and sound good. And if you found today’s content useful, please let us know by giving us a far five star rating or write a review on iTunes. This really helps us I’m Raechele Pope. Thanks again to Susan Jones and to everyone who’s watching or listening. Hey, look, make the rest of this a great week.

Panelists

Susan R. Jones

Dr. Susan R. Jones is professor emerita at The Ohio State University and formerly an associate professor and director of the college student personnel program at the University of Maryland. With nearly 40 years of experience in higher education and student affairs she is prolific author and contributor to the field on topics such as psychosocial perspectives on identity, intersectionality, social identities, service-learning, and qualitative research methodologies. Jones is the recipient of a number of awards including ACPA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Contribution to Knowledge Award, Senior Scholar, and Emerging Scholar; the Thomas M. Magoon Distinguished Alumni Award and the Outstanding Scholar Award, both from the University of Maryland; NASPA’s Robert H. Shaffer Award for Academic Excellence as a Graduate Faculty Member; and The Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. 

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Raechele Pope

Raechele (she/her/hers) is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Student Affairs and the Chief Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo. She is also an Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs. Her scholarship interests and publications generally rely on a social and organizational analysis of equity, access, inclusion, justice, and engagement. Through an inclusive theory, practice, and advocacy lens, she examines the necessary concrete strategies, competencies, and practices to create and maintain multicultural campus environments. Her scholarship has challenged and transformed (a) how the field defines professional competence and efficacious practice, (b) the nature of traditional planned change strategies in student affairs, and (c) the relevance of student development theories and practices for minoritized students. Raechele is the lead author for both Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs: Advancing Social Justice and Inclusion (2019) and Creating Multicultural Change on Campus (2014)In addition, she is a co-editor of Why Aren’t We There Yet? Taking Personal Responsibility for Creating an Inclusive Campus. She is a recipient of the ACPA Contribution to Knowledge Award, an ACPA Senior Scholar Diplomate, a recipient of the NASPA Robert H. Shaffer Award for Academic Excellence as a Graduate Faculty Member, and a former NASPA Faculty Fellow.

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