Jason Pina
Throughout my career, I’ve worked with really smart people, and it’s not just they’re not just smart about the work with students, they actually could be helpful in conversation on how to run a university. So trying to figure out, how do we get some of our professionals in conversations that don’t necessarily they’re not at the table because of the student expert. They’re at the table because they’re smart community members. You know, because we talk a lot about, at least in my 30 years about how to be more legitimate to the academy and to have more respect and these types of things. And I think one of the avenues is to get us at tables where we’re just smart community members that can help make a difference in those conversations. We’re not just a student person, because we’re always be asked at the student piece.

Keith Edwards
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host. Keith Edwards, today, I’m joined by Drs. Jason Pina and Amy Hecht, who are the editors of a new book The next act. This book explores a variety of student affairs career possibilities and shifts they have brought together so many different perspectives from senior student affairs professionals on many different paths. I’m really excited for this conversation. Student Affairs now is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browser 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. This episode is also sponsored by Routledge Taylor and Francis view their complete catalog of education titles at routledge.com/education as I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he, him his. I’m a speaker, author and coach, and I help higher ed Empower better tomorrows through leadership, learning and equity. Can find out more about me at keithedwards.com and I’m recording this for my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. Amy and Jason, thank you so much for joining us and for being here. Love for you each to introduce yourselves a little bit. And Amy, we’re going to start with you.

Amy Hecht
Well, hi, I’m Amy Hecht, and right now I serve as the Vice President for Student Affairs at Florida State University. I have been here. It’s actually my undergraduate alma mater now for seven years as the Vice President, but I’ve worked in the northeast and kind of around the country. Never thought I’d come back to my alma mater, but, but here I am. I use she her pronouns and Keith, thank you for reaching out. Jason and I are I know we’re excited to be here. Yeah.

Jason Pina
Hi everyone, and hi Keith, and great to see you again as always. Amy, my name is Jason Pina, I use he is him pronouns, and currently serve as the Senior Vice President for University Life at New York University. I just celebrated my four year anniversary last weekend, so moved to New York, pre vaccine COVID, and I’m still here. Alright? I’ve spent 30 years in higher education as a professional, and spent most of that in New England, specifically in schools in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with a four year stint at Ohio University before moving to New York. So I’m glad to be here and share some of what we learned and the trials and tribulations of putting together a book.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Well, tell us how this came to be. Jason, it sounds like this was Amy said this was your brain child. So tell us about what sort of was the instigator for this and how this came to be.

Jason Pina
Well, I actually had to look this up. And on February 28 2022 I was having lunch at my desk. I do not recommend that you should go out and have lunch with friends and colleagues. And at 12:38pm, I wrote an email to Amy. I said I got an idea for a book. The reason why I wrote Amy is that a long time ago, Amy and I made a pact with each other that if we had an idea of what we could contribute to the profession, whether it was a presentation or a book or something like that, that we would give each other the first right of refusal of actually getting involved in that. So we did that with our first book together, and as soon as I came up with this idea, I wrote her email. The title was in the email, and my mindset was really around people navigating the career. I was really thinking about only higher education, specifically Student Affairs. And I think after a few emails back and forth, I’ll let Amy talk a little bit about how we brought in that scope, because I think that was really her brainchild, to make sure that we were looking broader than just Student Affairs.

Amy Hecht
And so what Jason caught? Like, when Jason calls you, always like, say, Yes, right? I’m like, Yes, of course, Jason, okay. Now, what are we going to do? So we were on the heels of COVID. If you remember, we were all coming back. We were losing staff, left and right, and it was what’s going to happen in the future of Student Affairs, higher education, and it kind of evolved, and the timing, like for me personally, was really interesting, because we’re sitting through COVID I’m in Florida, navigating work from home as a vice president, trying to create a sense of community with students. And I’m starting to think, is this what I want to continue to do? And I for better or worse, because I still have, you know, I’m much younger than Jason, so I still have, I can’t quite retire when he does. So I. I still have some time to work. And I thought, I don’t know if I could do this for another 25 years. Another 20 years, do I am I going to have the energy? And of course, for many of us, during COVID, you’re dealing with lot of emotion of your students, of your staff. And so I was starting to wonder, what’s next? Like, what do I want to do? Personally, I’ve always been someone who as I’m going to do this, and then I’m going to do this, and I always have goals, and it was, at least for me, Jason, I think we’ve talked about this. This is all I’ve done. You know, I graduated from undergrad and started working for a national sorority, and then went to grad school and went into Student Affairs, and I don’t know corporate world, I what and what else can I do? I’ve spent a lot of money on my education, and I’ve spent a lot of time in this field. What am I personally going to do when I am burnt out, maybe from being a vice president of student affairs, or I’m no longer in love with doing this work? And I think a lot of people felt that way. I know Jason and I are like, Yeah, this job is not the job it was 15/20, years ago, and the issues are just it’s almost night and day by some of the topics and things we’ve learned through our careers. So I think it was really time, timely for us to just interview people who have parlayed their mostly Student Affairs experience into something new and different. So that was exciting to me, too, as somebody, for many people in our fields, they’ve not only spent their entire careers in higher ed or in student affairs, but we’re also seeing students not want to go get a higher ed degree. And you know, because I can only work in a university, what if I don’t want to, so that that also kind of ties into the the industry as well.

Keith Edwards
So, Jason, you said the title was in the email. Was the next act. The title from the very beginning,

Jason Pina
yes, yeah, it

Keith Edwards
was the next act that never happens. You had it from the very beginning.

Jason Pina
The only change was originally it was going to be key decisions for a thriving career. And our editor kind of had us talk a little bit, you know, just change a little bit, make it a little bit broader, about realignment and purpose. So, yeah, I don’t know it just, it just popped in my head. I’m not creative, so I don’t know where it came from, but I knew I had to write that email while I was probably having a turkey sandwich before I forgot.

Amy Hecht
And it sounds like genius.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, you sound like those songwriters that say, you know, some of the songs I write and some songs I don’t know who wrote it, it just came through me. So the next act was right there. Jason mentioned, Amy, that you really helped broaden the scope of this. Tell us about that

Amy Hecht
was we were talking the like the whole book kind of evolved about, you know, really was born out of COVID and dealing with burnt out staff and recruiting and dealing with things we’ve never had to deal with before. What does virtual work look like in a field that’s always been brick and mortar and somewhat evolved into what could people do if they don’t want not everyone wants to be a vice president Student Affairs, not everyone wants to move into administration. But what do you do with this knowledge, this degree, and continue to have, like, work satisfaction? So it kind of expanded, and we started brainstorming, who are all the wonderful people we know that aren’t, aren’t vice presidents of Student Affairs any longer, or have really interesting careers that were like, how did, how did that happen for them? And they’ve parlayed their, you know, master’s degrees in higher ed or or their PhDs into something totally different. So it evolved into that. And we also wanted to be somewhat evergreen, so we debated talking about COVID in the book. I mean, hopefully we can forget that, right, once in a lifetime pandemic, but what we’ve learned from it has changed our industry and all industries, right? Of like, what, what we have to do. But we kind of started with a COVID. You know, we were both experiencing challenges, personally and professionally in like, the aftermath of COVID, coming back pay wasn’t right. You know, we were competing with industries that are much more flexible than our institutions, and so from a management perspective, it was, yeah, we need to focus on our staff. But I think as we started working through it, we’re like, well, we’re having some issues too, and maybe we’re all not as satisfied with being the vice presidents of student affairs as well. So yeah,

Keith Edwards
well, I really love the variety. I mean, as you look at the chapters, there’s, there’s every and it’s, really is about the transitions at the senior level, right? This is not about the entry level or this is really about transitions senior level. But there’s 14 different chapters here, so there’s a lot from. From leaving higher ed to leaving higher ed and returning to higher ed, to moving to faculty, to staying at the same institution in the same role for decades. So many different aspects about this, I’d love to hear from both of you about the variety of different possible transitions and shifts and what that opened up for you.

Jason Pina
You know, I think for me, what was interesting is that when you look at the authors, and we had 32 contributors in total, so we may not list all of them during this podcast, but they’re there. None of them have a career path similar to Amy or myself. And I think some of that was by design, and some of that is just the way it worked out. And a lot of these folks, their transitions happen during the same period of time, like they, you know, and Amy and I, and I’ll speak for Amy for a moment, we’re curious people like, you know, we do ask the questions, why are you doing that? Or why did you go to that school, or why are you living in that country? So we had to list of people in our universes that we were always curious about how they did the job they did, and even folks at stated institutions for 2030, plus years, because neither one of us has done that either,

Keith Edwards
and not yet. Pardon, not yet. Not

Jason Pina
yet. No, no. No, 30 years. So I think that’s really kind of where we started brainstorming these different types of folks to approach. And I will just highlight one author, because Amy Hammond, who wrote our last chapter, she actually finished a dissertation around this period of time, and I was on her dissertation committee. We went to undergrad together at Occidental College, so going on that journey with her and having her really research mid level folks. Because I know Keith, you mentioned that a lot of these folks are senior people, but some of their main transitions out of Student Affairs actually happened at the mid level. So it was a great opportunity to get some more recent research of the specifically the Cal State mid level professionals, into a book when the research is fresh. So that was another reason why we looked a little broader than maybe we would have,

Keith Edwards
yeah, and that last chapter is values as a framework for career alignment. And then the chapter right before that are five presidents talking about the transition to President. So we’re really getting a broad perspective. Amy, what do you want to highlight here?

Amy Hecht
Well, I also think like, not only is it you know, what happens when you’re an AVP, VP, what’s next, but I think many of us, Jason, I know you know, when we’re at conferences or you’re at work, we hear from grad students who are like, I want to be the vice president of student affairs, and there are many of them, and roughly only 4000 vice presidents, right? Only one on every campus. And not all of us are going to get there, and some of us, we get, the closer you get, you realize that is not what I thought it was, and what it was 20 years ago is not what it is today. So what do you do with all of this as a career? And you know, you’re not really qualified in some ways to go corporate, or, you know, you you don’t want to invest in another degree at that point. And it’s like, what? What could I do if I am on this track and all of a sudden my life changes in some way, or what I want in life changes. Now, what do I do? And there’s, you know, I like the the going global chapter, because I have this dream of living in another country and being there, and I’m, you know, with two young children. And I don’t know when and if that would happen, but some point, I’m really interested in that, and again, grew up professionally in student affairs, and what does that look like in another country? Because we know American institutions and the Student Affairs industry is unique, and often uniquely American, although Jason gets to dabble in global at NYU, and I’m inserting myself at FSU, but they’re American institutions abroad, not a completely different country’s higher education program. So I think that was, that was really interesting too, because we got to explore and know, like, Okay, I’m not doing that. I know, you know, Jason says, I’m not staying 30 years at one institution. And I’m fascinated by people that have been able to weather presidential transitions changes, you know. Pat Whiteley, one of our authors, I had been a fan for her, of hers, you know, and now I consider her a friend and mentor, and she her story, or professional story, starting in Residence Life as like an RD at the University of Miami to now being the vice president of student affairs, and she just took on like alumni engagement. That’s incredible, and not too many people have that opportunity and are able to. To deal with a culture and what changes politically and pivot the way she has and she’s just a genius at that.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, and you’ve got, she wrote with four other vice presidents who’ve been at long term shifting roles within the same institution. Another chapter on changing institution type, Karen Warren Coleman writing about moving to PK through 12, that transition shifting to faculty roles, there’s just so many possibilities. So you

Amy Hecht
know when I went back and forth with Karen. So Karen and Jason and I know each other from way back when we were AVPs, and we approached NASPA collectively and said, Hey, we we’re not senior student affairs officers yet, but we’re also not made managers. We need something. And the AVP initiative at NASPA was born out of that. And I joke that Karen and Jason, they all went on to be vice presidents, and I was the last woman standing as an AVP so my my consolation prize was getting to lead the AVP initiative and but I watched Karen move from University of Chicago, where she was the VP of Student Affairs, to an all girls, K through 12, Head of School. And there’s a like her narrative and what she shared, it’s fascinating. You’re dealing with parents in a different way, but you’ve got housing, you’ve got mental health, you’ve got the development of young people. And her perspective. I’m like, you actually make this sound really interesting and exciting. And she goes, it is. And there’s, there’s more of us, and you know, we don’t know too many more that have made it from student affairs to head of school, but there is a lot of similarities, especially when you get to boarding school style. And I found that really interesting. And then the chapter actually shared it with a friend who was thinking of going to become a consultant. And I said, Hey, I have a draft. You should read this, and I’ll introduce you to the authors if you want to go higher at adjacent become a consultant. Aaron Hoffman, Harding and Anna Rossetti wrote that chapter, and they both were in student affairs and are now. One was was at McKinsey, and the other one, and is at Huron, and it was really interesting to see what is similar and what’s different, and like what they learned and the benefits, like what they see. So I thought those chapters were really useful. And you don’t know what you don’t know right until, like, you get in those roles. So

Keith Edwards
yeah, well, and you’ve got a chapter on moving to consulting, followed by moving to different industries, followed by a return to campus with gage paying, coming back from having left higher ed coming back into it. I really found the, you know, just just looking at the two pages of the table of contents, just that, in and of, by itself, opens up, oh, I’d never thought of that, and I never thought of that, and just opens up a lot of possibilities just looking at these variety of changes. And then from there, you can narrow in on, what do I want to learn more about? What am I super curious about, or what had I never even considered that I do want to learn more about?

Jason Pina
Yeah, I think chapter two is a chapter written by Martino Harmon, with some support from Jamie Sanchez, and I think it’s, I don’t know if it’s top five or top 10, question I get asked about changing institutional type. I work at a two year school. How do I get to a four year school? Vice versa, and to have someone like Martino who has worked at two year schools and regional publics and now is at Michigan to have him willing to be vulnerable as the Vice Chancellor of Michigan, to talk about that whole pathway and to talk and he goes into some background about his own background prior to even going to the profession. So there was, like, a level of vulnerability that some of our authors also were willing to put in into their chapters, which obviously humanizes them, but it also, I think, helps it be more approachable to folks out there that’s see someone like Martino, you know, running Student Affairs at a place the size and complexity of Michigan, And, you know, they’ll, I can never be that, but all the steps he’s had prior to going there and sharing what that meant to him was an important chapter for us. And you know, one of the reasons why we wanted to have it towards the beginning of the book, because I don’t, I mean, I’ll, maybe Amy can weigh in on this, but I feel like I get asked that all the time about institutional type, geography, those types of things. I don’t Amy, if you have a perspective on that. No,

Amy Hecht
I think it’s true. And I think there’s like a narrative around this. Is what you have to do to be this kind of Vice President of Student Affairs, or, Oh, I can’t work at, you know, an Ivy League or a private school because I’ve worked at a. School for X amount of years. And also, you know, one of the books that kind of inspired me was a book called Life is is about transitions, and we write about that in the first chapter of all of us. And we know our students do this too, and we’re guilty of it is my next job needs to be bigger, better, more salary, more prestige on my current job, and that’s just not how life works. There are moments where it’s not going to be an upward trajectory. Maybe you’re taking a step back, maybe you’re taking a step to the side. Maybe because you want to get a new experience, or you want to live in a certain area of the country, or in a different country, you’re making a different move. And I think for somebody who’s always been what’s next and more, and, you know, trying to make what I think are that next successful steps, it’s really eye opening to say, your life journey, and all of your things are an ebb and flow of maybe a step, technically, up into the right, but sometimes you’re you’re back stepping or stepping into a new industry. And I think that understanding that actually happens for everyone in these adulthoods, and we’re we are having different pieces of shifts, you know, and COVID was a big shift we all went through. But, you know, getting married or having a child or being significantly ill is going to be somewhat of an earthquake in your life and cause you to re examine Well, you know, maybe I don’t want to do that. Or for me having children, and both of my children had some health issues. You know, I never looked at a children’s hospital before when I’m looking at where I want to work next, and now I’m like, Well, how close is a good close is a good children’s hospital? And, you know, and before I had kids, it was, I’ll go anywhere, and it doesn’t matter. And so I think as you have these shifts, and they shift your priorities, and intuitively, it makes sense, but personally, we I think we beat ourselves up about, well, that’s not the next prestigious move, or that’s not, you know, going to be viewed as an obvious next success. And a lot of that is, like the inner work that we all have to do, and we continue to do in our careers, of like, making meaning of is, but for me, is this the right next step, and we bring all that work, you know?

Keith Edwards
Yeah, that’s a conversation I have a lot of with my coaching clients who it is easy because we’re so socialized into it to better, title, more, pay, bigger, portfolio, whatever that right, and that more and more up into the right visual, those become obvious to us, right? We’re sort of socialized. And I work with a lot of people who work really hard to get those things, then they get it. Realize I didn’t want this. I had to move my family, and now I have this great job with great pay, but we lost all our community and our friends right or now we’re further away from parents, or this is not the type of institution. And I think getting people to slow down and say, what really do you want? Yes, and if what you really want is a bigger portfolio and more pay, then then, great, nothing wrong with that, right? But maybe it’s a location, or maybe it’s a children’s hospital, or maybe it’s, I don’t want to make new friends at 50 and do all of that, but really thinking what is important to you and also what was important to you at 24 is different than what’s important to you at 35 which is different what’s important to you at different life stages all along the way. And I think it’s sometimes hard to figure out what do I want, because we have so filled with message about what we’re supposed to want everybody else wants. And look at Jason and where he’s at and look at Amy, and how do I keep up with them, when, in reality, you know, my story is very different from both of yours and my path, and what’s important to me and my values is really different. And doing that, that, as you said, Amy, that that introspective inner work is really, really critical.

Amy Hecht
It is, and I don’t think, I think, until you you hit a point in your career like I’ve had several leadership coaches that have been really helpful. Of just, yeah, what do you want? Okay, you made it. You’re at a you’re at your alma mater, you’re the vice president of student affairs at a big state school. And it’s like, yeah, I mean, I’m happy. But what do i What’s next now? What do I do? Am I going to want this for the next 25 years? And you know, this was the epitome of, you know, where I was, so what, what is next? And another part of me is, why don’t I just enjoy what I’m doing right now and not worry about, well, now, what do I do? What’s next? How do I top this one? It’s so it is a lot of that work of, like, the the mental work of, I’m actually really happy right now. I’m making a difference at an institution. I’m closer to my family than I’ve ever been. My children are happy. Let me. Let me not. Rock the Boat again.

Keith Edwards
It is hard when you’ve been preparing, as we have, with an undergrad and then masters, and then probably a doctorate, and then in this job. An assistant director and then a director and then a VP, right? There’s all this scaffolding to say is that the direction that I want to go, or is something else important to me, or something different important to me? Or maybe I don’t want to work nights and weekends, maybe that’s important to me, or maybe the most important thing to me is sailing, and if I take that job, I won’t be, you know, I’m in Kansas, sailing is gonna be hard, and so to find those things and do that introspection along the way, what do you wanna add here, Jason, before we move on to our next question,

Jason Pina
I think I wanna bring into the space that you know, Amy and I are pretty fortunate professionals, and I think we sit at a space of privilege, and that was the other driver for us, seeking people who didn’t have, you know, exactly the same pathways we’ve had, because it’s, you know, sometimes it is easy for us to say things like, what is more important to us, because we can make our ends meet, at least. I think Amy can pay our bills. But, you know, that is easy, but those who may be listening to this, those who we collaborated with this book, worked really hard to be able to do that. And this, this is the second time my career where I can say to people, you know, what do you do when you achieve your dream? You know, when I was in my 20s, my dream was to be a director, and then when you get that job, you’re like, Wait, this is all I dreamed about. Like, really, when I was in graduate school at the University of Northern Colorado, I wanted to be a Director of Residence Life. And when I was that level, it’s like, Uh oh. And even as an undergrad, my wife and I went to high school together, and our dreams were to be able to pay all our bills on time every month, because we just didn’t know adults in our lives that could do that. And then you get a degree, or a couple degrees, and you get a job, you can actually do that. Well, you know you need to broaden and maybe heighten and get more sophisticated around what those dreams are and happiness. And this is my seventh University. I average about three and a half years at each university, my wife’s warned me that don’t make it like that hair, because she likes New York City. But, you know, I was always restless about the next Yeah, and I haven’t been, and I think I’ve come to a realization that your drive to be a good professional doesn’t equate to the next bigger or better job. It’s a drive to be deserve is a drive to do well in whatever role you have and whatever institution you’re working at. But ultimately, you need to be happy with yourself as well as those people who are around you. And you know, I didn’t respect wisdom until I got a little older and maybe got a little bit of wisdom myself, but it is helpful. Well,

Keith Edwards
and you both pointed to this. I mean, I think you said it’s not the same job that it was 20 years ago. You both know, it’s not the same job it was five years ago. Yeah, yeah. And, and location matters, right? Florida and New York City. I think, you know, location really makes a difference. San Francisco, Oklahoma, rural towns in Minnesota. These are really different jobs in really different contexts, but all of them are shifting and changing. You said that this kind of got initiated in sort of the chaos and mayhem of COVID and coming back and feeling a little bit of burnout, and what do we want to do? And that sort of instigating some curiosity. And here we are, a few years later. You’re both still in the same jobs, so I’m curious. You haven’t moved, you haven’t transitioned. I’m curious what the two of you learned in the process of putting a call out, putting a book together, seeing proposals, talking with different folks, reading what they submitted, providing feedback. I’m guessing it took a year or two to go through this process. I’m also a little curious, because I’m guessing that this book got done like a year and a half ago in terms of content and substance, maybe you’ve continued learning so. So, Jason, what do you want to kick us off here about what have you learned through the process of editing and leading this project?

Jason Pina
Yeah, there’s two I want to share. This is, well, this is the second book that was the first. The first one was the AVP book by NASPA, okay? And what I learned is Google Docs is a wonderful thing. We did not have Google Docs 10 years ago when we did the first book. So the process to share drafts and communicate and get that done. So that’s just an aside, but that was, you know, that was great. I was really surprised. I don’t know how many authors Amy had, because we basically split the authors off to manage the work, and I had a lot of authors who asked if NASPA, the publisher, wants to hear their honest truth. Is, you know, the ups and downs of the career, why they may have left higher ed, why they may have left Student Affairs. And at first, I was really surprised, because Amy and I, we wrote the book proposal. We were looking for really authentic, straightforward folks from a variety of backgrounds. But, you know, it was more than one author that really pushed me on, you know, can I be my authentic self? And they could there was no one dropped out of the project, or no one submitted a draft that was like, wow. Whether it was nasper or Amy and myself were like, We cannot publish this, so we really worked hard to ensure that people could share their stories. And I think when you look at the President’s stories, those those narratives, are all very different, and people are really vulnerable about and these are some of the folks that I’m sure there’s hundreds, if not 1000s of student affairs professionals look up to and have worked for throughout their career. So it was interesting, because I found those people to be pretty straightforward and authentic, because a lot of them are friends, but when you get to the point where you’re going to write a chapter about your work experience during a career, whether you use school names or not, people can trace your careers that, you know, I think people worked hard to be direct and authentic, but there was, you know, some anxiousness around that. So I think there’s a lot of heart and soul in the book, even though it’s NASPA higher ed book, I think there’s a lot of heart and soul in it, which was surprising for me.

Amy Hecht
Yeah, and I think, you know, it was kind of a journey. I felt like it was a personal journey while we were writing it, because when it started, I was feeling, well, what do I’m what am I going to do next? And this process is going to be cathartic, and that I’ll see what my options could be, and maybe one of these paths will be what I want to do. And just knowing there are so many different opportunities, and I’m not stuck just being in student affairs, like there are many paths that you could take, but also in that timeframe, my work has shifted, you know, we’ve, we’ve got some space, and I’ve been able to make legacy decisions at my institution that are going to long, you know, I feel as though I am still making a difference in making things better, even though it’s been challenging, And there’s, you know, every day there’s some new curveball, but it’s, it’s been, I’m not ready to leave yet, but it’s good to know I could consult if that’s something I want to do, and or if I need to move closer to home and take care of my mother, and there’s not an institution near there, or there is A possibility that I would get to have my years in Paris that I’m dreaming of, and still, you know, be able to work and there are global opportunities for our skill set, and just having that as an option is really helpful. And when I’ve talked to our graduate students at Florida State, it’s really been eye opening, because all they know, like all of us, was the Division of Student Affairs and their mentors that inspired them to go into higher ed, but they don’t know the consultants and the search firms and those that left to be ahead of school. And there’s a number of different meaningful pathways that you could parlay this. So I think that was cathartic for me in that, oh, which, which path am I going to take next? And Jason, I both have said, Actually, we’re going to sit right where we are. And like Jason, this is the longest, longest job I’ve held seven years. Is not saying much, but my resume is like, 4445, so it’s when I hit that four. I’m like, Uh oh, I’m hitting my timeline. I’m like, Uh oh. Am I supposed to leave because I normally do, but I’ve found things to be re energized about, and, you know, things that are more important to me than you know the next right? Well,

Keith Edwards
it sounds like the contributing authors and what they were bringing just opened up more possibilities, new pathways, new things for you to consider. It sounds like considering all these pathways has helped you more be more engaged and satisfied without a transition and without a shift, because the universe is going to continue to provide you challenges there at Florida State, isn’t it?

Amy Hecht
Lord, somebody is, I’ll tell you. I don’t know if it’s the universe, but somebody’s doing it. No, it’s true, like you don’t I think that, oh, I have a choice, and I’m not right. I. I don’t want to ever feel like that. Sounds very privileged. Say I’m stuck in this great job, but nobody wants to feel like they don’t have a choice or an option. And I think Gus just having that is like, oh, okay, yeah, then I’m I’m making this choice because this is what I want to do, not because I don’t have any other option, right? Well?

Keith Edwards
And in seeing all these different possibilities, and knowing you have many choices, gives you the agency to choose what you’re where you’re currently at.

Jason Pina
Yeah, yeah, that’s true. And I, you know, I think also assessing transitions I’ve made in the past. Why? Why did I leave certain jobs? Why was I attracted certain jobs at different points in my life? And some of those reasons are not germane. My kids are grown things like that. Or, you know, I happen to have a great supervisor at the moment. So, you know, reassessing your history led me to be more satisfied where I was and I had dinner a couple of nights ago with a colleague at NYU talking about, you know, what’s the next thing at NYU for me, and what would be a new challenge? I’ve been there for years, and I’ve had significantly new challenges every year that have not that have been outside of Student Affairs, essentially. So I don’t see one on the horizon. So we were talking about, okay, how do we manufacture the opportunity, so you’re staying challenged. And you know, Amy, we do have a campus in Paris so you can come, you can come work for him whenever.

Amy Hecht
Let me know. Jason, yeah, going and we’ll be ready.

Jason Pina
I love it, yeah. And, I mean, I went to small schools. I started my career at small schools, and I thought that was going to be the whole, my whole career, which was fine. And I just found that I personally thrive more at bigger and more complex places. And, you know, being at a place like NYU, it’s, you know, we have 200 buildings in New York City. I haven’t maybe I’ve been to 10, I don’t even know. So even in my own backyard, I haven’t gotten to know the campus. Never mind. We have 13 non New York campuses, so it’s almost mind boggling of what I have to do to be my best professional self at NYU. I don’t feel like I’m that yet, because I don’t know enough about our own community, because it’s so large, so that’s been great for me to be able to give back and learn in that way.

Keith Edwards
Well, what else do we want to open up and explore here before we move to our last question? Anything else that we haven’t touched on that you’d love to give a little bit of time to?

Jason Pina
Well, I guess maybe I’ll share a couple of things. You know, at the beginning of our time together, Amy mentioned COVID a few times, and how some of this came out of COVID. You know, we did do a bit of a pivot maybe halfway through the writing of the book with our authors, because, you know, the world was changing. Thankfully, COVID was more in control, and you know, we got past that, and schools were, by and large, able to bounce back. So you know, we were relatively heavy on some COVID content, and asked authors to reassess your your journey, and how maybe it’s been colored by COVID, obviously, but what other things are so, you know, we, you know, this writing, and I’m sure there’s probably going to be quite a few books coming out in the next year or two, where they were partially or fully written during the height of COVID, and that reassessment had to take part. So that was, you know, that was a big one for us. And the other piece that we face a little bit of, is people did transition, you know. So ask people to partake, be part of this process with us because of the job they had and what we know, know about it. And you know, we’ve had presidents transition. We’ve had other people with an institution transition once, if not twice, different jobs. So it was just interesting how much we could put into the book. And, you know, Keith, you mentioned that, you know, when you write a book, usually the bulk of it is done a year and a half, give or take before people actually get a chance to read it. So people are going to read this and say, Hey, these people have, they’re in new jobs now, which is true. So the world doesn’t stop, yeah. And, you know, I think the other part is thinking about and how our profession can change, and we can figure out what are the reasonable limits to the work we do. Because part of, I think the trap we’re into is that we lead with a lot of heart, and we give so much of ourselves. We raise our families a lot of times around our students and we are our social life, our free time is on our campuses. I know it was for me for many, many years, because that’s what I could afford to do those discount tickets or free student productions. Was, you know, that was my culture for a good 1020, years. Um, but that’s not everyone’s, you know, way of working in higher education, so taking lessons from other fields, and I think we get a bit of that in here with some of our authors who love student affairs but still work on campuses, about how do we make more reasonable limits and stand up for our profession and take some notes from other professions on our campus. One of the things we talk about a little bit at NYU is our IT professionals are amazing guides to how you sit there and know your capacity, and you do well within your capacity, but you do have limits, because you only have certain resources of people, time and finances. And you know, oftentimes, because of our hearts, we go beyond what’s reasonable. So trying to figure out, how do we scale that back is a, you know, a big piece on the horizon. I know people have worked on it, but I think we have to get it right for our profession to continue to thrive.

Amy Hecht
Yeah, and there’s been a huge, like, generation shift right of those that are coming out of graduate programs are looking at those of us who were rewarded for just burning the candle at both ends and doing whatever it takes. And they’re going, I don’t want that. And you know, there is, you know, some of us are like, well, that’s how I got here, and so that’s how you have to do it. And we’ve now become those old heads who are like, Wait, you’re right. Actually, it probably was never healthy of what I was doing, and so rethinking what we ask of of staff and when we tell our stories under, you know, understanding like you’re right. Not everybody could just move across the country for any job or take on additional assignments with no additional pay, and that that’s something too that that was at the start of our discussions that didn’t get fully captured in the book as we is it evolved, but you’re hearing more and more of of fewer and fewer people going into the higher ed administration programs. It’s been hard. We’ve been hiring people outside of a higher ed master’s program, if we if we need to, because we can’t find the talent. And so all of that is coupling with people feeling burnt out as well that are in the roles. So I think that’s some kind of takeaways, and we don’t do a good job getting people coaches of getting people opportunities to take care of their own journeys. And there are some professional, you know, professional VPs and others that that don’t want to help people move on, because it’s not great when someone leaves you and you got to go find a replacement. And so I’ve heard stories of folks not being able to pursue the next job and and so that that has not I’ve been fortunate that people have invested in me, and I try to do the same for my staff. But I definitely think it’s it’s needed in the field, for folks you know, not just to be selfish for your own institution, but for the field, helping have successful, balanced, well rounded individuals be out there serving our students.

Jason Pina
Amy, your comments reminded me of something I do at NYU. So maybe for the past 15 years, I meet one on one with all the staff as they come on board, if I transition to the school and NYU, have done hundreds of these. I think I’ve done over 900 of these conversations, and what’s changed is that at the end I usually give a little bit of monolog, and what I say now is that I want you to be able to say three things when you leave the institution. I don’t care when you leave. First of all, you can leave today. You can leave 40 years from now. That’s your business. I think that’s new given, you know, to Amy’s point about it’s a pain when people leave, especially the good ones. But it’s, it’s really none of my business. They gotta do what they need to do for themselves. But I say three things. One is, I want you to work hard. And I mean, that’s reasonable. If you’re not going to give me part of your paycheck back, you shouldn’t be giving me your vacation time back. You shouldn’t be coming in sick, all the things, all the benefits you earn, you need to take advantage of. But when you’re here, I want you to work hard that you feel and know that your work is respected. I don’t care what role you have. Everyone has the same meaning with me. I ask every person the same three questions. It does not matter their title or what department they’re in and that, you know, we support whatever professional career you want to have. Our job is to increase the chances you can have the professional life that you want. And that’s not in my business. If you want to have this role for 40 years, we want to make sure that you’re successful in that role. If you want my job, you’re not getting it here, we need to work on increasing the chances you can get it at some other institution. And if you feel like your supervisor isn’t doing those three things, let me know, or let someone know that you feel like you can talk to because it’s not always easy to come to the Senior VP. Yeah, and that’s not necessarily the way I ended those conversations. Was 15 years ago. I probably said, I want you to work hard, and I didn’t add in, take your time off. I probably said that we want to make sure your work is respected. But I break it down to colleagues and students and people outside of the division. And you know, I do always talk about professional development, like like Amy. I know there’s people who gave me opportunities before I thought I was ready, and have challenged me for the last 30 years, and that’s the only reason why I was able to provide for my family and have the life outside of work that I have now is because of those people, and if I can at least plant the seed and my colleagues had that they deserve that. And the way I end the conversation is that when you do leave, or you retire, or you win the lottery and leave, what however you leave, hopefully someone will ask you what it’s like to work at NYU and Student Affairs. And you can say those three things, and that gets them excited, because once you’re you know the pay and some of these other things are not going to keep you excited for the long haul, but being respected and being supported will. So it definitely has evolved, because we have to. We have to,

Keith Edwards
Well, great. Thank you both. We are running out of time, and the podcast is called Student Affairs NOW. So I always like to end with asking our guests, what are you thinking, troubling or pondering now that might be related to this topic or just things in the world, and also, if you want to share where folks can connect with you, for anyone who might want to follow up with you, that would be great as well. So, Amy, what are you pondering now?

Amy Hecht
Oh, well, you know, there’s a lot of exciting things happening on campus. I have another book coming out with NASPA, actually, that’s been a pet project about women and our use of time. And so they assume you gave Jason

Keith Edwards
first right of a fusel on that.

Amy Hecht
Absolutely, he did not, unfortunately qualify. But we are. We are, there’s five authors that it’s not an edited book. It. We are writing it based on a number of time studies from women directors and above, of their use of their time for one week in 15 minute increments that we’ve analyzed, and it’s been fascinating. Of you know, how are women using their time finding balance? We have women with young children, no children, spouses, no spouses, caregivers of parents or others. And really, you know, looking at how, what creative ways are women using their time? What are we seeing demographically, from, is there a difference in a large state school to a small school, you know, urban, rural, and looking at kind of that use. And we were inspired by Laura Vander Cam’s book. I know how she does it. That was executive CEOs. And her kind of findings was, there’s you have a lot more time than you realize. And we all did the time study, and what we realized, it’s a little biased. When you know someone’s going to look at the use of time, you’re a little more aware of using it wisely. Just like if somebody were going to look at what you ate all day, you might, you know, keep your food diary a little tighter than usual. But just that thought of, you know, what, if I am wondering, you know, where is my time going? Or am I prioritizing it as well as I should, so that that’s a project we’re doing on late nights and weekends. So I’ve been thinking about that, and I know I owe my authors some chapters, so I’ve got a kit to that, um. But we actually, I wasn’t sure NASPA would be interested in a third book, so I kind of thought, oh, they won’t even take this one, so we’ll be off the hook. But they did.

Keith Edwards
They bet, great. Oh,

Speaker 1
and then Jason, I’ve spent a lot of time. I’ve been thinking a lot of international student affairs, and I know he’s got cool things happening at NYU. We have three study centers in Europe, and we’ve been really decentralized for a long time, and we now have great collaboration. So we’ll be visiting and looking at what does international education look like, and what does Student Affairs look like. So that’s my look like? So that’s my new interest. That’s that’s keeping me excited. It’s

Keith Edwards
coming through today, that’s for sure. Jason, what are you what are you troubling now?

Jason Pina
Yeah, I think so. It’s really three and one I alluded to. It’s, How can we as a profession, be more adamant about individual and collective capacity. You know, how do we measure that and make sure we share that? You know what I tell folks that I want professionals that know the top 100 things in their field they should be doing for students I’m probably only funding you for. 40, and I need you to have the skill set to be able to pick the top 40 and to be advocate to get from 40 to 45 we may not get to 100 but we need to be able to know our field and be able to prioritize what we can afford to do from a physical, fiscal and human resource perspective. So that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, is, how do we get folks thinking about that strategically? And through KPIs and KSI work, which is something that we’ve kind of amped up a little bit at NYU. The second piece is, you know, I’ve, throughout my career, I’ve worked with really smart people, and it’s not just they’re not just smart about the work with students, they actually could be helpful in conversation on how to run a university. So trying to figure out, how do we get some of our professionals in conversations that don’t necessarily they’re not at the table because of the student expert. They’re at the table because they’re smart community members. You know, because we talk a lot about, at least in my 30 years about how to be more legitimate to the academy and to have more respect and these types of things. And I think one of the avenues is to get us at tables where we’re just smart community members that can help make a difference in those conversations. We’re not just a student person, because we’re always be asked at the student piece. And Amy mentioned my third one. It is around global. You know, we have 15 non New York campuses, 12 of which are not in the US and learning about in most of our students that are studying at these different locales, not most. Actually, many of them are US, US students, and their perspective is they’re getting a NYU, New York education in London, Prague or Abu Dhabi or Shanghai, which is not the case. So trying to figure out how we can help support our professionals there at a distance. You know this, we have some ties to some operations, but not all operations. And then trying to understand the local laws and customs that really impact the work we do. You know, I, if I go with another colleague to Shanghai, and they look at a curve cut, and they talk about ADA, you know, that’s the American Disability Act, and we’re actually in China. So you know, how do we figure out how to serve students and our colleagues and community members at these campuses where we literally have trained and had experience that’s so US centric, it’s hard to get away from it. So it’s a habitual challenge that is pretty awesome to face on a daily, almost daily basis here at NYU. So I’m looking forward to diving deeper into and we have a few new professionals that have come to NYU or come back to NYU, that are really looking to fast track that work locally. So I’m excited about about that. And our president, who’s in her second year, she had been here for over 20 years, and her areas were student affairs and global. She ran both of those areas. So to have her in the presidency, I know we have a better than fair chance of really making great progress around the student experience globally.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, that’s great, yeah. And folks

Jason Pina
you know that want to reach out to me. LinkedIn is great. And my emails, jason.pina@nyu.edu and folks can reach out whenever I could be helpful.

Amy Hecht
Yeah, same for me. I’m on LinkedIn, and check it, you know, every other day or so. And my emails, ahecht@fsu.edu

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Well, thank you both for joining me, for this conversation and for leading the book. The book is the next act realigning your mindset, purpose and career. So thanks for leading this project and gathering these authors and moving all of this forward. This has been terrific. I want to thank not just you, but also our sponsors of today’s episode Routledge and Symplicity. Routledge Taylor and Francis is the world’s leading academic publisher in education, publishing a wide range of books, journals and other resources for practitioners, faculty, administrators and researchers. They have welcomed stylist publishing to their publishing program, and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education, teaching, Student Affairs, professional development, assessment and more. Rutledge is a proud sponsor of Student Affairs NOW visit their complete catalog of education titles at routledge.com/education and Symplicity is the global leader 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 about them, visit symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You. As always, a huge shout out to our producer, Nat Ambrosey who does all the behind scenes work to make us look and sound good. And if you found value in this conversation, you can help other conversations like this reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast, joining us on YouTube and subscribing to our weekly newsletter, where we announce each new episode on Wednesday mornings, your first if you’re so inclined, you can also leave us a five star review. It really helps the reach of these conversations. I’m Keith Edwards, thanks again to our fabulous guests today and to everyone who is watching and listening. Make it a great week. All. Thanks you both.

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