Adam Jussel
I think the the things that are in the back of my head constantly are just the the significant amount of stressors that are facing our students, that that continue to me to become more complex and more numerous and nuanced, and it seems like every day I’m surprised with the the the amount of pressure and stress on our students, both from a emotional, political, social context, academic context, but just also, you know, kind of the engaging the world that they that they live in and that they are going to live in and inherit.

Keith Edwards
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs now. I’m your host. Keith Edwards, today, I’m joined by Adam Jussel, Dimitri Topitzes and Alberto Jose Maldonado, who are putting trauma informed approaches into practice at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I’m excited to hear from them why they took this approach, how they have done it, and the results they have seen. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a long time, after first hearing about this, I think about two years ago. So thank you all for being here. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs, we release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com This episode is sponsored by Evolve. Evolve helps senior leaders release fear, gain courage, and takes take action for transformational leadership through a personalized cohort based virtual learning experience. Today’s episode is also 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. My name is Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he? Him, hit his I’m a speaker, author and coach, helping hire leaders and organizations Empower transformation for better tomorrows through leadership, learning and equity. You can find out more about me at keithedwards.com and I’m recording this from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the current and ancestral homelands of both the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get our guests in here. Let’s begin with introductions, Dimitri, let’s begin by you tell us a little bit about you.

Dimitri Topitzes
Sure. Thanks for having me, Keith. My name is Dimitri Topitzes. As you mentioned, I go by he him. I serve as a professor in the social work department at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, as well as the chair of the department. I’ve had the good fortune of working with our Dean of Students, Adam, just whole and Alberto, for several years now as a part of the campus cares initiative and and I’ve been involved or interested in the topic of trauma and trauma informed care since the inception of my career a good 20 or years, 20 years ago or so, I’ve studied the topic at great length, and I’m very interested in the various ways that we can create systems that ultimately perform best, or help people perform best who have experienced a good deal of stress, including traumatic stress, in their

Keith Edwards
lives. Yeah, thanks for being here, Alberto. Tell us a little bit about you.

Alberto Jose Maldonado
Sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much, Keith for the invitation to be part of this and and thank you to Adam for pulling me closer to this conversation. I currently serve as director of the Robert Hernandez Center here at the UW Milwaukee, but I’ve been involved with work with students. It goes back 26 years. I’ve been here at the University, working in different capacity with pre college work trio pre college advising, the advising world and and enrollment as well. So I’ve covered most most bases here at the university, but primarily working with communities of first generation college students, being very intricately involved with community development, community partnerships, really connecting the university to families, to students on the area of access. So this work, it’s very near and dear to my heart, and I’m so glad that that I get to work with with Adam on this, on this front, because it’s all it’s all intersected with, with the work that I’ve been doing for years, and I’m glad that we’ve created a space to talk about it openly here on our campus. Happy to be here.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, great. And Adam, you already got two shout outs, so tell us a little bit more about you.

Adam Jussel
Thank you Keith, and thank you again for having us. And I’m Adam Jussel. I’m the Dean of Students and Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at UW M alongside Dimitri and Alberto, and have a biting interest in creating culture change on college campuses and creating cultures of care understanding the significant amount of stress and distress our faculty, staff and students are undergoing on a daily, annual, weekly basis. And that the origin story of that largely comes from my work as the Dean of Students, so interacting with the. Working with students to be a resource and advocate, and that’s kind of the origin story. There been fortunate to work alongside Dimitri and Alberto and a series of colleagues and champions across campus and bringing this work to fold and happy to be here and happy to talk about the work and how it could be potentially replicated across different systems, but also across different college campuses.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, awesome. Well, Adam, let’s stick with you. Let’s tell us a little bit about why you moved this approach. You said it was in your work with the Dean of Students Office and working directly with students and advocating for them. Tell us more a little bit about the why and the rationale for this shift in this emphasis,

Alberto Jose Maldonado
I think the starting point is really in the in the early stages of the pandemic. And the reason this conversation came about was we had, like a lot of other campuses, developed over time what I’ll call tactical responses to to COVID 19. So we had testing protocols in place, we had isolation quarantine, we had classroom processes in place, and what we really lacked was kind of that robust social emotional support that not only our students needed and were crying for, but our but our faculty and staff needed as well. And so in conversations with colleagues, we kind of developed, not intentionally, this idea of holistic support for the campus, rather than viewing what we often do is, okay, we’ve got this thing for the students, we’ve got this thing for the faculty. And this was more grounded in the mission of, hey, we can’t show up and be there for our students if we aren’t ourselves, cared for and acknowledged the experiences we’re going through, that really was kind of the germination and the starting point, and the next step from that was, and this is somewhat said tongue in cheek is, let’s get everybody in a room that cares about that, the community, that are champions for this work, that are willing to Put some sweat equity into it and just brainstorm what that means to us, and you’ll see artifacts of those conversations, even to this day, showing up in department meetings and conversations with colleagues and peers and in conversations with students. So that’s kind of the where the conversation took place, and we really tried to use data to validate the experiences of our students, faculty and staff, and make sure that they felt seen through, through what felt like a permanent crisis. So that’s a little bit of the starting point there. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
tell us more about I get the focus on care tactical, which you got to do, and adding to that, the caring and the social, emotional aspects of it. And I love this that you’re tending to, not just the students, but also the faculty and staff, who are also human beings with human experiences and human needs, is beautiful. How did you get from sort of recognizing this need, wanting to do it, not just with students, both faculty staff to landing on trauma informed as sort of language that you connected with and a framework and a structure to sort of guide this.

Adam Jussel
It’s great question. And defer to Dimitri and Alberto here too. So I’m not occupying all the oxygen, but the really, the starting point was two different two different spaces. One we we partnered with our Entrepreneurship Center on campus, and we asked them, and this is kind of the the next phase is we asked them, Hey, would you facilitate some conversations around what does it mean to be a caring campus community, and what are some things that we can do that are kind of small and big experiments to push that idea forward? And that is those conversations we had over 100 staff and faculty involved in a series of conversations early in the pandemic, that’s where this idea of kind of trauma informed care came about, and that really was buttressed by work that Dimitri and his colleagues were doing in other areas and in other academic spheres and the desire to ask the question, what is the experience of our staff and faculty before they show up to work, before they show up and interact with students that are oftentimes facing their own stress and trauma. And so there’s a robust research aspect of this work, and. Um, that Dimitri helped champion and lead with some colleagues. So that’s where that that terminology, kind of started getting invested into the campus culture and the campus community. But through through multiple conversations that we’ve had over the years, we’ve kind of kept that, that trauma informed care for framework, but really anchoring into the idea that this is the principles of trauma, informed care are really just being empathetic, kind and compassionate, trying to understand somebody else’s experience, empowering and providing agency. And so that’s we kind of, we adopt that language, but we ensure that folks know you don’t have to be an expert in trauma informed care to do the work that we’re asking people to do, which is to, you know, show up with compassion and kindness, and which is, seems almost cliche to say or trade. So that’s, really where that language came from, and where that starting point was. But Dimitri might have a different memory there of how that came about. So

Keith Edwards
yeah, let’s go to you, Dimitri. What do you want to build on here? From what Adam sharing?

Dimitri Topitzes
Yeah, it’s so we, we were hearing from multiple stakeholders that that people were experiencing the kind of stress and duress that can sometimes seep into traumatic stress, and not just sort of normal everyday stressors that are well while, while somewhat problematic or or burdensome, ultimately, aren’t overwhelming in Nature. But during the pandemic, we were hearing from from folks that they were facing, and people, students, faculty and staff alike, that they were facing the types of stressors that again devolved into overwhelming stress. And I had a background. I have a background in assessing and researching, and then ultimately trying to to mitigate or resolve experiences of stress, both through direct practice and through research, so it fit. I could fit it into into schema that I had already had and I had developed, and I didn’t want to over generalize my understanding of the topic onto the experience of people at the university. Nonetheless, it just continued to show up in our everyday conversations and in our and even in our research that we had conducted on campus with faculty, staff and students alike, that the experience of stress was non normative during the pandemic, and unfortunately, it has continued beyond, beyond the pandemic, not for everybody. I mean that that experience has resolved for some, but also for some, it has continued. And so characterizing these stressors as traumatic in nature was not, was empirical, was valid. It wasn’t, it wasn’t overstated. And so once we did that, then we were able to apply a framework that we know it has been found to be very helpful in in addressing experiences of traumatic stress, and ultimately working with trauma affected individuals, groups and communities and these frameworks, what’s really helpful about them is not only they, not only are they ultimately effective in working with trauma affected individuals, groups and communities, but they’re also effective in working with folks who are experiencing just everyday stressors. It’s not, it’s not harmful to introduce these approaches. You want to do it in a measured way, in a way in a way that doesn’t doesn’t impose the interpretation of trauma across everybody, doesn’t over generalize the interpretation of traumatic stress amongst everybody, but nonetheless, can be very helpful, particularly in reaching those who are experiencing significant stress. And so we implemented, we implemented these frameworks, just talked about these frameworks, presented on these frameworks, and we got a lot of good feedback that it was, that it was instructive and helpful. And

Keith Edwards
I know people there are different definitions of trauma, but it sounds like you’re using stress versus trauma. Stress, Normal challenges, difficulties that people have the capacity to navigate. And whether trauma is where that becomes overwhelming and can have long term impact beyond the particular situation, is that roughly what we’re talking about?

Dimitri Topitzes
Excellent, Keith, yeah, spot on, you know. And so we’re using a definition of stress that is exactly as you as you described, or traumatic stress that that understands, that understands the concept as being sort of an extreme version of stress that overwhelms coping skills and and reflects the type of civilian trauma that has been defined by the federal government and many people in. Involved in behavioral mental health services, health services, social services, Human Services, who work with, who work with folks, not just combat veterans, but folks who experience civilian trauma on an everyday basis. Absolutely right.

Keith Edwards
Great. Alberto, what do you want to add here about how this the rationale and the why and how this came to be.

Speaker 1
Well, I think I got pulled in, because I often find myself in many, in many areas here on campus, informing some of the work more closely related to to the students that we serve. And I think what I appreciate from from the work and the questions that we began to ask was that it was a confirmation of things that I had been feeling for a long time in terms of the experiences of our students, the level of stress their families, and then compounded, you know, by other factors, like, you know, that was mentioned the pandemic, and then and the flip side of that, being in the position that I am to be able to also hear from, from colleagues, hear from, from my staff, who are in taking a lot of this, this stress that students are exhibiting daily, on a weekly, manifesting in so many different Ways, and really saying, Wow, we just created a space for us to really talk about this in a very open and public way, and we’re doing something about it, right? We we are we’re asking colleagues, we’re asking students, we’re asking, you know, many folks here on campus from different walks, how are you feeling, too, and what it’s, what it’s, what fills your tank so you can replenish and continue giving students and different community on campus what they need to persist and to be successful academically and emotionally as well. So I guess I come from a place of appreciation for the space, for the process, and the fact that it wasn’t something that we talked about, and it stayed there, but then it manifested into sessions conversations, creating additional and more intimate spaces on campus, with faculty, with staff led by by Adam and others, to be able to do something about it and to educate campus that these things, they’re normal. They’re normal conversations that we ought to be having.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, well, like Adam was saying, the impetus for him came with his work in the Dean of Students. Sounds like for you that came in your work with students, your staff’s work with students, and also with their families and hearing their families. So we’re bringing in students and faculty and staff, and you’re also bringing in families. I want to shift from the why and the rationale a little bit about the how and how you’re putting into practice. Dimitri, you mentioned these frameworks, so tell us about these frameworks and how you’re putting them into practice.

Dimitri Topitzes
Excellent. So the frameworks would suggest a few things. Number one, that we recognize that there is something sort of different in the air and and that we take an approach to one and all that indicates or suggests that someone may be exposed to significant stressors, even traumatic stressors. It doesn’t mean we treat people with with good kid gloves or we coddle folks, but that we acknowledge that there’s a chance that the people that were interfacing with students, faculty, staff, maybe, maybe facing some abnormal stressors, which was the case during during the pandemic. And the second point, given the sort of the widespread nature of potential trauma at the time, the second point is that we would, we would, we would interface with folks in a way that would provide a sense of comfort or safety. And so what does that mean? It depends on the context, but first and foremost, it means that we lead with relationships. Now this just sounds like good interpersonal or leadership practice, but sometimes it can be it can be forgotten when working in well, instrumental context, like universities, lead with relationships, focus on relationships, and then move into the instrumental that’s true in the classroom. That’s true when I’m serving in the chair role. The importance of relationships can’t be overstated, I think, in many different contexts, but certainly in a trauma informed context. Context. Secondly, give opportunities for people to connect with each other when working in a group context, like a classroom context. That’s another critical theme of working in a trauma affected setting. Thirdly, give opportunity for people to to sort of cool out, to to use a technical term, to engage in their most or to experience a sense of of calm, of comfort, because we operate at our very best when we’re feeling at least some semblance of some semblance of serenity and calm, not that, you know, not, not that we need to be in a state of bliss, but that we don’t want to feel a great sense of anxiety. We don’t operate at our best. We also don’t operate our at our best. If we’re like I said, if we’re in a bliss out state, we want to be kind of in a middle ground. And so we want to have an opportunity to to come into a relational state, to come into a present moment state, and then tackle the the task at hand. So those are just some of the principles that I think really work across various contexts. Again, a focus on a focus on relationships and and kind of an introduction of a sense of calm, if you will, or a sense of a sense of comfort, and then, and then tackling our instrumental approach within the context of peer support, peer connection, whatever it might be, and then going after it. I think those are some, some, some immediate principles that I would identify as quote, unquote, trauma informed and also probably best practice. For instance, when it comes to good leadership, I

Keith Edwards
love that you’re making that connection with good leadership. I mean just connecting relationship building and then getting to the task, rather than just jumping into the task and efficiency and building that. Alberto, how are you putting this into place? How is your staff putting this into place in some of the work that you’re doing?

Speaker 1
I think for us, what is very beneficial is that we are a small team, and we’re often on a very dynamic basis, having conversations about specific situations, and we’re, we’re problem solving together, right? And I think there’s, there’s so much value in doing that versus, you know, being in a larger team and not being able to have a consistent pulse on, on how we are, you know, executing, how we are, supporting one another, which is, I think, super, super important. We call it, you know, we worked this summer on a set of values for our office. And this was, this was centric to us identifying our set of values, and because we do it in such a democratic way, not only when we when we’re doing this decision making decisions, or, you know, going through a decision making process, but how are we bringing this work with our students? Like I mentioned before, a lot of the work that we do is is really centered in the families, because many of our families are sending their first child to college, and they’re, they’re, they’re working through so many layers of anxiety, you know, stress and so. And then the the other part is when, when we take it to the outer circle, which is our colleagues within our division, and the colleagues within the hallway that we occupy here on campus and and we’re, we’re sort of showcasing how we as a small team are sort of manifesting these things, and how we’re coming with with solutions to to the issues that we’re faced with on a lease. So that has been kind of like the process for us. And you know, people say, Alberto, how do you, how do you do it? You’ve been here for 26 years. How do you replenish? How do you, how do you pivot? How do you do these things? And I think I always go back to the process in which we have agreed to to really unpack and then infuse some of the best practices and identify what is really, what is really the root of some of these problems, and how do we, how do we advance from there?

Keith Edwards
I mean, I get that these are practices that are helpful with trauma. Well, but they also seem like they’d be helpful with retention, with student crises, with building connection.

Alberto Jose Maldonado
Which is the rejuvenation product of these things?

Keith Edwards
Yeah, which is, which is, you know, for you, being rejuvenated and connecting with your staff, with other people, that relationship first doing that. Adam, how else are you seeing this be put into practice across Student Affairs.

Adam Jussel
I think it’s gonna think about your question a little bit of a broader context, is, you know, it’s happening in student affairs, but it’s also happening across campus and integrated into campus, and so, you know, one thing that we’ve tried to challenge is the the concepts that we can we can do, systems, level, cultural change, work policies, reviewing processes, while doing the small things that impact and influence and benefit the people around us every day. So those two things are not mutually exclusive. And I think sometimes we get caught in the trap of we’ve got to do this thing at 50,000 feet, separate from the thing that’s happening right in front of you. And I think both can include at the same time. So that means we do, you know, kind of trauma informed care workshops, which is kind of that base level on the front line while we’re thinking about, you know, what does it mean to have a culture of care? Do we have a Alberto talked about values? Do we have, like, a core belief as a campus of what that means, beyond just our, you know, code of conduct, right, which all universities have? And so we’ve, we’ve worked, over time, in this democratic process to develop that big picture kind of vision of what we want campus to look like, and how, and how do we implement that, and and so that’s, that’s kind of the things that are happening now. Where I see it happening on kind of the concrete level is, you know, I think faculty and staff sometimes get, you know, they’re seeing seen, they’re being seen through this process. They’re being validated in their experience where someone is looking to them and saying, that sounds like a really stressful job, that sounds like it’s a really hard job. And, you know, kind of taking that self care mantra and putting it on the university a little bit to figure out how to, how do we take care of our people, versus how do they take care of themselves by so there’s, there’s all of that going on. I think one of the biggest successes we’ve had in this work, outside of just sustaining it throughout the pandemic and after is that it’s truly a grassroots initiative. So nothing. We did not get a designation from the chancellor. There was no formal committee meetings. There’s a lot of good conversations that occurred just by, again, putting everybody in the room that deeply cares about this work and saying, let’s go out and try to make little changes day to day. And then that just blossomed into this thing that we’re still talking about now, years later. So, you know, one of the things that campuses ask us all the time is, you know, well, that can work there, but it can’t work here. I kind of balk at that is especially in student affairs. I go, Hey, you know 20 people in student affairs that deeply, deeply care about their students. Put those folks in a room and say, Hey, what’s stressing you out? Like, what are the things that are challenging you? And how do we care for each other? That’s a starting point, at least. So that’s a kind of a long answer, non specific answer, but I think it’s important to do that, that holistic support and care on a one to one departmental level, while doing that systems change that we so badly need. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
let’s be a little bit more specific. You mentioned these workshops, and it sounds like these workshops have been a pretty pivotal strategy in making this happen. Can you tell us a little bit more about the workshops and how you’re deploying them?

Adam Jussel
Yeah. So Dimitri and myself and another colleague at the beginning of this process, kind of went on a little bit of a road show, and we set out to, hey, let’s, let’s. We’re hearing this stress. We’re hearing the distress. Let’s, let’s talk to folks about what trauma is, what stress is, how we can support students. And it really came from the lens of how to, how do we support students? And then it kind of shifted in the middle of the workshops to how do we support each other. So we’ve done over last time I checked, we’ve done over 250 of these, mostly to our campus community, and all voluntary these were not like a provost designated everybody used to attend a training. This was all us putting stuff in newsletters and saying, Hey, you have a department that. Needs professional development. Why don’t you let us come in and talk to talk to you for an hour or two? So that was Dimitri myself, and actually a representative from our counseling services office that led, that led that initiative, and what we found is it was like, a little bit like a pyramid scheme. Is, once we had one, then those folks tell their friends, and then we’d get another one, and it kind of just snowballed. And then we got to start getting some attention, and folks from across the nation were asking us to Hey, can you come and give us a workshop on what this work is and how do we support each other? So we also use that as a sneaky way to collect data. So we use those workshops to just kind of capture anecdotal data from our staff and faculty and students, and we use that to advocate for greater change on our campus. So they’ve been really, really, really proud of that initiative and our team for putting that together. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
I love that. This was this grassroots. I was super surprised when you said your Entrepreneurial Center kind of help you facilitate the conversations. Seems very entrepreneurial. And trauma informed care seems very opposed, but it really sings in this instance. And then a very as you said, democratic, inclusive process, to say, this is what we need. This is what’s important. And then again, this grassroots, non required, non mandated workshops, where people, you just do workshops, and people like it and say you should do it for them, and will you do it for us? So we do it for us, and it sort of grows at 250 workshops. That’s just amazing. I want to shift to some of the results. Alberto, I’m wondering what you’ve seen. You mentioned the students, you mentioned your staff, you mentioned the families. What are some of the results you’ve seen from this?

Speaker 1
I think I just speaking from from the work that we do here, internally in our office, and also with my colleagues within the coaching, the success coaching world, those folks that occupy the multicultural centers and the staff that I supervise in my office, I think this has also informed How we do, how we do work with the students, and I think the results is, you know, an enhancement on that relationship, building capacity that we have in our ability to really have processes in place that are unique across All of all of the services that we provide. Some of my my staff and colleagues have put in really a lot of energy and really putting in paper some of the practices. So regardless if we’re here or not, and other staff comes in, there’s a process in place that we have been able to inform by this and by, you know, the true nature of how do you successfully coach a student that my you know, stress is not doing well academically. There’s having family issues. So we’re seeing more than anything, more than the numbers, is consistency in practice across the work that that we’re doing as as multicultural centers when it comes to these types of situations. And so I think having that as a tool, you know, for perpetuity, whether it’s, you know, now or six months from now, having those things, I think it’s a big win for us, and in turn, our students are, you know, are being impacted positively by by us, sort of having a way, a way that that works for all of us across many of our students identify as black and Latino, or some students identify as multi ethnic. So we’re is not that each of us are working. We’re a very specific group of students. Our students can come into any of our spaces because of them, how they identify and so us having that in place, really, it’s what I you know, I firmly believe that it’s the impact that we have yeah and that we have seen Yeah,

Keith Edwards
sounds like it’s almost giving you A structure, or maybe even a technology to be really, really person centered, which has helped you be nimble, flexible, really, with the person before you, what they’re experiencing, what they’ve experienced before. That’s really great to have a structure that helps you be more nimble and nuanced. Is really lovely.

Dimitri Topitzes
I’m engaged. I’m engaged.

Keith Edwards
Go ahead. Go ahead. Dimitri, I was just going to come to you about the results that you’ve seen.

Dimitri Topitzes
No, no spot on Keith, so, you know, very extending or building on what Alberto shared. So a couple, you know, proximal and then more distal outcomes that I’ve seen. So number one, while we were giving these, these workshops, presenting or delivering these workshops, you know what we what I found is that there was deepening understanding, deepening insight, which then led to a greater sense of empowerment and then potential engagement on the part of staff and faculty, like, Oh, this is what’s going on. I mean, I, you know, I could see this, was this happening, but to give, to give more specific and detailed language to it, then helps me feel a little bit more believed that, yeah, what I’m seeing is truly happening. And I’m able to, I’m able to frame it more so, more effectively, and then I’m able to engage with it potentially more effectively. So we would provide some, there’s some, some strategies, and then brainstorm with folks. We didn’t have all the answers. Brainstorm with folks. Okay, what sorts of ways can we then engage with our student population and even with one another, given the stressors that we’re facing, financial stressors, health stressors, social isolation, stress, etc, but what can we do about it? And we’ve language it, we’ve languaged it, we’ve assessed it, and now we’re strategizing for how to, how to how, ultimately, kind of to tackle it in the most effective ways. And I think I’ve seen even since you know, beyond the pandemic, a greater sense of engagement by virtue of having these conversations and using these approaches. I see it within my own department when I use, when I when I use these very frameworks to interact with my faculty and staff, or the faculty and staff of my department. Now there’s a greater sense of collective efficacy, if you will. I like that term, greater sense of collective efficacy we have. We’ve come up with new strategies for addressing student challenges. We have a sort of a student solutions group that tries to identify student challenges earlier and earlier and then and then, bring to bear greater resources earlier in the process of students disengaging from this semester, for instance, and there’s a, you know, the sense of collective efficacy and camaraderie, I think ultimately, will, will will affect student outcomes. So we’re tracking student outcomes, dropouts for academic performance, etc, and we’re, we’re trying to apply a number of different solutions to to ultimately improve those outcomes. And hopefully we’ll see, we’ll see changes, or we’ll see improvements in the not too distant future, as we continue to track these, these various metrics.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. I just love that thread from deepening understanding to empowerment to engagement. It just makes so much sense, yeah, that those things sort of stack Adam. What other results are you seeing?

Adam Jussel
Yeah, I think the the biggest thing that I’m seeing right now is within the within the team that is putting this to that has put this together over the years, the campus cares group, we’re starting to see new generations of leadership within the within the group itself. And watching that show up is really cool, because not that we’re passing up a ton off, but I’m seeing young, new student affairs professionals coming into the field, saying, My expectation is that I would be involved in this in some way, shape or form, because what they’ve seen online, what they’ve heard about from their colleagues, appears, and then taking that and saying, How do I how do I make this impact proximate to who I am? How do I make it impactful to my students, to the people around me? And also, what am I excited about? We have a we have a community building group within the this campus care structure, and their sole goal is to try to make these connections with folks across campus. Because oftentimes we get in our own little silo, and we don’t know that there’s a Alberto and a Dimitri outside of the Division of Student Affairs, and all their job is, is they’re just kind of a very, very low cost, $0 to make connections with people that feel like they’re isolated in their work. And they want someone to talk to, not as a counseling relationship, just I want someone to go get a cup of coffee with me, and that seems simple and again, trite, but it that stuff matters because it makes you feel more connected to the campus, both physically and in the meaning of work that you have. So it’s really exciting to see that new leadership. And that’s just an example of what’s coming out of that group. Take take the mantle forward and. Think more long term. Now that we’re out of the pandemic, knock on wood, that we can start thinking about, what does it mean to embody this across our campus, not just within a committee, quote, unquote, that we have, but what does that mean to take that beyond that? And the nice part about it now is that we have buy in from campus leadership. So this is a, you know, we, we’ve been able to kind of show our work and show the efficacy of it, and we have executive sponsors from across the cabinet that are in full support of the work. So that’s really been beneficial.

Keith Edwards
That’s great. I want to, I want to move us to two kind of rapid fire questions. So the first one is, what do you wish you would have known when you started, or if someone was listening to this and saying, Where do you want to do this, what do you what do you wish they would have known? What do you wish you would have known? Or what would you offer folks who are considering Adam will put you on the hot seat first. So what do you wish you would have known? Or what do you want to offer folks who are considering this?

Adam Jussel
What I wish I would have known? I wish I would have known, kind of what we were going to unearth. Meaning, you kind of have an idea about what people’s experiences are, but then you start asking questions, and it’s really, there’s really a lot out there, and I don’t know if we do a great job at Student Affairs, or at least in higher ed, to acknowledge just the massive amount of stressors that are placed on our staff and faculty, because at some level, we’re all in it for the students, and that’s the mantra, at least we have. So I think I probably would have, wish I would have, and this isn’t a negative thing, it just more kind of the the amount of stuff that we would uncover, both in good and bad ways, because can’t fix it until you acknowledge it and build some awareness around it. But the second thing is, if folks are saying, Hey, I just don’t know where to start, I’ll say two things. One is going back to that you have a group of folks across campus, and I would suggest inter departmentally, outside of the department or office that you’re in, that just deeply care about the place that they work, that they find meaning in service, that they find meaning in helping others. Put those folks in a room and ask, start asking open ended questions about, what does it mean to embody this thing? I think you’ll be surprised of what you find. Because the other thing that is, when we get this question, Keith, the other thing that we get asked is, How much does this cost? And outside of human resources, which is a lot of time and a lot of energy, I will tell you, we’ve spent less than a couple $1,000 over the last six or seven years. We’ve done work, and that’s because people are excited about the pizza party in the conference room. What they really want to do is they want to have deep, meaningful conversations about who they are and why they do the work they do. And our students are the same way. They appreciate the free T shirts, they appreciate the chat swag, but they they really just want to get to know us and get to know us in a vulnerable way, and feel that agency that Dimitri was talking about to kind of create, create their own space and environment. So that’s what I would say, is just get people together and start watching the sparks fly a little bit. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
sounds like the the surprise was the depth and breadth of what people were experiencing. Yeah. Alberto, what? What do you wish you would have known? Or what would you offer others who are thinking about moving in this direction?

Alberto Jose Maldonado
I wish I would have known that this could have been done way before a pandemic, you know, because in retrospective, you know, and just because of the longevity, my longevity here on campus, these Were conversations that were happening in very small pockets, but we had never recognized that this could have been shared at a larger scale and unite a lot of voices and bring you know people together differently. So you know, sometimes you just, you know, you go with the emotions and you and you engage the way you feel. It’s necessary at the time, without thinking sometimes of the bigger picture. You know, some people are hurting here, but there was also people that could have benefited from these conversations across campus. So I guess I wish I would have known, or at least identify that this could have been, you know, done way in advance. And I guess I the second part of the question again, can you repeat,

Keith Edwards
what do you what would you offer others who are considered. We moving in this direction.

Alberto Jose Maldonado
Oh, I you know, one thing I think I’ve been very fortunate and blessed to have is being very authentic in every space that I come in. I think encouraging people to be brave and to be vulnerable to sometimes we get in our little boxes and and sometimes, you know, we make the work, you know, so prominent that it really, you know, steps on, on, on the human side of us as professionals and so being vulnerable, being brave and and to not be afraid of of of engaging, you know, as a community here on campus, I think that’s our strength. When we do that more often than not, is when we really show our strength. So, yeah, I guess encouraging folks to be brave and vulnerable at the same time.

Keith Edwards
How about you? Dimitri, what would you wish you would have known when you started?

Dimitri Topitzes
I think I wish you would have known that that the shock of the of the public health crisis was was going to alter the profile of our campus and our students, at least for years to come. Now, maybe we return to a level of baseline that we’ve yet to return to. I don’t think that that will happen. I think we’re going to be altered for a good long period of time, and that the frameworks and the schema that we were that we were developing, that we were sharing, that we were applying, would actually be applicable well beyond the end of the formal end of the pandemic. And I had I known that, I think, I think I would have actually been even more invested in what we were doing at the campus level and brought that to my department earlier than I did. So I think we’re we’re we’re seeing I’m working in an environment that is quite different than it was prior to 2020 and that I’m working with students that are different than they were prior to 2020 at least on my campus and at least in the collective and I think that, you know, I want to interface with them with new strategies, new schema, new tools and help the rest of my staff and faculty do the same. And that’s that’s something that I wish I had sort of foreseen. And I think I like Alberto, I think I would have gotten a jump start. Then what would I recommend others? For others, I don’t have much, to much to recommend other than I do. Think that, in my experience, as we talked earlier, Keith, instrumental solutions, instrumental changes, are totally necessary, but they seem to work best within the context of community and relationship, and that’s something that I think the three of us would would get behind.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I’m imagining folks feeling like, Well, this sounds great, but we’re too busy. We don’t have time to center relationship. We don’t have time to connect. We can barely make it through our agenda beforehand. But there’s real value in building the community and how you navigate through some of the more tactical or the instrumental, whether that’s classroom topics or the meeting focus, as you all have pointed to precisely.

Dimitri Topitzes
I mean, there’s good research to suggest that that and actually I will be more effective and more efficient in developing and applying my solutions if I’m doing so within the context of relational health. Yeah, great.

Keith Edwards
Well, our final question is that we are running out of time, and this podcast is called Student Affairs NOW, and so we always like to end with asking our guests, what are you thinking, troubling or pondering now? What might be related to this conversation or might be related to something else? And if you want to share, our folks can connect. We connect with you. Feel free to do that. And Dimitri, we’re going to kick off with you. What is with you now?

Dimitri Topitzes
Yeah, I’m curious to know how our current kind of political and civic life will will potentially alter our campus culture or affect our student student functioning. You know, we’ve had, we’ve had lots of changes in our political and civic life over the course of the last six, five to six years, and we’re facing new changes now, so I’m curious to see how that will affect our our students, faculty and staff, and want to make sure that that I respond or we respond with the most effective strategies and people can find me at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee social work department or the Institute for Child and Family Well Being and Thanks, Keith, it’s been a pleasure, awesome.

Keith Edwards
Thanks. Dimitri Alberto, what’s with you now?

Alberto Jose Maldonado
I would have to echo some of Dimitris comments there. You know, looking at the landscape moving forward. You know, I’m. I’m very What would I say? I’m very energized by the possibilities of us as a campus and the work that we do understanding the needs of our students and the needs that they will continue to have. How do we how do we engage? I think we I am an internal optimist, so I see a lot of the positives happening, including this work, the trauma informed work. And I think there’s nothing but room for us to keep growing it and infusing it in every corner and every aspect of the work here on campus. So despite the challenges that are ahead and the temperature of things in the political and civic realm, I am optimistic about the humans that are here on campus that are dedicated to this work and bringing others along.

Keith Edwards
Beautiful, beautiful. How about you? Adam,

Adam Jussel
yeah, I great question. I think the the things that are in the back of my head constantly are just the the significant amount of stressors that are facing our students, that that continue to me to become more complex and more numerous and nuanced, and it seems like every day I’m surprised with the the the amount of pressure and stress on our students, both from a emotional, political, social context, academic context, but just also, you know, kind of the engaging the world that they that they live in and that they are going to live in and inherit. So my my brain, just in, maybe in my role as the deed of students, just constantly scanning for what are the little and big things we can do to make that pathway a little bit less, little bit easier for our students, little less full of friction and and part of that, and I’ll echo Dimitris comments, is really built around relationships and and so what keeps kind of, what keeps me up at Night, is some of those factors and some of those things that are facing our students and just in the conversations that we all have with them, I’m always surprised in our students resiliency and in the face of all of those challenges.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has just been terrific. I think this is a really interesting model, and something that I’m sure many other campuses will be interested in. And so thanks for your leadership, for your own campus, and for sharing this with others. I really appreciate it. I also want to thank our sponsors of today’s episode, both Evolve and Symplicity. Evolve helps senior leaders who value aspire to lead on and want to unleash their potential for transformational leadership. It’s a program that I am a part of facilitating, along with my colleagues, doctors Brian Arau and Don Lee, we offer a personalized experience with high impact value this asynchronous content and six individual and six group coaching section sessions maximize your learning and growth with a focused time investment, greatly enhancing your ability to lead powerfully for social change 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. Symplicity supports all aspects of student life, including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being, student success and accessibility. To learn more, visit simplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Huge shout out to our producer, Nat Ambrosey, who dissolved the behind the scenes work to make us look and sound good, and we love your support for these important conversations. You can help us reach more folks by subscribing to the podcast on YouTube and to our weekly newsletter announcing each new episode and more. If you’re so inclined, you can leave us a five star review. It really helps these conversations reach a broader audience. I’m Keith Edwards, thanks again to our fabulous guest today and to everyone who is watching and listening. Make it a great week all.

Trauma informed care workshops: REQUEST A WORKSHOP

Toolkits

Campus Cares framework