Month: June 2017

Ashley Adams, Director of Student Affairs for World Campus, was kind enough to invite me to sit in on her team meeting. There I met a few of her staff that help run the student affairs services at World Campus. I was particularly interested in job shadowing Ashley for a several reasons: her position was brand new when she came on board approximately 2 years ago, so I was curious about the challenges she faced developing the position; and she is one of a very small group of women of color holding leadership roles at Penn State, and potentially the only at World Campus. I wanted to know about her experience as a woman, and particularly a woman of color in a predominately white male dominated arena.

I enjoyed sitting in on the team meeting and learned that there are responsibilities that fall under student affairs that I was not aware of. For instance, student conduct. I had only been thinking about student affairs as operating in the realm of engagement and inclusivity, not student behavior issues. Ashley and her team have been working to pull all relevant teams together to work under the umbrella of student affairs. Right now, it is my understanding that the Student Affairs unit is made up of members from Student Conduct, Care and Concern team, the Mental Health team, and Career Services.

One of the best things I learned from watching Ashley in action was her ability to make everyone at the table feel important. Additionally, she employed a little exercise that I thought was really fun and a great way to get to know her staff on a more personal level. She called it “Pew, pew pew” (you have to say it like a stormtrooper’s gun in Star Wars). Basically, it’s an exercise in which each meeting attendee is engaged by answering a question that she poses. Meeting participants are to respond rapid fire, (hence the name, “pew, pew pew”), without much thought, just the first thing that came to mind. This time, the question was, “When you think of your childhood, what did it smell like?” Think about that for a second – whether she meant to or not, she instantly transported us all back to our childhoods and, inevitably good memories (or at least, hopefully, good memories). So, not only were we all then nostalgic, we were also in a totally different mind set. It changed the tone of the meeting from all business, to more of a calm vibe. As we went around the table I heard stories of first houses, oceans, grandparents and other childhood memories that gave me some insight to the people I was sitting around the table with. I really liked the exercise, and hope to employ it as a leader myself someday!

After everyone left, Ashley and I met individually where I peppered her with questions about her career path and her experiences here at Penn State. She outlined the World Campus strategic objectives and priorities and framed the role of Student Affairs within that strategy. Some of the goals specifically for the Student Affairs unit are still being developed by Ashley and her team, but she did list the following as considerations:

• Moving student affairs from advocacy to action
• Expanding Co-curricular partnerships
• Encouraging student leadership development
• Advancing scholarship of student affairs

We talked a lot about retention and also the demographics of World Campus students. The number of students of color is low, and the stop out rate for those students is high. This is a real issue and something Ashley feels passionately about addressing.

I asked her about her experiences here at Penn State World Campus and if she had encountered discrimination. She was very positive overall, stating that the support to get her unit up and running was good and that she’s been able to build a few key partnerships that have really helped her accomplish her vision for the unit. Regarding my discrimination question, Ashley provided some examples of microaggressions and challenges that she’s faced as a result of her gender, race, and/or appearance. I can’t say I was surprised, given the historical environment of higher ed, however, I was still disappointed that we aren’t doing better as a University, as a community. I too am guilty of not doing enough, not being a productive advocate. I realized this when in a PSEL training a few weeks back in which we were asked “What do you do to promote/support diversity here at Penn State.” While I do not do anything in active opposition, I can’t honestly say I’ve done anything to support those that look different than me, live a different lifestyle than me, or have different religious beliefs than me. By not doing anything, I am not helping the issue, and perhaps, I may be unknowingly contributing to the lack of diversity problem. This is something I do hope to change in the near future by first participating in the diversity training offered through the University and then by getting involved. More on what that involvement will look like in a later post.

I asked Ann Taylor and Stevie Rocco (Director and Assistant Director, of the Dutton Institute, respectively) both to let me shadow them because, well, I like them. I like their management style, I like their personalities, I like what they’ve done with their lives. I admire these women because they’re relatively young, successfully managing an innovative and essential Institute, and, because they’ve both been with the University for decades, they have connections out the wazoo. I typically only see them in action internally. I wanted to see them moving and shaking outside of the College and Dutton and it makes a ton of sense for me to follow them around and see what I can learn from them.

While I haven’t yet had the opportunity to attend an event with them outside of our cocoon, they did ask if I’d like to accompany them to a meeting regarding space allocation in our building. I attended the meeting and as a result, I learned a lot about how building space is managed at Penn State. Of course, it’s complicated, but the basic idea is that all areas that can be used by anyone (a.k.a. common spaces) are to be managed using a central database. Other spaces are to be utilized a certain percentage of time or they should be opened up as available common space for the times in which they are not being occupied. It’s an interesting system meant to maximize the use of existing spaces vs building new. I think the jury is still out on if the system and the associated guidelines are working, however, it was a good learning experience. I met a few new folks and gained a new appreciation of what it takes to reallocate space here at Penn State.

Stevie then asked me to attend an online E-Learning meeting. It was attended by several (9?) folks across Penn State, all who work in online learning. We all attended using Zoom, which I felt was appropriate, given the crowd. I enjoyed attending the meeting and listening in on discussion regarding artificial intelligence. It was a short meeting, but I did meet some new folks and gained a better understanding of how E-learning is managed across the University by different units.

As part of the PSEL program, we are expected to find a few opportunities to interview some folks that we’d like to learn more about and  job shadow some people that are in positions that we find interesting. I reached out to the following people:

Amy Stever, Director, Education Strategy and Planning, College of IST

Ashley Adams, Director, Student Affairs, World Campus

Lynn Atanasoff, Career Counselor, World Campus

Mike Zeman, Director, Student Engagement Network

Ann Taylor, Director, John A. Dutton E-Education Institution, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences

Stevie Rocco, Assistant Director, John A. Dutton E-Education Institution, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences

I received positive responses from all of the above, except Mike Zeman whom never responded. To date, I’ve “shadowed” Amy Stever, Ashley Adams, Ann Taylor and Stevie Rocco. I’ll write more about each of these experiences in later posts.

In my requests, I suggested shadowing or an interview. My form email which I slightly modified for each request is below:

And, here we are again, more assessment/reflection work! We’ve been asked to complete an assessment and then read the book Emotional Intelligence, 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. I have to admit, I avoided this assignment. Mostly because I knew I wasn’t going to do “well”. I’m not great at controlling my emotions. This is something I’ve known about my self for quite some time and it was reflected in a few of the comments I received in my multi-rater feedback. My scores further confirmed the work I need to do:

My scores for the personal competencies –

Self Awareness: 70

“Self-awareness is your ability to accurately percieve your own emotions in the moment and understand your tendencies across situations.” (p. 24)

Self Management: 61

“Self-management is what happens when you act — or do not act.” (p. 32)

Personal Competence: 70

My scores for the social competencies –

Social Awareness: 83

“Social awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them.” (p. 38)

Relationship Management: 75

“Relationship Management is your ability to use your awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.” (p. 44)

Social Competence: 79

The book then directs the users to choose on EQ skill to work on. Then we had to identify three strategies to practice.

I chose to work on Self Management first, as I received the lowest score in this section. The three strategies I chose to work on are:

1. Set aside some time in the day for problem solving. “A 15 minute period each day where you turn off your phone, walk away from your computer, and take time to just think, is a great way to make sure your decisions aren’t muddled by your emotions.” (p. 116)
2. Take control of self talk.
   1. Turn “I always” or “I never” into “just this time“, or “sometimes“.
   2. Replace judgemental statements like “I’m an idiot” with factual ones like “I made a mistake“.
   3. Accept responsibility for your actions and no one else’s.
3. Breath right & Count to ten (I’ve combined two strategies here because I believe the go hand in hand. Likewise, the sleep on it strategy is the same idea, just on a larger time scale.)

The last strategy is something I’ve been practicing for years, and it has served me well, when I remember to use it.

The strategy of controlling self talk is something that I’ve just recently become aware of. The book mentions that “the average person has about 50,000 thoughts every day.” (p. 117). It wasn’t until I started really paying attention to those thoughts that I realized how not nice I am to myself. A few weeks back I started really tuning in and processing what I my internal voice was saying, and wow, I would never speak to anyone else that way. I’ve begun asking why it’s OK for me to talk to myself that way.

The strategy of setting aside some time is something I love to do, but rarely enforce. Meditation is a great way to spend 15 minutes a day, but I often don’t think to do it until I’m in bed and any meditation will inevitably end in snoring. Walking our foster dogs is something that I enjoy, but I only walk the neighborhood once a week or so when we aren’t housing a dog (approaching our 2 year, dog-free mark).  Bottom line is, I need to find more opportunities to practice implementing time to think.

Gosh, enough about self reflection already, right?! It’s been a long process and not always easy to take at times, but it really is starting to come together for me. The things that have come to the surface through this process aren’t all that surprising, but perhaps hadn’t been all that obvious either. A more notable example, is my growing desire to travel and see the United States. Not at all career related, I know, but as I answered questions about my peak life experiences in the past and ones I’m hopeful for in the future, I realized my heart and drive aren’t career-oriented at this time. Probably not at all the expected outcome of this process!

While, I’ve known that my strengths and career aspirations point more towards the Administrative side of higher ed, as I worked through the self reflection process, it became increasingly clear that pursuing a career path on the administrative side of things at Penn State will have to be put on hold in order to fulfill my dream of traveling extensively around our country. The position I have now affords the flexibility and the freedom to do just that. I’m an online instructor and adviser. I can instruct and advise from anywhere I have internet. Nowadays there aren’t many places that don’t have internet. Alternatively, finding a more advanced administrative-focused role that will permit me to work for the University while not physically located on campus are nearly nil at this time.