#SAcommits: The trouble with language

The Student Affairs Collaborative started a very admirable project to keep mental health at the forefront of conversation throughout May, both in terms of our work in student development and as working professionals. I genuinely applaud those who started the blog posts and the brought the conversation forward.

But I have a problem with language. The hashtag chosen for this initiative is #SAcommits.
#SAcommits. Commits. When talking about mental health. I understand the pun - that by getting involved we are committing to an important conversation. But "committing" someone, as we all know, is also the term for putting someone into what is usual involuntary treatment for any variety of mental health challenges.

My problem is not with the project - I think it's vital and it's a conversation that does not happen enough. My problem is with language. Too often we excuse the use of language when it benefits us. If an organization we didn't like decided to use the term "commit" in such a way, we'd swiftly and harshly condemn them for not understanding their point of privilege if they haven't struggled with depression or anxiety. The use of the term (I'm assuming) is to convey the message to the broad audience and increase basic understanding of mental health issues. By while attempting to spread the message to the widest possible audience, a term is being used that is most often connected to the negative stigmas around mental health to the broadest audience of people. 

The argument was made that it is the profession's way of "reclaiming" that word to use in more positive ways. I understand reclaiming words - it defuses the power of the word and (ideally) changes our understanding of it and society's acceptance of it. But the problem with reclaiming words in this way is that we then get offended when someone else uses it in the way we find offensive. The whole "We're allowed to use it this way, but others should not" argument. And Twitter is a constantly flowing stream of information - so those jumping in and seeing it without context for the creation of the hashtag (something I have yet to see, by the way, thanks to an inability to read all Tweets all the time ever) may also be put off or misunderstand what is a well-intentioned attempt at changing the meaning of a commonly used term.

The stories that have been shared are incredible and powerful and will be helpful to so many readers. I truly commend those who have been brave enough to share their lives and struggles. But there are very few of us who truly understand or have experienced the commonly understood meaning of the term "committed." Sure, we work with students (and even colleagues) who are committed temporarily for treatment, but there is a big difference between continued therapy to navigate mental illness (a privilege many don't have - even in this country) and what we usually mean when we say "committed." To blur the line between the two in order to have a catchy or punny hashtag is irresponsible.

What about #SAwellbeing or #SAhealth or #SAmentalhealth?

I know very little about mental health aside from what I've learned in my job training and experienced at work and perhaps that's where I fall short in my understanding of this use of language. I want to engage in this conversation. I really do. But as long as #SAcommits is the hashtag and the central identity of the conversation, I just can't do it. 

Pecha Kucha

The theme of the American College Personnel Association's annual conference in Indianapolis this spring was "Reinvent." As part of the reinvention of the conference, there were several innovative and exciting opportunities for professionals. One of those ideas new to the conference was a Pecha Kucha night.

Pecha Kucha is a style of presentation that involves showing 20 images for 20 seconds each. The images advance automatically while the presenter narrates. The style is all about precision - sending a message in a short amount of time.  In addition to keeping presentations short and to the point, the style keeps the audience engaged. It was an amazing experience at ACPA. While I certainly am not in the big leagues like the presenters in Indianapolis, I thought I'd give it a shot.

The Gustavus Residential Life professional staff is doing "Knowledge Drops" this spring. Each week a professional staff member presents for 5-10 minutes on a topic they are interested in, passionate about or just think the staff would benefit from hearing.

So my Knowledge Drop became my first attempt at Pecha Kucha. I thought it would be a neat introduction to the style of presenting and also allow me to share some info.

My Pecha Kucha presentation is "Lost in Translation: Why Michael Jordan Would Be a Horrible High School Basketball Coach." It's about how and why the most skilled among us have difficultly translating their talent into an ability to teach that talent. Well, the presentation is only 6:40 long, so I shouldn't say anymore!

Enjoy!

Warning: The volume isn't so great on this recorded version... make sure to crank it up! Also, there's no way I really sound like that in real life. Right?

Developing Capacity

The Student Affairs Collective hosted another great #sachat on Thursday, April 24. The topic was "the glorification of busy." Every week I am amazed at the turnout of student affairs professionals on this chat venue and I struggle to keep up with the conversation - we make Twitter move rapidly!

Being busy as a professional is a tricky thing. What is busy? How do you define what you mean by busy? This is probably an unfair question in April. Most of us in student affairs are in one of our busiest times - staff selection, student organization turnover, professional staff hiring, room selection, etc. We are hypersensitive to our schedules right now so the timing of the chat was perfect.

I struggle with "busy" often. I choose to allocate time to work and time to life how I see fit. Not everyone agrees with the way I do it and I don't always agree with the way others do it. But I own my own definition of busy and try not to talk too much about it. The idea of "busy" is tied closely to our perceived self-worth and our need to validate our competence as professionals. We get competitive and we try to "one up" one another by comparing schedules and number of hours spent at work. It's unfair and it's unhealthy. Stacy Oliver wrote a great blog post about this very topic about a year ago and I reflect on it often when rationalizing the amount of work I think I have to do or that I see others do.

I hate the phrase "I don't have time." We do have time. We always have time and, in fact, we all have the same amount of time in a day and in a week that our colleagues do. It's a matter of how we want to use the time and asking ourselves about the importance of how we have chosen to use our time. If your answer to a request is "I don't have time," then you need to either re-prioritize your time or just be authentic with your answer and tell us why you don't want to do it or that don't have the ability (yet) to get something done. Honesty works - covering up the truth with "I don't have time" doesn't work.

There's a big difference between one's ability to WORK HARD and the CAPACITY one has to accomplish many things. We all know people who work constantly but never seem to accomplish much - and the inefficiency is often mistaken for hard work. The act of always saying we are too busy is a mask for our own self-consciousness about our lack of capacity. 

We need to think critically about how we help new professionals develop capacity. We need to stop rewarding those who might work longer hours and stop judging those who try to find that elusive balance we hear so much about. Capacity is the ability to take on responsibility and fill up our bucket. Some people have bigger buckets than others, but we can help each other understand the volume and pace of work that we are all capable of handling. Some of it's innate, some of it is learned. But instead of focusing on competition, we should focus on helping others grow their capacity to do more and to do it better.

I welcome your thoughts on how we can work to help others develop capacity. Is it innate? Is it learned? Share your thoughts here or find me on Twitter @pottscharlie

GAC Talks - Digital Identity & Social Obligation

The Gustavus Campus Activities Board hosted the inaugural GAC Talks event on Saturday. Modeled after TEDTalks and St. Olaf College's STO Talks, this event was created to provide a venue for brief presentations/talks that would ultimately inspire action.

I was approached about three weeks ago by a couple members of the Campus Activities Board asking if I'd be interested in speaking. They had been trying to find some faculty or staff who would be willing to speak and decided to ask me. I was humbled and honored to be asked but was not sure at all what I'd speak about. Hannah, the student who talked to me to ask about my interest, said she was told I could probably put together a good talk on digital identity and social media. Okay... I can do this.

I contemplated topics for a few days and settled on "Digital Identity & Social Obligation." A couple of conversations with colleagues and a couple fun weekly SAChats on Twitter inspired me to focus on this topic. So my talk is a little less than 15 minutes about how we might be handling this communication revolution and three key things to remember as we adapt and change. The result of my planning and preparation is below and I hope you choose to watch.

Here's the link to the VIDEO.

The event was great and the other speakers were fantastic. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have contributed.

Feedback? Thoughts? Send it my way at cpotts@gustavus.edu or on Twitter @pottscharlie (or #GACTalks)

A Response to ACPA Statement on Rising Cost of Higher Education

The ACPA leadership team wrote a thought-provoking piece in mid-February calling to question blame that is being directed at student services for the rising cost of higher education in the United States. The statement includes a reminder about the pedagogical potential of all spaces and programs on campus and how our work outside the classroom has a significant effect on student learning. In addition, the authors outline several factors that have created growth in staffing and programming among student services, which has led to the belief that "administrative bloat" is one of the causal factors in increased cost of higher education. While I agree with the authors that external factors have led to increased staffing and therefore increased costs passed along to students, we in fact should shoulder some of the blame. Let me explain.

An analogy you likely have heard and that a former colleague of mine would often use is that the high-stakes game of college admission (particularly at tuition-driven institutions) creates a market that student services often struggle to meet. He would tell our student services offices that Admission was in the sales business and they were selling families and prospective students on the notion that our institution was similar to a luxury vehicle. Like a luxury vehicle, our institution was top-of-the line, set the standard for the industry and had all the bells and whistles. And while rising cost was an issue, what's a little bit more money when you were getting the best thing out there? The problem was - or so the analogy goes - that while the luxury vehicle was being sold out front, the work behind the scenes in the maintenance shop was really only suited to handle used cars that could get by without much attention or with inferior service. So while costs are high up front, the level of service being provided could never live up to the needs of the customer who had high expectations for a superior experience.  Keeping up with the front of the house does not necessarily mean more administrators, nor can it necessarily mean a bigger budget or more programs. So how do we keep up and insure that our services are up to par for the entitlement that ever-increasing tuition costs are creating while at the same time removing the blame that is being placed on us?

The leadership team's article says that the compounding factors that have caused administrative bloat are partially to blame for rising costs. So it's not the additional staff, per se, but rather the issues that have led to increased staffing that are to blame. I would agree with that sentiment, but I don't think it frees us from responsibility. What we have right now is a problem of adaptation vs innovation. When budgets get pinched and tough questions are asked of us, we tend to adapt the current services and programs we have to meet an emerging need. We enhance one aspect of what we do and scale back on another. This adjustment masks the deeper need for change and re-inventing our services.  While adapting and tweaking programs and services is healthy and necessary, it also allows for the perpetuation of our ability to cling to "what we've always done."  While we know we should always be assessing and re-thinking the services we provide, the adjustments we then make are often just temporary until we have to adjust again. Adaptation ends up being the band-aid; innovation is systemic and can create sustainable change.

Disruptive innovation has shaken American higher education to its core. New methods of delivery, new opportunities for connection between faculty and students and a shift in how we think about the value of traditional education have us talking. What started as static in the background of our conversations has now been amplified and what is invigorating to those of us who see the potential is also scaring those of us who adhere to traditional views of higher education. So how can we incorporate the disruption and stir things up in our own areas of the field? How do we re-think the services we offer? We should look at structure, at the scope of our reach, at maximizing our willingness to share perspectives on knowledge and by leveraging our influence through social media and new technologies. 

To get back to the analogy of the luxury vehicle, innovation will allow us to demonstrate our ability to create sustainable systemic change and provide service to our students that matches the high expectations they have upon agreeing to join us for their college experience. An increasingly higher price tag should equate to increasingly better service. Higher education cannot and should not be immune to the open market.  So are we partially to blame for rising college costs? Absolutely. But it is hard for justify that thought; when I look around my own institution, I feel we are under-staffed and over-worked as we try to serve our students. It is clear that there are many systems and processes in American higher education that are on shaky ground - and some that are broken. In times of budget cuts and blame, agency matters. We have the ability to take ownership of our capacity for change and innovation and to create change that will strengthen the understanding that our students and parents (and our critics) have about our vital support of the academic mission of our institutions. The seismic shift in higher education is happening and so far many of us have tried to maintain our balance and stay alert - but it is time that we take our place alongside the innovators.

This year's ACPA conference is about re-invention and the timing could not be better. Let's use the opportunity to talk about innovation and change and prepare ourselves for what lies ahead - these are challenging but exciting times to serve college students.

You can find me on Twitter @pottscharlie or email him at cpotts@gustavus.edu

The Fear of Failure

I spent a few days at the end of January at the ACUHO-I Chief Housing Officer Institute in Atlanta. It was an awesome experience for which I am grateful. Tremendous connections with colleagues from institutions around the country and intensive sessions around topics of all sorts related to college housing.

I was excited to take advantage of the opportunity but apprehensive about what to expect. I often feel I'm still pretty new to this job (this is the middle of my third year) and sometimes I feel naive about my role among colleagues. I've spent my entire career at small, private institutions in Minnesota - a vastly different experience than just about everyone I meet at national conferences.

The conference set-up was fantastic. Detailed, thorough presentations by talented, dynamic chief housing officers and a lot of structured small group time to digest and reflect. The institute faculty were tremendous and provided support, guidance and advice throughout the four days. My small group faculty member was Dan Pedersen, the director at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. Funny to travel 1,000 miles to connect with someone at an institution that's less than two hours from your home campus. Dan was calm, reassuring and ready to share knowledge with our small group and I owe him a debt of gratitude for making the conference environment so welcoming.

I realized quickly that I felt I was in over my head at the institute. As I took a seat next to folks from the University of South Carolina, Colgate, the University of Florida, etc, I realized that I was not sure how to talk about my experience at Gustavus. Though tremendously proud of my institution, I found myself referring to it and to my experience here as if it was inferior. "Oh just this small private school in Minnesota," or "You've probably never heard of us...," etc.

I'm often motivated by my fear of failure. I think on some level many of us - whether we are honest with ourselves about it or not - are worried that the world will discover that we're frauds. The world will find out that we are just faking our way through, under-qualified and not up to the challenge. I know it's unhealthy to have fear be a motivator - particularly when talking about work. The fear of failure coupled with some grade-A introversion makes it difficult to thrive at events like the CHO Institute. What could I possibly have to share that these people don't know? What if I open my mouth and I don't say the right thing? What if they find out I'm a fraud? After all, my only qualification for attendance was that I paid the registration fee.

I quickly became overwhelmed by what I don't know. 

But then I started to realize I had an authentic story to tell about my own experience. Sure, I don't manage my budget the way a Big Ten public institution would. No, I don't have a staff of 30 to run our operation. No, I haven't been responsible for a major construction project. But I do have experience. I have a unique perspective on issues and I have the ability to both absorb and transmit knowledge that is useful.

Student housing has an incredibly supportive network of professionals. Dan told our small group a couple of times that it's not necessarily about what you don't know, but more about how you take in the knowledge that's shared by the competent professionals that surround you. Each of the faculty members was an "expert" in a specific area, but each readily admitted they didn't know everything about everything - that they are, to some degree, still figuring it all out, too.

My feelings at this institute made me think more deeply about that fear of failure and how it drives much of what I do as a professional. I read an interesting piece in Forbes last spring. It was column called "5 Ways to Conquer Your Fear of Failure," and I actually called it up again while in Atlanta for the conference. 

The article summarizes that a lack of failure means a lack of risk-taking. And as someone who's pretty risk averse (I live in Minnesota and won't walk out onto a frozen lake in the winter. Just too risky. And yes, I realize it's two feet of ice), this is a big challenge for me to accept.

The article encourages us to:

1. Embrace our mistakes - I makes lots of these. Owning them and learning from them is always the hard part, but it will help me understand why it's okay to fail.

2. Stop trying so hard - Pushing hard and only making minimal progress can certainly feel like failure. Usually the solution is right in front of us if we find out how to see it.

3. Ask for help - I hate asking for help. But not asking for help is what almost assuredly leads to my failures. Suck it up and ask for help. As the wise Mr. Pedersen said at the CHO Institute, everyone has their own expertise to lend and it serves you well to ask others for their input.

4. Say no when you're afraid to - I often just say yes because it's the nice thing to do or because it will cause less conflict if I do. And I need to remember this when asking those whom I supervise to take on projects.

5. Say yes when you're afraid to - Attending the CHO Institute was a "yes" to something that scared me. I knew going into it how I might feel in a room full of 50 accomplished professionals, but I took the leap and am thankful that I did. Focus on the great things that could happen with your decision and just say "yes."

I learned quickly that it's okay to be overwhelmed by what I don't know. Being overwhelmed and understanding the things I don't know is what creates for me a desire to learn. My fear of failure is often unfounded, but it keeps me motivated to develop personally and professionally. And I learned that we all know more than we think we do.

The lessons learned at a conference are not always what you intended.

How do you feel about fear as a motivator? Where have you learned your greatest professional lessons? I'd love to hear your thoughts - find me on Twitter @pottscharlie

The Power of Blogging

I seem to be at a mental standstill with blog writing. I have a few ideas - none fully formed. And I don't seem to have the motivation to write at this moment.

But I'm making an attempt to encourage colleagues to write. I was inspired by #SAchat folks to try my hand at creating a blog and now we have created a blog for our Student Life Division at Gustavus. We have a few entries ready to go for the month of February and the hope is that it will grow and develop as we begin to share more with each other in written form.

Check it out at http://studentlife.blog.gustavus.edu/

If you have thoughts on how to inspire others to write and/or have great examples of divisions or departments that do this now, please let me know! You can find me on Twitter @pottscharlie

Photo credit: http://todaymade.com/blog/5-ways-to-make-your-blog-better-today/