Category Archives: innovation

Mr. Fantastic

Posted on September 14, 2023 by | 1 comment
Laurence N Smith

Once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, you will know a Mr. or Ms. FANTASTIC!

Laurence N. Smith is my Mr. Fantastic! He was the vice president for University Marketing and Student Affairs at Eastern Michigan University from 1975–2000.

I give him this title because he stands out from the rest in every way. He’s always the tallest in the room and the smartest in the room. And when asked how he’s doing, invariably, he responds, “FAANTASTIC!”

Leadership in a volunteer organization based in higher education can be a different experience than what a leader might be able to do in a top-down organization where the people responsible for making the trains run on time are paid and can be released at-will.

When I was in such a leadership position, willing volunteers were the key to success. Many stepped forward to let me know that I could count on them to help me achieve the goals of the organization. They used words like “help you,” “support you,” “here when you need me.”

In my imaginative recall, Larry Smith, towering over the heads of his colleagues, fixed his eyes on me, made a beeline to me, and asked, “What is your vision for this organization?” With confidence, I summarized my mandate from the volunteer board of directors and added my own vision, which could be described as fantastical given the structure and history of the organization. Mr. Fantastic’s eyes communicated, “Are you sure?” The gaze I returned indicated that I was.

Lyrics from songs best describe his response: “Come along with me,” “I’ll take you there,” “I believe I can fly!” My leadership vision was the perfect vehicle for Mr. Fantastic to test drive his ideas about what student affairs administration in higher education could “truly be.”

On the journey with Mr. Fantastic, it was obvious that when we were talking about using listservs to bring our members together in conversation from various locations, he was already thinking about what we now call Zoom meetings. When we were talking about Palm Pilots, he was envisioning what is now Chat GPT. Always looking toward the possibilities for the future, never fearing failure, and always optimistic is my Mr. Fantastic.

And I’m not the only one that found Larry to be fantastic. In 1999, he was named a NASPA Pillar of the Profession, and in 2002, he was the recipient of the Fred Turner Award for Outstanding Service to NASPA. The equivalent of a Lifetime Achievement Award, the Turner Award recognizes NASPA members who have brought honor and dignity to the student affairs profession and to NASPA as an association for a sustained period. Among Larry’s extensive activities, he was founder and chair of the NASPA National Academy for Leadership and Executive Effectiveness and executive editor of NASPA’s online management magazine.

I spoke with Larry recently and told him that to have him as a colleague and friend during my time at NASPA was a blessing of pain and glory. The pain was tempering the projections of where the organization could go and modulating the speed of change in order to be in sync with the volunteer leadership. The glory was the innovations NASPA achieved through its volunteers when we were flying with Mr. FAANTASTIC!

Thank you, Larry. I am truly grateful for your colleagueship and friendship.

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Posted in collaboration, energy, Higher Education, initiative, innovation, integrity, Leadership, NASPA, reflection, respect, Retirement, Student Affairs

A Philosophy of Sorts

Posted on August 31, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Guest blog by David Keymer

Over time I arrived at something like a philosophy to govern my work in student affairs and higher education. Ultimately, all of our expertise points back to a vision of what college and university life should be like, what it should do. Universities and colleges are a special kind of community—a community of learners. The emphasis should be on both words: “community” and “learners.”

The ideas, then, are simple…nothing complicated:

First and foremost, I was there for the students, and the students were there to get an education. In this exchange, then, it was the students who were paramount. If it was about empowering students, it was simply a matter of service for me. That meant that…

  • students should always be able to reach me;
  • it was important that I give good value in whatever I did; and
  • ego was less important than results.

Using power gratuitously is not only wrong, it’s counterproductive. The power I held was the position’s and there for a purpose. It was not mine and, just because I had it by way of the position did not mean I had to use it.

This was especially true as I realized that everyone on campus needed to be in the same business of helping students succeed, academically as well as socially. Parents or prospective students didn’t come on campus and ask where the Vice President for Student Affairs’ office was. They talked to whomever they met. It might be a worker planting flowers in the flower beds outside a classroom building, or a campus police officer passing by, or a stray faculty member or student on the way to class. As a result, I did a lot of walking around talking to colleagues and students to ensure we got our message out that we had the same ends and were serious and proud of our commitment to student success.

Everything I managed to do required other people. It was important, then, that I listen to EVERYone, not take others for granted, and recognize others’ contributions and let them know I appreciated them. That being said, an important piece of effectively working with people is to cooperate, but “never give up your teeth.” The work is too important, and every so often, you may have to take a bite out of someone to convince the other person you’re not kidding.

Relatedly, developing people is as important as spurring them on to work well. It takes time, money, and effort to find and hire someone new for a position. If there were difficulties initially, it wasn’t a matter of giving up, but needing to find out what people did well and what inspired them, then leveraging those strengths and interests.

After all, work should be fun as well as work.

David Keymer served as a chief student affairs officer at SUNY Utica Rome; California State University, Stanislaus; and Zayed University (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) from 1983-2004. For more wisdom gleaned from Keymer’s experience in student affairs across these varied institutions, check out the seven-part series published in 2021 from a set of interviews.

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Posted in guest post, Higher Education, initiative, innovation, integrity, Leadership, reflection, Retirement, Student Affairs, Students

Removing Roadblocks

Posted on June 22, 2023 by | 1 comment

Many community college students are true immigrants to higher education. To them, going to college is as foreign as finding themselves put ashore in a strange land.

Once they embark upon a college education at the community college, often their main concerns include how to pay for their course work and how to juggle their myriad responsibilities in order to find time to study.

Often, their plans include getting as many courses done as possible at the community college at lower costs before continuing toward their four-year degree.  

They are proud of these hard-earned credits. However, too often they find their safe harbor disrupted when they discover that many of the credits earned at the community college will not transfer or be accepted by their choice of a four-year college.

More than 40 years ago when I worked at a community college, the most time-consuming and frustrating parts of my job as a counselor and academic adviser were to work with students who were being stymied in their progress because the community colleges and four-year colleges could not come to agreement on which courses taken at the community college were “equivalent” to courses at the four-year college. I think now as I did then: If community colleges are “colleges” and faculty who teach the courses are qualified and students meet the requirements, why are there questions about equivalences?

A recent story on Marketplace Morning Report noted that when transferring from a community college to a four-year college, about “43% of college credits don’t end up counting toward a new degree.” The reasons for this lack of cooperation and consistency between community and four-year colleges seem to be about money and hierarchy.

With less funding from states and counties and increasing infrastructure costs for colleges and universities, four-year colleges continue to raise tuition as a source of revenue. Done intentionally or not, having students repeat courses already taken at community colleges is another source of revenue.

Then there is the hierarchy. Community colleges that were created to give opportunities to a broader spectrum of students in their own communities are often described in unflattering terms. Rather than being seen as a way to level the playing field, the hierarchy is preserved when the gatekeepers at four-year colleges stand in judgment as to the worth of the credits earned at community colleges.

Students have little say or control about the transfer of credits and suffer the consequences of being stuck in the middle. If faculty from the two types of institutions cannot agree on what is acceptable in courses of the same or similar names and descriptions, then it may be time for outsiders to interfere further in the business of the professionals in higher education.

If outsiders are allowed to make decisions about what is appropriate to be in the curriculum, how teachers teach, and what books are in the library, why not take this interference further and mandate articulation on course transfer between community and four-year colleges? The time is long overdue for leadership to require that the roadblocks to complete articulation between community and four-year colleges be removed.

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Posted in Academic Affairs, adult learners, collaboration, empathy, first-generation college students, Higher Education, initiative, innovation, integrity, Leadership, respect, Students

Jews of the Wild West

Posted on April 6, 2023 by | Leave a comment

On Palm Sunday, April 2, 2023, I went to the Scottsdale Museum of the West to see a screening of the documentary film, Jews of the Wild West.

As I watched the film, I kept thinking about how the stories of Jewish people who immigrated to the United States and later to the Western United States appear to be missing from American history. The absence continues to be perpetuated in books and films today. A special thanks is owed to the nonprofit production company and to the filmmaker, Amanda Kinsey, for uncovering and sharing such a significant part of American history.

Notable Jewish migrants to the West are Levi Strauss, who we can thank for the jeans we wear; Isaac Shwayder, whose son, Jesse, founded the premier luggage line Samsonite; and Meyer Guggenheim, patriarch of the philanthropic Guggenheim family whose wealth came from the mining and smelting business. Women such as Golda Meir were also prominent in establishing a Jewish presence in the West. To say that these families had humble beginnings is an understatement.

They used their ingenuity, persistence, grit, and desire to make a life without persecution—one in which they not only survived the hardships of the frontier but thrived. They found that the Wild West had less antisemitism than New York City. In general, people who moved West had one thing on their minds: taking advantage of the riches the frontier would eventually offer.

The Jews who migrated West, for the most part, were not panning streams and mining for gold. They understood that people needed practical products and clothes as they pursued their dreams of a better life and their road to riches. The Jewish migrants may have started out as peddlers who made enough money to open a dry goods store as in the case of Shwayder. Eventually, they found markets within their communities and beyond that became their road to success. Because they were usually the only people in the community with a business, they often became the mayors of these frontier towns.

Jews of the Wild West is rich with the personal stories of the Jews who struck out for the Wild West and made good. Check out streaming platforms and American Public Television to see this film.

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Posted in faith, Identity, initiative, innovation, integrity, Leadership, Race & Ethnicity, respect

A Helper’s FIRE

Posted on September 22, 2022 by | 1 comment

I’ve talked with people who after many years in a particular kind of work feel unsettled as if they are not doing the kind of work that fulfills their passion. Others I’ve had conversations with have changed the kind of work they do many times. They say that they get restless after the bloom of doing something different begins to fade.

Like those I’ve spoken with who wonder if there is something that they should be doing rather than what they are doing with their lives, I’ve had these thoughts. But for me, these thoughts have been fleeting. During my career journey, I took many of the assessments that purport to help career searchers begin to narrow their focus. Interpretations of my various assessment results showed a consistency in that whatever I chose for a career, I would be a “helper.”

I defined being a helper as someone who would provide support to others in reaching their goals and human potential. The question for me was how this might be realized in a specific career. Coming of age in the 1960s, I didn’t believe that the universe of options was open to me. Going into the medical field was my teenage dream. However, the reality of my financial situation made that dream unrealistic as a goal.

Being a teacher was one way that I could become a helper. However, it was a choice for which I settled rather than one for which I had a strong inclination. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was during these years that I thought I was settling that I found my passion. Teaching helped me realize that young people found it easy to relate to me and sought my counsel beyond the classroom. During these one-to-one sessions with students, I learned that many of them worked to the level that was expected of them rather than to the level of what they were capable of doing. They had more potential than they realized. Helping these students see beyond their current circumscribed existence brought me joy.

My sense of satisfaction in these relationships with students and their positive response to me confirmed for me that I was in the right place. Attaining a degree in counseling, I was prepared to be a helper. I found real congruence between who I imagined myself to be and who I could be in my career as a mental health and career counselor.

Even at this early stage of my journey, my touchstones of FIRE were part of my inner process:

I accepted the situation that I was in (fate).

I believed that I would be led to the right outcome (faith).

I focused on living a life infused with integrity.

I took initiative to get the required credentials to do what I wanted to do.

I was constantly reflecting on circumstances in a manner that I could glean lessons from my experiences.

I always tried to respect those with whom I interacted regardless of age and position.

I applied energy to achieve career goals and to carry out my responsibilities as a spouse and parent.  

I freely expressed empathy for others, and I allowed myself empathy when it seemed that I had lost my way.

My hopeful wish for young professionals is that you will find the path that will lead you to your place of passion and fulfillment in your professional and personal life.

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Posted in empathy, energy, faith, fate, Identity, initiative, innovation, integrity, reflection, respect

Pushing on…

Posted on July 23, 2020 by | 2 comments

Despite intermittent squalls, heavy rains, and poor visibility, students, faculty, staff, and administrators push on in preparing for what used to be the beginning of the traditional academic year.

Why students push on

To increase their learning, which contributes to the development of the means to challenge the fairness of the distribution of power and thereby contribute to the fulfillment of the promise in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Why faculty push on

To provide learners the opportunity to develop critical-thinking tools in order to discern for themselves whether or not there is a systematic plan to stratify people into groups where some are always the most needy.

Why professional staff push on

To provide the environment in which students have the opportunity to create experiences that will help them develop the skills to speak up about inequities and lead communities in public problem solving so necessary for a democracy.

Why support staff push on

To provide the safety net of strong, sometimes invisible, sinews that hold the academic community together.

Why administrators push on

To demonstrate strong leadership in turbulent times because our hope is in a new generation of leaders who can help the nation move toward the fulfillment of the promise in the Preamble to the Constitution: “We the People of the United States…promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

 

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Posted in Academic Affairs, energy, faith, Higher Education, initiative, innovation, integrity, Leadership, Student Affairs, Students

Tomorrow Will Be Another World

Posted on April 23, 2020 by | Leave a comment

We’re still in shock—and will be for a while. While there is no avoiding the effects of the pandemic of 2020, we should feel proud of ourselves because we have been exceptional in finding ways to adapt to what we hope is a temporary reality. We gamely say that what we’re experiencing now is “the new normal,” while hoping with all our heart that this is not true. We always hated clichés about how things always work out, and now we use them as salves to soothe ourselves and one another. We must admit, though, that coping with the present has given us some respite from thinking about the future.

But we know that—like a fast-moving train approaching the next station—we can’t hold back the future. Imagine this train as an old-fashioned one with conductors and porters responsible for accommodating passengers. On this imaginary train there is no hierarchy: conductors and porters all work together according to their strengths.

Wisely, the conductors and porters on this old-fashioned train understand that they need to create different teams to work on different aspects of their dilemma:

  • The first team focuses on adapting what always has been done to the current situation in order to make the transition as smooth as possible.
  • The second team creates best- and worst-case scenarios of what they may find when they reach the next station.
  • The third team has the biggest challenge. They are charged with creating a vision for a preferred future—a future that evolves from impossible dreams and high aspirations.

It is critical that this third team has the capacity to see the positive in the midst of all that seems to have gone wrong. They will use the cataclysmic disruption as leverage to make the kinds of fundamental change that they dared not dream of making in the past. In order to meet the realities of a future in which there are no models, they will make the assumption that processes and structures that led to equilibrium and success in the past are not useful in the new context.

Like us now, this team on the imaginary train barreling into the future, realizes that previous warnings and exhortations about not creating change pale in comparison to the opportunity this pandemic has given us to pursue the “what ifs,” the “why nots”, and the “this may sound crazy, buts…”.

It is possible, whatever our endeavor, that the 2020 pandemic—our ultimate test—is the catalyst that unleashes our creativity and ingenuity in pursuing a vision that will help us create the tomorrow that will be another world.

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Don’t let negativity hijack your focus: It’s all about students

Posted on February 4, 2020 by | Leave a comment

When I was growing up, I was taught never to use the word “HATE.” It was the four-letter word that was taboo in our family. Whenever I would use the word, it was usually about some chore that I didn’t want to do. If my grandmother was within earshot of my profanity, she would say, “Honey, we don’t use that word in this family. Find another word.” Growing up this way makes the word “HATE” especially heinous and destructive to me.

Imagine how I must have felt when, as Dean of Student Development, I was told by four different administrators in the course of one week that a top-level administrator who was my boss’ boss “HATED” me. Naturally, I ruminated about what I had been told. Realizing that running these negative messages over and over in my mind was crippling me emotionally, I had to find a way to get back to what I had been focusing on before I received these messages.

The first thing I did to get out of the rumination rut was to reflect on what may have caused this person to express hatred toward me to other people. Thinking as objectively as possible about my last interactions with the person, I could understand why this person might not be happy with me. I had dared, in a meeting of several administrators, to strenuously disagree about an impending decision regarding student activities funds. Despite the fact that I thought I was in the right position on the matter, upon reflection, I could imagine that this person, by dent of the position held, would be extremely angry with me. For my part, I concluded that there were more effective ways with fewer negative consequences that I should consider when reacting to positions in opposition to my own. Nonetheless, for the administrator to express hatred toward me seemed over the top.

I then considered how I might put this situation in perspective because the backlash of my own behavior had distracted me from my goal of being the most effective administrator I could be. I didn’t think an apology would be accepted, and I couldn’t reveal how I knew that the administrator was angry beyond the pale. I thought my best way forward was to refocus on the expectations and responsibilities of my job.

When I look back at what I accomplished during this period of serious distraction, I might have intuitively known that I needed to shine brightly in bringing value to the college through my efforts to support students. I was realistic enough to know that I might be fired if I did not bring the kind of value that was over and above expectations. Receiving evaluations of “exceeds expectations” in the stated responsibilities of the positions would have been fine for most people, but I knew that I needed to bring more to the table.

I was already working as hard as I could, having accepted the added responsibility of being one of the academic deans in addition to being the Dean of Student Development. Having two entirely different staffs and two separate offices, working hard not to drop the ball in either area of responsibility, was hard and exhilarating. Having responsibility for some of the faculty, as well as the counselors and advisers in Student Development, put me in the best position possible to do what we all wanted in regards to supporting students.

I threw myself into trying the impossible, such as bringing faculty and counseling advisers together for student academic advising. The gods looked upon us with favor when a popular faculty member and an influential counselor coordinated the joint advising effort in a space dedicated for this collaboration. Despite the fact that this effort was fraught for a number of reasons, we were all passionately committed to how the collaboration would benefit all students.

During this same period, I initiated something else that kept me from being distracted by the negative messages I was receiving. I approached the director of the county schools’ program for gifted and talented students to pitch the idea of a Middlestart Program. The county schools’ director and I brought the idea to our respective institutions and the program was embraced by faculty, staff, and administrators from the college and from the county schools. It was not long before 50 junior high school students were taking summer courses taught by our college faculty. In addition to the courses, students were receiving an excellent orientation to college and would hopefully consider our college in the future.

I have reason to believe that anyone who is a member of an academic community, whether on college and university campuses or in association work, may find themselves distracted by negative interpersonal issues that block creativity and enthusiasm for one’s work. Knowing that I was contributing to larger goals in significant ways worked for me. Focusing on initiatives and being exhilarated by the challenge of doing two full-time jobs boosted my confidence and sense of safety despite functioning in an environment that was anything but nurturing. Though my focus might have been hijacked momentarily, remembering that my raison d’etrewas all about students removed all traces of the distractions resulting from messages about my being hated.

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Posted in collaboration, Higher Education, innovation, Leadership, Student Affairs, Students