Computer & Internet

Archive for April, 2010

Thanks to everyone who participated in today’s #SAchat focusing on Managing Up. This week, our chats produced over 1,000 comments from over 100 student affairs professionals,  graduate students and undergraduates interested or working in the Student Affairs field!

In case you missed it, below is a quick recap. If you haven’t yet participated in an #sachat, learn more here.

Full Transcripts
(Feel free to add your own comments if you missed the entire chat, a few questions, or comments today!)

DAYTIME:  View as a Google Document

EVENING:  View as a Google Document

Today’s Top Contributors

@jpkirch
@reyjunco
@ChrisMacDe
@mikesevery
@JGinese23
@JennaMagnuski
@StacyLOliver
@PetePereira
@cindykane

Here’s to another successful set of #sachats!  What are some other topics you would like to see us cover?  Please let us know your ideas and feedback to keep #sachat growing strong.

Until we next week, (if you haven’t already done so) please make sure to LIKE our growing Facebook Page, currently over 2,800 and adding new #studentaffairs friends every day!  Thanks for your continued support!

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Please welcome Becca Fick, my first “On The Go” Guest Blogger!  Becca and I have gotten to know each other over Twitter and I admire the way she leveraged social media to help her find a job out of Graduate School.  Today, Becca shares her story on how she did it, and provides the other side to Mike Severy’s recent post on the Student Affairs Blog.

I set up my Twitter account in December 2008 after a colleague convinced me it was useful for keeping up with friends across the country. Neither of us could have predicted the impact it would have on my job search a year and a half later. Though Twitter is a social networking tool for many, it is my primary professional networking tool.

Twitter played three key roles in my job search:

• Connected me with other Student Affairs professionals and formed a support system.
• Validated my experience and classroom knowledge.
• Gave me perspective on what employers were looking for and my institutional fit.

Connection

The relationships formed through Twitter have evolved from a network to a support system. I’m not the first to say that people just don’t understand what exactly we do in our jobs, let alone why we are so committed to doing it. Connecting with other professionals through Twitter, especially those engaged in the #sachat community is a refreshing change. It lets me move beyond explaining what I do—to collaborating (and commiserating) with others in the field.

A few members of the #sachat community volunteered to review candidate resumes and offer critiques in February, an opportunity I took advantage of.  @EdCabellon and @clconzen reviewed my resume and provided critical feedback. These reviews took our interactions beyond Twitter, to phone calls and email follow-ups.  My online connections were quickly becoming an integral part of my professional network.

Validation

Weekly discussions through #sachat have given me a forum to share my experiences and test the value of my education with other professionals.  These conversations affirmed that my perspective was valuable for more than just a case study or midterm paper. Talking about my work through Twitter has added an additional reflective component that translated well into interviews.

Sharing my thoughts on assessment, recognition, leadership development, student leader training and an abundance of other topics helped me prepare to discuss these topics in interviews. Although I knew about StrengthsQuest and StrengthsFinder, it was my Twitter colleagues who convinced me to check it out. And it’s a good thing they did, it came up in one of my interviews at the ACPA Annual Convention in Boston last month!

Perspective

@CindyKane coined the phrase, “Lurking is Learning” and it couldn’t be truer in my job search. Twitter allows me to follow users with interesting content, regardless of their interest in the information I am sharing. This perspective has allowed me to gain the insight of industry leaders, potential and current colleagues, and universities. I’ve been able to see how other professionals are (and aren’t) engaged in social media, NASPA, ACPA, and in other aspects of their professional development. I followed several potential supervisors, colleagues, and institutions to gain better insight into institutional fit.

Some departments or colleges weren’t represented on Twitter at all, others had stagnant accounts, while some were using the tool like I was to brand themselves and their work. The active accounts provided the best perspective into university events and culture, but the inactive or nonexistent accounts spoke loudly too. I didn’t want to walk into a position that required me to manage a well-oiled machine, but rather a position that allowed me to grow—and with a staff that would support change.  Universities and professionals actively engaging in social media were a great indicator of this progressive mindset, and these positions were the ones I targeted.

I engaged in Twitter and with colleagues before I was on the market for a job. Building trust and relationships with a community of professionals was not a means to an end, but rather a genuine attempt to grow professionally.  I listened to conversations before I jumped in with my own opinions.  It was important to get to know my colleagues before asking them to know and value me too.  As with any new relationship, listen more than you speak. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason.

Have you found a job or opportunity using Twitter or other Social Media?

Becca Fick is a Graduate Assistant in Greek Life and Leadership and will soon have her MEd in Higher Education Administration and Student Personnel from Kent State University.   After graduation, she will be the new Assistant Director of Student Involvement and Leadership at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. You can connect with Becca on Twitter (@BeccaFick) and http://beccafick.wordpress.com/.

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If you cannot view this poll click here.

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And here are the results from the last poll.

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We all want to create learning experiences that transform lives. Students spend such a short time in college (which may be even less with three-year degrees!)–what opportunities can we offer that will have a big impact? This challenge seems impossible at times, especially with tight resources. However, when we are able to pull one off, it can appear almost magical.

That’s the way I would describe the weeklong Lakota cultural experience offered recently to UW-Green Bay students. I had the pleasure of accompanying students to the Pine Ridge Reservation and Rapid City, South Dakota, to build relationships with the Lakota people, to learn about their culture, and to participate in service with them.

From our arrival to our departure, we encountered opportunities to stretch our minds, hearts, and bodies. Our guides encouraged us from the start to observe and listen, to learn and understand, to resist judgment.

In this frame of mind, we witnessed Lakota people, who, despite past and present losses, demonstrated true generosity, compassion, spirit, and hope. We heard a bit about Lakota history, defined by manipulation and worse; however, we heard a great deal more about a future defined by tribally driven education, cultural restoration, and community development.

Despite the short time we spent with various individuals, we formed strong connections. Each person we met deepened our understanding, not only about the Lakota people but also about ourselves. We observed values that some of us will build into our own lives: a broader definition of family, a spiritual connection to all things, and a reverence for our elders and their wisdom. Lakota resilience and tenacity empower us.

I almost missed this trip. It had been many years since I last crawled into a crowded van and drove for hours to get to a destination, whether that was an R.A. conference, NACURH, or some other lively and learning-filled event. Like living-in perhaps, road trips seemed a thing of the past for me. A selfish quandary rightly resolved.

This trip’s life is far from over. The group is presenting its experiences to the campus in a couple weeks, a participant is writing a paper on Wounded Knee for a history class, and next fall we will facilitate a discussion of the book Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog as part of our leadership programming. And that’s just the beginning.

I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to join the students on this journey. It was a transformative experience for all of us and a program thick with learning: history, culture, white privilege, economics, and so much more. Magical.

Were you lucky enough to have a transformative experience as an undergrad? What are some recent high-impact learning experiences you’ve been a part of or observed? Who is finding success creating quality experiences with limited resources?

View the UWGB Student Life Facebook page for photos from our trip.

Lisa Tetzloff is director of student life at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

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Thanks to everyone who participated in today’s #SAchat focusing on Staff Recognition and Motivation. This week, our chats produced over 1,000 comments from over 100 student affairs professionals,  graduate students and undergraduates interested or working in the Student Affairs field!

In case you missed it, below is a quick recap. If you haven’t yet participated in an #sachat, learn more here.

Full Transcripts
(You’ll notice that I’ve changed the formatting of the Transcript.  Feel free to add your own comments if you missed the entire chat, a few questions, or comments today!)

DAYTIME:  View as a Google Document

EVENING:  View as a Google Document

Today’s Top Contributors

@JGinese23
@MikeJHamilton
@jpkirch
@reyjunco
@ericstoller
@JamieDresher
@NASPAtweets
@mikesevery
@megs0124

Thanks to Stacy Oliver, we now also have Student Affairs links and resources related to the chats! Thanks Stacy!

How Full is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life

Here’s to another successful set of #sachats!  What are some other topics you would like to see us cover?  Please let us know your ideas and feedback to keep #sachat growing strong.

Until we next week, (if you haven’t already done so) please make sure to LIKE our growing Facebook Page, currently over 2,800 and adding new #studentaffairs friends every day!  Thanks for your continued support!

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In case you missed this evening’s edition of #SACHAT, we had our first celebrity sighting since Irma Pelt joined the conversation. Yes, it was none other than everyone’s favorite mermaid, Ariel!

During our evening chat on the topic of Staff Motivation and Recognition, Miss Ariel weighed in to share her approval of staff and student recognition.

Our trusty #SACHAT moderator was surprised as much as anyone by this celebrity appearance and sought confirmation of the mermaid manifesting herself in the conversation.

Miss Ariel continued to show that she’s got the scales and chimed in on a question about handling staff jealousy over recognition.

As the conversation clearly slowed to focus on the star in our midst, Ariel bantered a bit more about the “ism’s” represented in Disney animation and then swam away, under the sea, down where it’s wetter, take it from me.

Just goes to prove, you miss a day of #SACHAT, you miss a lot.

I wanna be where the people are
I wanna see, wanna see them dancin’
Walking around on those – what do you call ‘em?
Oh – feet!

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Over a month ago, I wrote this post and promised to be back in a few days with a thoughtful response to Peter Weddle’s blog entry.    A month and a half later….sorry, I took a bit longer than expected.

One sentence from Peter’s blog seemed to spark some conversation in the comments–and Peter even stopped by to comment!  That sentence is: “concentrate on building up the capability, flexibility, utility and visibility of your talent — your DNA of excellence.” That’s a great sounding sentence, but what does it mean?  Here’s my interpretation.

Capability. Do you know the stuff you’re supposed to know?  Accomplish this by staying current on research and best practices in your functional area and/or specialty.  If you’re feeling less than confident about your skills, seek out additional training, whether formal or informal.  Make an effort to communicate regularly with leaders and practitioners in your field so you’re exposed to a variety of opinions and experiences.

Flexibility. Are your skills transferable?   Expand your skill set so it can be applied to other functional areas on campus, or even other industries.  Explore alternate delivery methods–your career counseling skills may be stellar when a student is in your office, but are you comfortable counseling on the telephone, skype, or using social media?  Another important aspect of flexibility is the types of stakeholders you’re comfortable working with.  Hopefully everyone reading this works well with students, but other groups to consider are: parents, faculty, support staff, community members, private sector employees, and people much older or younger than you.

Utility. Are you spending your time developing expertise in an area that is truly useful to the profession?  It’s important to recognize if your focus has jumped the shark­.  Assuming your knowledge-base is relevant, can you clearly and concisely explain why what you do is useful and worthwhile?  Everyone’s heard of an elevator speech.  Imagine you are in the elevator with a senior administrator at your institution.  When he/she asks “what have you been up to?” are you able to provide a 10-15 second answer that showcases your skills and value as an employee?  Is your answer so good that he/she would stop outside the elevator to ask you more about it?

Visibility. Are you recognized as a leader in your field?  There are lots of ways to accomplish this:

• Present at conferences
• Submit articles for publication
• Utilize social media to connect with others
• Actively participate in professional association committees

Local visibility is important too.  When your department or area of interest is mentioned on campus, does your name come up?  Some options to increase your campus visibility include:

• Join committees and actually contribute
• Reach out to others when you need their expertise; they’ll likely return the favor at a later date
• Attend campus social events (for staff as well as students)
• If your campus maintains an “experts list,” find out what you need to do to be included on it.

All of this contributes to your DNA of excellence…and it will be much easier to develop it if you truly believe that you are excellent at what you do.  If that’s not how you view yourself, focus more on the “capability” aspect and you’ll improve quickly.  Have a conversation about this with your supervisor – what boss doesn’t want their employees to learn new things in order to become a better professional?

Be patient.  I’ve been in my position for 5 years, and only recently have I begun to think about myself and my career in this manner.  Does this resonate with anyone?  Is there a dimension of the DNA of excellence that is missing?  What strategies have you used to develop your DNA of excellence?

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Social media as a job search tool? Sure I’d heard about it but didn’t really put much faith into it beyond employer/employee fact checking and social background research.  By the time we had a position moving through our HR process in January I’d been contributing to studentbranding.com for a several months so I knew the networking expectations for both employers and candidates in the non-higher education arena.  As such, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose by sharing news of our process on twitter.

While I had been engaged in the #sachat community not much came of this tweet (note no #sachat hashtag) until we progressed as a community into discussions on job searches, of course triggered by Ed Cabellon.  Here is a sequence of tweets than ensued over the course of sixteen minutes.

As promised, when our position was finally approved right before #NASPA10 I sent a tweet sharing the news and our process from that point forward.  I didn’t have a live link yet so several people requested the job description as a result of these tweets:

Several members of the #sachat and twitter community requested a job description after these tweets.  Anyone who expressed interest in the position or had asked questions about the job, university and location via twitter was on the radar for us.  As we progressed through the search, all search committee members, including me, unfollowed all of the twitter candidates to maintain the integrity of our process.  Communication with candidates became more formal and traditional – email and phone – but by that point the networking had reaped its rewards.

Twitter can change the search process

While unexpected, twitter and the #sachat community fundamentally changed the search process by decreasing the size of an already small profession.  Certainly candidates still had to successfully navigate the gauntlet of our search process but our knowledge of them through social media outlets was very informative.

As an employer our engagement on twitter, whether individually or through our office account, helped us put information in the public domain that we wanted to share about the future direction of our office and our work environment.  Knowing that I was being followed by several candidates didn’t change how I interacted on twitter but it did reassure me that when we got to the point of fit questions that these candidates were probably better informed about us than those who were not accessing our information.

As a candidate you need to think through how you use twitter and what degree of access you want to provide.  It can be hugely beneficial for employers to triangulate your professional perspective and network connections.  On the other hand it can also be detrimental, particularly related to candidate authenticity and consistency in different settings if your interviews and application materials don’t align well with your presence in social media.

Social media expertise will be a required job criteria for all future searches

Our job description listed social media expertise as a preferred requirement.  It became a more prominent factor in our search every step of the way as our discussions to balance expertise and needs within our office became more focused.  In our next search social media engagement will be a required component.

In response to:

You may be asking:

Based on our candidate pool and how they identified their skill set as it related to our job description I would disagree that most people in gen-y have them in some form.  Facebook doesn’t cut it anymore.  That is now below the minimum – fan pages, connections, etc. Different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff. We were looking for someone who had the interest in and ability to give us traction in areas where we knew we needed to be engaged but were spinning our wheels – Facebook a bit, twitter, and blogs. (Again social media served as only two of thirteen criteria in our search process.)  In particular, we were looking for a solid knowledge base of how to use twitter and, ideally, high quality engagement in the student affairs community and #sachat in particular.

Very few candidates provided social media information on their resume or in their cover letter (the best approach for me – hyperlinked to your profile in a PDF resume).  Even some of the candidates we knew were on twitter didn’t identify that knowledge in their application materials.  If you are engaged in the #sachat community your knowledge base sets you apart from the general student affairs community and you need to market that knowledge.  Again, different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff but why make the hunt for that information difficult and allow employers to make inaccurate assumptions about your skill set?

In January I never would have guessed the impact social media would have on our search process.  I’m a believer now though.  Without getting into further details of our search I’d be glad to discuss your process as it relates to my perspective on social media and the role it can play in a successful search process for you.

What do you think?  Make it a good day.

Mike Severy is the Director of Student Involvement and Leadership at UNC Pembroke.  You can connect with Mike via Twitter.

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The newest member of our writing team is Liz Van Lysal (@lvanlysal). Liz is the Program Outreach Coordinator for UW-Milwaukee. While all our writers are in Student Affairs, there is immense diversity, so I asked Liz a few questions to get to know her better.

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Bio:
My name is Liz Van Lysal, and I’m currently the Program Outreach Coordinator in University Housing at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. I oversee marketing and communication for five buildings housing over 4,000 residents, and help @keriduce in Neighborhood Housing with communication to off-campus students and community members whenever possible. I consider myself a social media nerd and I’m excited to be able to incorporate that interest into our communication with students and their families.  I received my M.Ed. from Marquette University in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies and this summer I’m starting my doctoral studies in Leadership and Service in Higher Education at Cardinal Stritch University.  Prior to working at UWM, I was the Student Organizations Coordinator at the National Communication Association in Washington, DC.
 
Now, on to more interesting information:
 
What’s the best advice you’ve received for your job?
After about three years in my position, I began to get bored.  It was only when I started focusing on my career rather than my job that I was able to continually challenge myself, even if my job duties remained repetitive each academic year.  I’m not sure if I actually got this advice from someone, but this recent blog post from www.higheredjobs.com summed it up well for me.
 
New Zealand, France, or Brazil?
France, strictly for food reasons.  I’d like to experience the “French paradox” first-hand: eat copious amounts of butter and drink lots of wine, while remaining (or becoming?) super slim.
 
How do you de-stress?
Baseball.  I’m a Milwaukee Brewers season ticket holder.  I go to over 50 games a year.  I like to keep score, and even a boring game can be stress-relieving as I track the outcome of every pitch.  I’m also a strong believer in happy hour with my campus colleagues.
 
Why student affairs?
Student Affairs was the whole reason I got my first job out of college – I was President of an honor society that was hiring a coordinator.  The skills I needed in that job—networking, event management, etc —were all gained in my co-curricular activities in college.  Coursework taught me to think critically and write a coherent sentence, but student affairs taught me all the out-of-the-classroom skills that have become important to my professional development.  I enjoy the chance to guide undergraduates as they develop those skills for themselves, and mentor them in their career path.  Double bonus if they choose Student Affairs!
 
What one piece of advice would you give to a SA newbie?
Learn everything you can for your first 2-3 years.  Then, start figuring out what you want your specialty to be.  Once you figure that out, learn everything you can about that specialty, and begin contributing to the professional knowledgebase surrounding it.

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If you cannot view this poll click here.

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And here are the results from the last poll.

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