We in Student Affairs are a very “push” driven division. We generate manuals, create traditions and allow ourselves to become very comfortable with not trying to fix what we believe isn’t broken. We lead from the top down. Most of our administrators and department leaders (including me!) are old school in function and thought. We are proud of the products we create and given even the smallest success with students, we repeat them year after year.
I have been introduced to a new way of doing things. My eyes have been opened to the fact our students aren’t going to stand for old school (unless it’s an 80’s throwback party in the Res. Hall). They expect the fee’s money they pay us to work for them as they need it to work not as we think it should. “Our educational institutions are grappling with the need to move from being institutions of learning to learning institutions that rapidly evolve in response to the quickly changing learning needs of students that define courses today” (Hagel, Brown & Lang, 2010).
We are sitting in a comfortable spot, relying on the core – the administrators central to Student Affairs - to let us know when we aren’t doing a good job, rather than allowing the students to make that ruling. Our students, after all, are our consumers. Consider this: The edge transforms the core. If we all think of ourselves as edge participants, constantly incorporating new technology and methods of serving our students, the core itself – Student Affairs – will be transformed into a university system our students will fully utilize and trust. Therefore making it easier to convince our consumers to approve new fees and continue to fund our efforts to make them better more prepared citizens once they leave our preverbal walls.
So how do we break free from this push environment we are so much immersed in and use the power of pull to generate the products and productivity that will best serve our students? For starters we need to be connected. Not only to our students and each other, but to others who can help us in our quest to prepare our students for life beyond the university. Think bigger than just our counter parts at other institutions. It seems all of our benchmarking occurs with other institutions of comparable characteristics. We need to look much bigger than that. Communication in the world around us has changed dramatically. We need to stop being afraid of social media. Join facebook and listen to what your students are saying. There is a listserv for almost everything you could think of. Open up your mind, use your technology and pay attention to the problems of your students. And then we can work to fix them. That is what we are here for. Find a campus department or even a campus or company other than ours that you would like to emulate and ask them what they are doing. But make sure if you enlist in the services of social media like facebook, twitter or youtube you don’t use them once or twice and let them die. They have to be used to be useful.
As leaders of our departments, we frequently find ourselves afraid of failure. Afraid of judgment handed down from the person above us, who in turn is afraid of the same. It may be difficult to change things upward, but we have the ability to change them below. Our employees are further out on the edge than we are. Many are young and much more connected than we know. We need to give them our trust and room to create. There is no way of knowing how connected they are until we take the time to stop giving orders and listen. We have become enraptured in the concept that as the leader if we don’t make all the decisions and come up with all of the good ideas, our employees will never have the faith to follow us. Consider how it would feel to have a supervisor come to you and say ‘You are more on the edge, closer to the students than I am. What do they want? What is the best way to achieve our goals?’. The word that comes to my mind is empowering. Most of us, when empowered to do the job we know we are capable of with freedom and trust, will by far exceed expectations. Not only that, we will most likely believe in our cause and have much greater buy in to our programs.
Collaboration needs to replace competition. Pulling of resources, whether online or in person will create bigger, better and much more effective products than if we each try to produce one on our own. Most all of us were called to this profession for similar reasons. It only makes sense we pull together and support each other, sharing resources both physical and personal.
We need to look at updating our technology. It will be much easier to go digital and get connected if we have equipment that will provide the tools to use what is available and compatible with what our students are using. The investment will be defended in the amount of time we are spared and the products we produce.
Finally, don’t forget about yourself. Take time to learn new things. Surf the net and look at what is out there. Surround yourself electronically with people who share your interests and who can help you get ahead, who are willing to give and take information. Some of us who were in our youth before the big shift in technology, fear the future because we feel so left behind in what is out there now. Technology is designed to make our lives easier. It will only get easier; you just have to commit to being a part of it. I would like to conclude by passing on a great resource I luckily happened upon on accident. Eric Stroller is a blogger and consultant for higher education. Check out his site and become inspired to join the pull movement: ericstoller.com.
“The truth is, the things you did to get there will no longer work to keep you there.” - Hagel, Brown & Lang, 2010
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