The Student Affairs Blog

New in the Toolbox: Emotional Intelligence

My spare time this month has been used to prepare for and complete certification in the use of the Emotional Quotient inventory or EQ-i. Emotional-social intelligence is a cross-section of interrelated emotional and social competencies, skills, and facilitators that determine how effectively we understand and express ourselves, understand and relate with others, and cope with daily demands. Understanding and assessing EQ in business and leadership coaching is common and research indicates that that the tool is equally useful in the academic setting with an 85% predictor rate for college success. I look forward to building expertise with this assessment and employing it to assist the transition of my first-year students.

The EQ-i is assessed through an online survey resulting in measurements of five areas: interpersonal, intrapersonal, stress management, adaptability, and general mood. Fifteen subscales or facets provide dimension to these scale areas.

EQ-i will join the College Student Inventory and MAP-Works in the toolbox of assessments that I rely upon for identifying issues challenging students in those first few crucial weeks of college. The College Student Inventory provides me with timely and strategic information on my students prior to their enrollment. Most importantly, it allows me to identify those with high need for student service intervention. MAP-Works is offered to students in the third week of enrollment and is a new complement to our campus retention initiatives. It aggregates student perception upon arrival and integration to the institution. Both surveys are great mediums for creating relationships with new students.

What's in your student retention toolbox?

They Don't Know What They Don't Know

Students and new staff members will frequently ask me about surveying their students.  They often seem very matter-of-fact and self assured that they've found an answer to one of their pressing programming  issues:  what to present on campus.

It makes sense at first glance.  Wondering what to program on campus?  Ask your students!  Brilliant.  And wrong.

Here's the problem with surveying your students in order to plan your programs:  They don't know what they don't know.

The vast majority of the students on any campus are blissfully unaware of the universe of student activities programs that are available.  They don't attend APCA and NACA conferences.  They don't read Student Activities Journal, Programming  or Campus Activities magazines.  They don't even read this blog.

They essentially have no idea of what's available in the marketplace.  They don't know what they don't know.

Ask them what bands to book, they'll tell you "My Morning Jacket" or "Fall Out Boy."  If you ask about comedy, they'll tell you Chris Rock or Dane Cook.  Odds are, your campus can't afford those acts.  Or at least not all of them.  So you haven't gained much from your survey.

But more importantly,  my original premise:   They don't know what they don't know. 

Ask your students:  would you like to stick your hands in different colors of hot, molten wax?  Really?

Yet we've all seen students at conferences line up for hours, waiting to produce their very own "Wax Hands."

Ask your students:  would you like to see a ventriloquist?  Really?

Many students may not even know what the word means.  Yet we've all seen students rolling in laughter over Dan Horn, Jeff Dunham, or Taylor Mason.

I often liken entertainment surveys to asking children about dinner.  If you ask the average child what he or she wants for dinner, they'll tell you what they know:  they want a Happy Meal.  And if that's what you always give them, they never learn to appreciate more exotic food like broccoli or sushi.  Don't we all know college students whose diet consists of burgers and chicken strips-- because it's the only food they learned to like?

Take your co-curricular duties to heart.  Remember that you serve an important teaching function on your campus.  Avoid a regular diet of "Happy Meals" for your students.  Book some unusual programs, events that aren't even on the students' radar.  Your students-- and your campus-- will be better for it.

Disrupting Class and Student Affairs

I just finished Disrupting Class, by Clayton Christensen, et. al. It's a terrifically interesting book for anyone interested in education.

Christensen is an expert in innovation. In the book, he brings his concise, clear, highly useful frames for thinking about improvement and change over to education.

Of particular interest to Student Affairs, I believe, is the historical narrative listing the changing goals of education.

A quick summary:

Job 1: 1830's - Horace Mann lead a charge to formalize schooling around a Jeffersonian goal: educate students to be citizens in a democracy. Only elite students went on past grade school.

Job 2: 1890's - Provide something for every student. Prepare them for a variety of jobs so that everyone can be employed. This required high school, and diverse offerings in high school. In 1905 only a third of students made it to high school and only a third graduated. Even fewer made it to college. By 1935 75 percent were entering high school and almost 45 percent were graduating. Both breadth and depth of services exploded. With 1954's Brown vs. Board of education high schools opened wide to all of society. While the number of high schools in 1930 to 1970 stayed about the same at 24,000, the average number of students per high school exploded tenfold from around a 100 to over 1000 by 1970. The larger high schools had an unheard of variety of programs with a growing number of student support services. By 1960, 69 percent of high schoolers were graduating- an impressive record of success.

Job 3: 1960's - Keep America competitive. Sony, Canon, and Toyota all started to displace their American competition. Policy makers drew a correlation between performance of American students vs. their foreign peers. Standardized tests were the metric, education, again, was the solution. In the influential 1983 report "A Nation at Risk", the federal government questioned the breadth of services, suggesting it muddied the focus on the more important core competencies. It said "students have too many choices". In short, the goal post had moved. What was good - more offerings to prepare everyone - was now bad.

Job 4: 2001 - Eliminate Poverty. the No Child Left Behind act changed the goal from bringing up the average standardized test score to bringing the highest number possible up to proficiency. It's a subtle, but important shift in the value system.

Christensen sums it up:

"Society has hired education to do four distinct jobs."

Impressively, education as a whole has shown steady improvement towards each goal as it has been defined. The very difficult challenge is simply that the goals keep changing.

Now education is "in a crisis" not because it's doing a bad job per se, but because it is being measured by different people with different, and shifting, value systems.

It does not make sense to blame administrators and teachers for falling short on the new metric of success. Any judgement of success must be placed in context. An important part of that context is clarity on what the current goal is and what metrics go with that goal.

The Student Affairs professionals in my circle often talk about "taking it all on" and constantly struggling to complete assessment that is both actionable and in line with the value systems of the school and their supervisors.

Do you feel like your job goals have changed during your tenure? Are you clear on the big picture? Is your supervisor and school on the same page?

In the same book, Christensen offers a great frame for addressing disconnects - but that's another post.

When a Hug Is More than a Hug

Repost from the Swift Kick Blog.

Last week I did our Dance Floor Theory training for an Army BOSS conference because just like schools, the Army has an extremely hard time engaging their single Soldiers. According to a 2005 Leisure Needs Survey, 80-95% of single Soldiers never participate in BOSS sponsored activities.

As usual, I set up the idea of building relationship with apathetic Soldiers through Blender events such The Free Hugs Campaign. Then I handed out Free Hug signs and encouraged the group to take the idea outside the session to the rest of the conference. And they continued the campaign all the way to lunch.

As we stood in line to get our food, an older lunch lady with an Eastern European accent pointed at one of the Free Hugs signs from behind the counter. "In my 25 years working here, I've never seen anything like this." She smiled.

I responded, "Well, we'd love to give you a Free Hug, but you're behind the counter." She smiled again and spoke softly, "Oh no, I'm too busy to give hugs." Then she shuffled off to the back room.

I turned to the Soldiers next to me and we all knew, without words, that she not only wanted the Free Hug, but needed it. So we waited by the back room door for our lunch lady to emerge. Two minutes later she opened the door to me and 3 Soldiers with our arms wide open and Free Hug signs. Her face expanded into a smile much larger than it was used to and she embraced us all.

As we let go, her eyes filled with tears and without words she smiled and shuffled back to work.

Sometimes they don't want it.
Sometimes they want it.
And sometimes they need it.

Developing Learning Outcomes in Student Affairs

Student learning outcomes are truly the first step in intentional programming.  Yogi Berra said it best:  "If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up some where else."  Student learning outcomes help you to know where you're going.

Whether you're embracing Learning Reconsidered or following the CAS standards (Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education), you'll find learning outcomes to be a valuable road map.  It's a simple matter to develop them for your programs.  Here are some basic guidelines.

First, remember your ABC's and sometimes D.  That stands for "Audience," "Behavior," "Condition," and "Degree."  These are the four components of a learning outcome.  In their simplest form, they go together like this: "Condition-Audience-Behavior-Degree." 

Here's an example.  "After seeing the film 'Snow White' (the condition), the students (audience) will be able to name (behavior) five of the seven dwarfs (degree)."

Note that "degree" isn't always necessary, and a perfectly fine learning outcome could be:   "After seeing 'Snow White' (the condition), the students (audience) will be able to name the seven dwarfs (behavior)."  Degree just gives you some wiggle room regarding the level of learning that you expect to occur.

That's pretty straightforward.  Of course, nothing is truly easy, or at least we all seem to believe that.  So keep these ideas in mind while you're developing your learning outcomes.

1.  Start small.  Don't try to develop learning outcomes for your entire schedule of events at once.  Select one or two to begin with, preferably reoccurring traditional events.  That way you can use the learning outcome every year.

2.  Make a list of what students should know or be able to do or demonstrate after a specific program.  Turn that list into learning outcomes.

3.  Don't over think. Learning outcomes can be basic, like the "Snow White" example.

4.  Keep them assessable.  Don't use behaviors like "will understand"  or "will appreciate"  because they are too difficult to assess.  Use behaviors like "will identify"  or "can list" because that is a behavior you can assess.

5.  Finally, relate your learning outcomes to the larger objectives and outcomes you are seeking.  Whether it's Learning Reconsidered's Seven Student Outcomes, the CAS Standards , or your own campus' goals and objectives, make sure your outcomes are in line.

The University of Rhode Island has some exceptional materials to assist in developing Student Learning Outcomes.  "Student Learning Outcomes 101" and "Student Learning Outcomes 201"  contain all the basics, and can really jump start your writing. 

As Students Go Mobile, Will Student Affairs Follow?

Long a prediction, not at all a surprise, perhaps more hype, but seems even more real:

In very short, Yahoo is planning to release an "all-in-one" messaging service for cell phones. This will include text messaging, instant messaging, email, and . . . oh yes, facebook.

And not just any method messaging - it will also include something that is called "Pulse" which includes Facebook status and . . . hard to tell from the screen shot. . . perhaps feeds from other services that know where you are, and perhaps some full fledged geolocation (if the phone has GPS or uses something else) .

Even if Yahoo doesn't get it right, the iPhone is soon to allow anyone to develop software on it (and you can be sure there will be aggregation services, IM's and facebook integrations) and other cell phone makers are catching up rapidly. (Don't think the iPhone type functionality is only for geeks, if it follows the RAZR price curve, there will be free versions with plans sometime next year.)

So the question for Student Affairs professionals: as students increase their connectedness by communicating on the fly through multiple methods on their cell phones, and, as they expose their own whereabouts and activities to their friends, will Student Affairs plug in to this? Can/Will/Should Student Affairs be a "friend"?

Before the jump to personal / professional separation kicks in, keep in mind students look at this differently. Much of their communication is limited to friends (as defined by facebook behavioral norms) it's kind of a "you're in or you're out" sort of thing.

Email, at the moment, is the preferred communication method for universities as it's established and easy. It's a recognized problem that students don't check email (especially official school email) and we can expect email use to decrease further compared to other channels that are getting increasingly convenient, mobile, and socially driven.

What about assessment?

How convenient to track GPS to figure out who went to what in orientation. What if the students didn't care? What if they actively published their location and status information to their friends and were fine with letting the university follow their digital foot prints?

Sound far fetched? Not so much.

Well anyways. Here it comes. And here come the issues:

Communication Needs
Unexpected Consequences
Context
Privacy vs. Transparency
Assessment vs. Invasion [Note: Context switch ; )]
FERPA (signed and written consent! sign a cell phone?) and lawywers (duty of care) [Note: This link is sarcastic.]

Good times!

Advisor Sessions/Handouts from APCA Northeast 2007

The Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities  held it's Northeast conference just last week in Syracuse, NY. 30+ Schools attended from across the Northeast region. The conference highlighted entertainment acts as well as a series of ed sessions on various topic related to Student Affairs.

APCA conferences offer a separate learning track of ed sessions for advisor. Due to the extermly tight schedule of the two day conference only three hour long sessions were provided for advisors.

Here is a list of the sessions and handouts/slides(pdf):

1) Creating a Course on Student Activities - Jason Enser (Hilbert College) - jenser@hilbert.edu - handout

This session will discuss how college Student Activities Directors can go about offering an academic credit-bearing course on Student Activities Programming Theory and Application. We will begin by reviewing the 3-credit course that is currently offered at Hilbert College. Other staff members will then have the opportunity to share any courses they have taught related to programming. Suggestions will be provided on how Activity Staff can look to implement a course of this nature at their institutions.

2) Technology and Activities: Current & Future - Swift Kick - sk@swiftkickonline.com - handout

    Student Life is changing faster than ever. Advisors are expected to be on the cutting edge, and often find themselves drowned in paperwork and procedures. This session discusses the most current trends in leadership development formats. Listen, share, and discuss best practices with other advisors. In the pre-conference survey, “understanding and using technology” was the number one priority for advisors for the next 3 years. Come find out some of what the next 3 years holds in tech. In this session you will learn about the key trends (in a non-techie way) plus see some of the brand new options in technology that will make your job so much easier! Technology has always promised to allow you to do more with less, come get your hands on the new tools to do just that. We will also cover some new emerging orientation and assessment methodologies and discuss what it means for the future.

3) Organizational Networking Session - APCA - apca@aol.com - handout

    It is all about getting to know each other! This Conference is proud to offer a great selection of education sessions for you. HOWEVER, we are all educators and we know that learning in communities and learning from peers is a much more powerful and effective way to create real transformations. With that knowledge in mind, we present our favorite community building energizer, “It’s About Time.” Join us as we kick the off the Conference with the best getting familiar, information exchange, comfort zone creating activity that is out there. See you for “It’s About Time”!!

Examples of Student Club Constitutions

Jeannette Sullivan from Palm Beach Community College was looking for some examples and guidelines to creating a student club constituion. With the help of my infinitely knowledgeable friend, Mr. Google, I found this detailed outline of a student club constituion:

---

College of XYZ University

Constitution 

XYZ Club 

Article I: Name and Purpose 

Section 1: Name

State the name of the club - you may abbreviate the name after this section if you identify that abbreviation here. 

Section 2: Purpose/Mission

State the purpose/mission of your organization – the reasons why you exist. This can be in a list format, or in a paragraph. 

Section 3: Affiliation:

If your organization is affiliated with any regional/national organizations, please state those affiliations here.

Article II: Membership 

Section 1: Eligibility for Membership

CSB/SJU joint clubs must be open to any CSB/SJU student. Non-students [e.g., faculty/staff] are not allowed to be full members, but they can be non-voting, affiliate members. State all categories for membership – voting, affiliate, non-voting, etc.

Section 2: Voting Member Criteria

State how a student becomes a voting member [e.g., attends a certain % of meetings/events, pays dues, etc] and if there are any criteria for any other membership categories. This is an important issue for your organization – you want to make sure that students listed on your voting member list are active, interested students in your group.

Section 3: Removal of Members

State the process to remove any member who is not in good standing with the club. Due process must be followed. Things to consider are: reasonable notice to the person being considered for removal, opportunity to defend their position, quorum* needed to vote, timeline for the process, appeal process.

While you will hopefully not need this section, it is very important that you have a process in place. When you need it, this will clarify the procedure and take out some of the difficult personal issues….

Article III: Officers 

Section 1: Officer Qualifications

Identify what qualifications a student must have to be eligible to be an officer. This may include GPA, length of time in organization, previous experience, etc. All officers must be current CSB/SJU students. See Article IV for Election procedures.

Section 2: Elected Officers

List the positions in descending order (e.g., President, Vice-President, etc). If you choose to have a non-hierarchical structure -–that is great! Then just list the Department of Student Activities contact person first. Also clearly identify the Co-Funding Board (CFB) and Joint Club Board (JCB) contacts.

Section 3: Duties of Officers

List each officer position and their duties. You can include this information in Section 2 if you prefer. You may rename positions and form a non-hierarchical structure (we encourage this actually!). Term of office should also be addressed (e.g., academic year, April 1 – March 31)

Typical duties include: 

    

President: preside at meetings, call special meetings, primary contact with the institutions, appoint committee chairs, runs the election process, other Vice-President: assume President’s duties in his/her absence, schedule meeting/practice rooms/facilities, primary contact with the JCB, plans member/officer training programs, other Secretary: takes and distributes minutes of all club meetings, recorder keeper (current and past members, files minutes, etc), club historian, notify members of meetings, handles the official correspondence of the club, other Treasurer: keeps all financial records, submits monthly audit statements to CFB contact (this is a mandatory requirement if you receive CFB funds), notifies organization of financial issues, prepares budget/allocation requests,

Section 4: Vacancy in Office

In the event a vacancy should occur (resignation or removal), provisions must be made to fill the vacancy. Officer succession/"chain of command" should be addressed (e.g., in the event that the President leaves office, the Vice President will assume those duties until a special election is held. Then refer readers to the special election section of Article IV.

Section 5: Removal of Officers

Grounds for removal of an officer must be clearly identified. Similar to the removal of members, due process must be followed. (see above) Make sure you note the role of your club advisor.

One example:

A petition to remove the officer in question must be submitted to another officer. This 

petition must contain the signatures of x% of voting members. When such petition is 

received, the officer shall call a meeting of the club to determine whether or not the 

officer should be removed. 

Grounds for removal are to presented by the officer in charge at a regular or special club 

meeting. 

The officer in question shall be provided an opportunity to present a defense either in 

person or in writing. 

A quorum shall be present, and a (x%, 2/3, simply majority) vote of the voting members 

shall decide upon removal.

While you will hopefully not need this section, it is very important that you have a process in place. When you need it, this will clarify the procedure and take out some of the difficult personal issues….

Section 6: Appeal of Removal of Officers

This section clearly outlines what procedure a removed officer can take to appeal the club’s decision.

Article IV: Elections 

Section 1: Nomination Process

State how officer candidates will be nominated (by a current officer/member, self-nomination, etc.) and the timeline associated with the nomination process.

Section 2: Election

Election procedures, quorum present, method of voting (secret ballot, etc.), number of terms a person can serve, and when the elections will be held (the JCB mandates that by April 1, officer elections take place and that they and the Department of Student Activities are notified of the new officers).

Section 3: Special Elections

This section outlines what procedures will take place if an officer leaves/is removed from office. Clearly state the timeline for these procedures (e. g, within "x" weeks of vacancy occurring). You may use the same procedures from Section 2, with a revised timeline.

Article V: Advisor 

Section 1: Selection

Indicate how your club will choose an advisor. Note: All club advisors MUST be an employee of CSB or SJU. 

Section 2: Duties

What do you want your advisor to do? See advisor contract for ideas.

Article VI: Meetings 

Section 1: Regular Meeting/Club Activities

Address how often business meetings will occur, any regular club activities, etc., process to notify members of meetings/activities.

Section 2: Special Meetings

Identify why you would call special meetings, and the process used to call these meetings/notify members, etc. Will these meetings be run any differently than regular meetings?

Section 3: Parliamentary Authority

Will you use Robert’s Rules of Order? How will the meetings be run… 

Section 4: Quorum*

What % of your membership must be present for official club business to occur? 2/3 is a standard number. 

*A quorum is a certain percentage of voting members required to be present during a vote. It is VERY important to clearly indicate what your quorum will be (often, it is 2/3 of the voting members). You want to make sure that when a vote takes place, that you have a representative sample of your voting membership present.

Article VII: Committees 

Section 1: Committee Structure

Include what committees (if any) that your club will have. Include responsibilities of each committee and who is responsible for each committee. Examples include Membership, Programs, Elections, Fundraising, etc.

Section 2: Special/Ad-Hoc Committees

State that special/ad-hoc committees may be formed if needed…

Article VIII: Finances 

Section 1: Co-Funding Board

State whether or not your club will apply for CFB monies and that if allocated resources, your club will follow all CFB and institutional regulations.

Please note that recognized clubs MAY NOT have an off-campus account, even if it is from club generated funds. This is an institutional policy.

Section 2: Honorariums

State whether or not any officers or members will receive an honorarium/stipend from the organization. Note: if honorariums are given, they must come from club generated funds.

Section 3: Dues (optional)

State here if members are required to pay dues, and if so, how much that will be.

Article IX: Amendments 

Section 1: Ratification

Identify the process to be used regarding proposed constitutional amendments: voting procedures, timeline, etc. 

Section 2: Submittal to Department of Student Activities and Joint Club Board

Any changes made to this constitution must be submitted to the Department of Student Activities and the JCB.

Article X:

         The following is a required statement for all organizations:

       The (name of organization) admits students without regard to their race, religion, color, sex, age, sexual orientation or national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and other activities, generally accorded or made available to members of the organization.

Article XI:

       The following is a required statement for all organizations:

       The (name of organization) considers hazing to be a degrading and destructive activity which is inconsistent with the standards of this student organization.  The (name of organization) recognizes the dignity of every person and opposes all forms of hazing.

 

Date of recognition/revision:

---

If you are still itching for some more examples here are a few more:

1. University of Notre Dame
2. Madison Area Technical College
3. Washington University in St. Louis
4. Campbell University

Does your university have anything special not included above? If so what is it and why? Or if you have a digital copy of a student constitution at your university, post the link in the comments to share with us.

The Limits of Research

Following on a conversation around new tools and their place (or lack thereof) within scholarship, an announcement from the MacArthur Foundation in my e-mail box caught my eye.

In a nutshell, the MacArthur foundation is interested in technology and virtual worlds for philanthropy and education. So they announced yesterday that they have given a $550,000 grant to the USC Center on Public Diplomacy to "begin a year-long exploration of the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds."

And I can't help but wonder, will the information be relevant 18 months from now when it is presented at a conference? Art and I talked about the relationship between scholarship and "truth" (a term that needs plenty of definition.)

I wonder if this scholarship will have much truth when it is published. What is the shelf life of the truth? Will we get enough value out of the results to justify the 500k?

Of course it is up to MacFound to calculate whether this was a good deal when all is said and done. I also don't know what the specific goals for the research are, there is very little on either the USC site or the MacArthur site, but it seems like we need a more creative (faster!) model for coming up with useful applicable theory in arenas revolving around technology. Students are changing faster and faster.

Center for the First Year Research Grant: Partnership Anyone?

The Center for the First Year is offering a grant for research that has the potential to improve the experiences of college students in transition.

The deadline is close, July 16, 2007, but doable.

You can see the submission info here.

Recipient will get $5,000 from CYE and free travel to two CYE conferences to receive the award and present the research.

Tom and I know the guys over at Red Rover pretty well : ) and they would love to partner with someone to use Red Rover as the info gathering platform. In short, Red Rover would allow the researcher to get a full, complete data set from a freshman class (at multiple schools) about the effects of automated software introductions on transition and involvement.

The research could also explore the pros and cons of leveraging social networking (Facebook / Myspace etc.) to increase social capital and ease transition challenges. The software would provide more data than you could shake a stick at (without much effort by the researcher) and the researcher's job would be to ask testable questions and analyze the data.

Just for extra encouragement, if selected, Red Rover will double the cash grant prize. So you'd get 10k (no strings attached) and, of course, the everlasting fame.

Anyone interested?