CSSA Blog @ Oregon State University

One of the things that I’ve noticed lately is how quickly grad school seems to be receding as I move further away from that experience and farther away from the people who connected me to the place.  For those of you finishing up your CSSA experience, enjoy the last few months as much as you can.  In three months’ time, most of your cohort will already be spread across the country and possibly the world, and each of you will be started on that next step in your journey.  While there are several of my cohort members still at OSU, it often seems far away now even though I’m only 40 minutes down the road.  We get caught up in everything going on in our own lives and our own places, and begin to make new connections while still remembering fondly those we’ve left behind.  So anyway, enjoy it while you can, because it quickly gets lost in the craziness of everyday life out in the real world.  Good luck on your defenses!

Hi All- I hope this post finds you all well.  I’m just returned to campus from NWACUHO, the Northwest Association of College and University Housing Officers annual conference in Vancouver, WA.  It was a great opportunity to network with housing folks from across the Northwest, including Alaska, Alberta, and British Columbia.  I was also excited to catch up with several of my OSU and CSSA colleagues while at the conference.  I’m sure Jill or I can come up with a post explaining the importance of professional associations (joining them is very important!), but this post is about job searching, so I’ll stick to that:

•  I was offered my position on August 24th, more than 2 months after graduation.  It was a sometimes anxious waiting process, but it was also important to me that I find a position that fit me well and where I could learn.  I also wanted to stay in the Northwest, so I kept a pretty narrow focus in my job search.  Patience is definitely key, so trust that things will work out.
• Tailor your resume and cover letter to each position.  I know when going through a placement process this can be time consuming, especially for those of you finishing up your legal memos and portfolios/theses, but this really is the way to get your foot in the door.
• If possible, get a copy of the position description and a formal job announcement.  Be sure to address required and preferred qualifications in your application materials.  Most institutions score resumes and cover letters using language straight from the position description and job announcement, so the more you can tailor your own materials to that, the better your chances of an interview (in other words, they’re telling you exactly what they’re looking for, so be sure you give them what they’re looking for).
• I would disagree with Jill’s tip about keeping a narrow focus in your search in regards to geography or functional area.  My advice would be to apply for positions you feel passionate about in places you may want to live.  For some people, this will mean a broad search and for others a more narrow search.  If you have a narrow range of locations, you may have to sacrifice your priority functional areas, and vice versa, but if you see a position you’re passionate about in a place you wouldn’t mind living, apply! (even if it is outside your intended parameters).  Don’t be afraid to let the search lead you somewhere unexpected.
• Use your connections in the field.  If you have mentors or contacts at other institutions, ask them if they know of any job openings you might be suited to.   This is definitely “networking” at its finest, but sometimes we forget that we already have networks (though it never hurts to build them even more).

This is a pretty good list of things that I found helpful, but I’d be happy to chat further with anyone who has questions or thoughts.  Good luck to everyone at placement and in your job searches in general.  Happy Hunting!

Hello again all.  I’ve been a very bad blogger lately, going over a month since my last post.  It’s been quite a month, and I may be sharing more about that in a future entry.  However, tonight I want to explore one of the topics I laid out in my first post way back in December.  In advance of campus days, which I’m sure our prospective students are anxiously awaiting, I wanted to share some thoughts about what has surprised me most in my first “real job.”

Since August, I have been making my first foray into the world of full-time professional work.  I am working as a live-in Complex Director for University Housing at the University of Oregon.  I was hired in late August and started August 31st, 5 days before our student staff training.  Needless to say, I was a late hire with a steep learning curve.  Following the hectic period from the beginning of staff training until after Halloween, I was able to settle in a little bit and take some time to reflect on some of the things that had (and continue to) surprised me most as a new professional. 

The very first topic that comes to mind is the sheer volume and variety of information I deal with on a daily basis.  I may be talking with a parent one minute and to our facilities supervisor the next.  I probably average about 50-60 email contacts and 10-15 phone contacts on a normal day, in addition to the 15 hours of regular meetings each week.  Factoring in conduct meetings, which are another 5-10 hours a week, and the other “stuff” that comes up in the course of a day, and one can quickly get to a point where things are overwhelming.  During the really busy times, I sometimes get the feeling that I’m just hanging on, but overall I’ve learned to manage things pretty well, and I’ve definitely gotten better at it as I’ve become more familiar with the job.

The other thing about time management, especially in a live in position, is that situations happen at inconvenient times.  I may be humming through my day when I get a call that a student has broken their arm and is headed to the hospital, or that a student is having mental health issues, or that some other concern has come up that wasn’t even on my radar screen five minutes prior.  This means that I stop what I am doing, make the appropriate notifications, figure out what information remains to be gathered, and work with other staff to develop a plan of action.  The end result of this from a time-management standpoint is that I have to be ok with leaving something unfinished or with working on a number of projects at once.  The ability to multitask and a high degree of comfort with ambiguity are key skills a student affairs professional must possess.  Because you will definitely need both skills.

If there was any area where I felt the CSSA program didn’t prepare me enough for life in the field, that area is definitely dealing with student mental health issues.  In the profession, mental health issues were a “back-burner” concern for many years, but over the last 5 or so years, concern over the mental health of our students has really leapt to the forefront of our professional dialogue.  From my experience through the first (almost) 6 months on the job, I can testify to the prevalence of mental health concerns for on-campus residents at the University of Oregon, and it’s my understanding that this is emblematic of a larger national trend. 

With a population of 3500 students living in the residence halls here, I would estimate that, on average, we respond to 2-3 very serious and 2-3 moderately serious situations each week involving students with mental health concerns.  That’s roughly 50 students per term (housing-wide), not even counting those with serious substance abuse concerns, who require some or much follow-up on a mental health situation.  While our campus counseling center is a great resource with talented and helpful colleagues, Complex Directors often act as the gatekeepers and first responders supporting our student staff members (RA’s) in these situations.  Our system is such that we refer most unfolding situations to our Public Safety staff, who determine whether to summon medical or other attention.  Our real challenge is in following up with troubled students “after the fact.”  I could definitely use more background in mental health issues in order to feel confident that I am doing my best for these students.

Having said all that, I also want to make clear that I love my job.  It’s the most challenging and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, and I can say with confidence that my CSSA experience led me here and that I’m in the exact place I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing.  I can also say with confidence that this job isn’t for everyone and that when the time comes I will probably be ready to move on.  However, if you’re reading this (and especially if you made it all the way to the end), you probably have some connection to student affairs, and you probably tell people that your work in student affairs is the most challenging and rewarding thing you’ve ever done.  Think about it: that’s a pretty amazing thing to tell yourself when you wake up in the morning.

Good luck to everyone at Campus Days!

Now that the Presidential Primary season is officially underway with last night’s Iowa Caucuses, I wanted to take a moment to share some thoughts about the role of political discourse on a college campus.  There are a number of factors that play heavily in this area, including:

• size and location of institution
• public vs. private institution (and any religious affiliation of a private school)
• degree to which campus political organizations (young Dems, young Reps) are active
• institutional selection of campus speakers (when the school brings in a big name speaker, whom do they invite)
• timing (is it an election year)
• national mood (college campuses in the 1960′s were very politically active places, but that largely tapered off with the end of the Vietnam War.  Now, we may be seeing a resurgence in campus activism)

This is by no means a comprehensive list, just my attempt to distill a some factors that contribute to the tenor and scope of political discourse on a college campus.

I would postulate (without much hard evidence) that the location of a public university is far more central to the overall political leanings of its student body than is the case at private schools, the obvious reason being that public schools draw a much larger percentage of their students from adjacent areas.  I know from my experience that Kansas State was considerably more conservative as a whole than either OSU or UO.  That is, of course, completely anecdotal, but instructive nonetheless.

Thus far, I think I’ve rambled a bit, which is ok because this is a blog.  But I’ll try to get to some kind of point here in the near future.  Which brings me back to the Iowa Caucuses.  Reports on turnout are showing that both primarys had record numbers of participants, but that the Democratic Primary in particular saw a huge increase in participation, much of it fueled by young voters who, according to polling, turned out in droves to support Barack Obama.  Obama’s following throughout his campaign has been far younger than his rivals, and he draws on a significant base of support from college students that is unique in recent American history.  Some of the pundits last night were comparing him to Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., which led me to make some connections between today’s election and that of 1968. 

I’m not going to get too much into ideological debates, but 1968 is remembered as an election in which young people and college campuses played a significant role, or might have but for an assasin’s bullet striking down Bobby Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel in June.  I think the key contrast between the two elections, 40 years apart, is something that’s instructive: in 1968, the college vote and the involvement of young people was seen as largely counter-cultural.  Many college students were not able to vote, but had seen their friends, familiy members, and neighbors drafted and sent to fight a war which was intensely unpopular amongst young people.  I would point to that sense of disenfranchisement as a key reason the protests were so intense, bitter, and violent.

Contrasted to 2008, we see that things have, in many ways, changed for the better.  18 year-olds are now enfranchised and the draft is a distant memory.  And for the first time ever, perhaps (18 year olds were granted the franchise in 1971), college students may play a critical role in the election process, energized as they are by broad dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.  The key difference between now and 1968 (in my opinion) is that the right of 18-year-olds to vote means that they are less likely to protest violently and finally, in 2008, may be ready to, as a cohort of young people, vote in large numbers for the first time ever.

Voting has traditionally been very much a purview of the old.  Maybe 2008 is the year that changes.

This is an ironic time for a first entry, as many college campuses already on break or starting tomorrow.  Here at the University of Oregon, our students left last Friday, and I’m now experiencing my first taste of the “December Slowdown.”  Previously, my relationship to my various institutions has always been as a student, so it’s been very interesting for me adjusting to the role of a full-time staff member.  December has been a time to head home and settle in for a few weeks of relaxation, but now I’ll be working regular hours through the 20th, so I thought I’d reflect on the rare emptiness of the campus.

As a professional, I’m learning to value this time as an opportunity to play catch-up.  While the students are here, I rarely have any blocks longer than an hour where I can count on uninterrupted office time.  Of course, I love the opportunity to interact with so many students on a daily basis, and they bring a lot of joy to my work.  But I’ve had to adjust to working in short chunks of time and getting things done on the fly, which makes it harder to tackle big projects or time-consuming tasks like office cleaning.  The time of a Complex Director (or any live-in staff member) is spent largely in reaction mode, especially as a new professional, so much of my time is devoted to reacting to situations as they come up.  This is not necessarily bad or good, but it is certainly a particular and relatively constant state of being.

So I’m enjoying this time and the opportunity to take care of the little things and the big things that aren’t daily or weekly priorities but are important in the long term or important to my sanity (the piles on my desk have been consolidated from 6 or 7 to one).  I’m also glad, though, that the students will be back soon.  Because I do miss them.  Just a little.

 So what can you expect from my upcoming posts?  I’ve come up with a list of topics and I’m going to post some of them here, both to hopefully excite any readers for what is to come, and also to make sure I don’t forget them.  I may or may not be on to post again over the break, but you can count on hearing more from me once January rolls around.  Here are some things that I hope to share (eventually):

What surprised me most as a new professional
Emerging issues in Student Affairs
Life as a supervisor: Challenges and Thoughts
Adjusting to life as a live-in staff member
The role of political discourse on college campuses
and others as I think of them.  Suggestions are always welcome.

Well, I suppose this is enough for a pretty respectable first post.  I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season, and best wishes to all of you on a happy new year!