by Chris Ervin
Many units across the university employ student staff, and it’s not unusual for unit managers to share supervisory responsibilities. Collaborative supervision of student staff has the potential to create beneficial redundancies in mentoring and support, and some units like the Writing Center, the Academic Success Center, Supplemental Instruction, and the Basic Needs Center have thoughtfully and intentionally created structures that support student employees’ professional growth and create clear supervisory roles. I was curious about how each program manages shared supervision and what values serve as foundations for their supervision and support of their student staff. For this issue of The Success Kitchen, I share what I learned about Supplemental Instruction’s supervisory team.
Program: Supplemental Instruction
Program Leads: Adam Lenz and William McDonald-Newman
Values: Equity, Efficiency, and Flexibility
In Supplemental Instruction, the shared supervision model is based on a division of labor that puts the student employee’s experience at the center of focus. William and Adam have made decisions about their respective responsibilities based on their own strengths and interests, while guarding against creating confusion for their staff. For example, William and Adam both contribute to hiring decisions and monitor the team through observations. While Adam approves timesheets, he corroborates with William to ensure accurate reporting. This is because William maintains an office in the BRC adjacent to most study tables and leads the day-to-day operations, scheduling, and facilitating team meetings so he has a more grounded view on the program. William has also taken lead on the SI’s new mentor program, supporting the design and implementation in collaboration with veteran SI Leaders.
Adam, on the other hand, focuses on pedagogical design and assessment. His day-to-day work contributes to building, updating, and maintaining SI’s assessment protocols; managing SI’s registration management software (Ideal-Logic); and looking at the numerous program artifacts that the team produces in order to determine how to improve future team meetings or initial training by adding new topics or inviting new units. It is Adam’s job to be in touch with colleges, administrators, and space partners when it comes to building or maintaining collaborations necessary for SI to happen successfully, and for sharing relevant data about the program that demonstrates SI’s successes, needs, and pinch points. In sum, Adam’s share of SI’s collaborative supervision involves seeing SI and its staff at the program/big picture level.
An example of how SI’s supervisory model has been successful is the recent development of a mentor program. William brainstormed and piloted SI’s mentor program with Adam’s support and co-facilitation. Experienced SI leaders (SILs) are now taking more agency in planning and leading team meetings as well as serving as additional forms of check-in support for newly hired SILs. This effect has seen an increase in cross-team communication and reduced confusions during onboarding substantially.
To close this spotlight on SI, I offer this visual representation of the SI shared supervision model, which I believe represents a structure for supervising student employees that works well for a program with one Coordinator and one Assistant Coordinator:
