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Student staff are at the heart of our work in the Academic Success Center & Writing Center. They engage in robust initial and ongoing training where they develop skills and strategies to support other students in their learning.

We invited student staff to share in response to the following prompt: “What is one topic or concept you learned about when training for your role at the Academic Success Center (ASC) & Writing Center that resonated for you and/or has stuck with you? Why is this topic or concept important to you, and how have you applied that learning outside of your work in the ASC and Writing Center?”

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This past year, our Academic Success Center & Writing Center team has engaged in ongoing work on the Division of Student Affairs Strategic Priority. Anna shared about our team’s process for exploring equity topics in her post from Fall 2021. The past two terms, our teams have explored equity and leadership practices. Each team member explored a range of practices specific to their roles, and one that resonated for me was inviting team members’ ideas as a starting point in conversations. Across many contexts, I try to create an environment that invites collaboration. We each bring a unique history, perspective, and approach to our conversations and decision-making. This is part of what makes working in teams and collaborating so valuable. The practice I highlight here is, for me, about how we can help people feel there is space for and value in what they contribute. Across our many interactions, we can create a space that centers team members’ perspectives and ideas. In turn, this also means de-centering supervisor or leader perspective so that is not the focal point of discussion. Given the complexity of our interactions and decisions, it can take intentionality and planning to be mindful of the spaces we create in conversations.

Values of This Practice

I appreciate this strategy as it has the potential to encourage people to bring their knowledge, experience, and perspectives to bear more fully on their work. It contributes to equity by emphasizing the inherent value of each person and the importance of our relationships with each other. I also find value in pushing back on that idea that there is one “right” way to do things. Like many people, at times I come up with an idea or path forward and need to take a step back to consider the full range of possibilities. I’m personally working to attend more to how I can create the type of space that acknowledge and values each person and allows for many pathways and options to be considered. We have the potential to lose these benefits when we lose sight of the relationships we have with others and instead focus primarily on deadlines, products, or a single perspective.

As I reflected on this practice, a reading that added nuance for me was White Supremacy Culture: Still Here by Tema Okun. Okun offers that “we are at our best when we are ‘with’ others (and ourselves)” and encourages prioritizing relationships and acknowledging that we are all worthy and invaluable. In doing so, we can push back on that idea of one “right way” and instead benefit from what we experience and create when we are “with” each other. Another reading that contributed to my thinking on this practice was Critical Supervision by Gray, Johnston, and Noble (Valley Library; Publisher). They emphasize the importance of early, transparent conversations about supervisory relationships and the impact of relationships on work and growth. They advocate for “safe, shared and dialogical relationships that consider individual differences and histories” and where leaders are mindful of how ideas are presented, when and what questions are asked, and opportunities for co-creation of knowledge (159).

Strategies for Interaction

Over the past few months, I’ve considered a number of ways I can better enact this practice in my own work. Some of the strategies shared here lend themselves more to one-on-one conversations, while others might work better with a small group or larger team.

Intentional Plans for Conversations and Meetings

It can help to think in advance of conversations or meetings. Planning for conversation flow and questions can be an important part of creating intentional spaces. Here are a few prompting questions that can encourage individual or team sharing and reflection:

• What ideas do you have?
• What possible options have you identified?
• Want to brainstorm some ideas together?
• Based on your experience, what are you thinking/leaning toward?
• What are the range of ways this [action, project, task, etc.] could be accomplished?

Mindfulness around Responding to Ideas

When people share, it can be helpful to consider a wide range of ways to respond, especially ways that keep thinking open. This can help to avoid immediately jumping to questions, offering advice, or noting additional factors to consider which might limit vs. opening the conversation. Here are a few potential responses that can support more open-ended thinking:

• Affirming what is shared
• Sharing areas of agreement
• Asking open-ended, neutral questions to develop understanding
• Paraphrasing to confirm understanding
• Generating many ideas simultaneously

These are just a few strategies that resonated for me as I reflected on intentional conversation and decision-making spaces. And there are so many more beyond this short list! I’m still exploring strategies and would love to hear ways that you invite team members to bring their ideas, experiences, and perspectives to their work. Feel free to reply to this post or send an me email if you’d like to share.

Working remotely, our team is often share technology tips, tricks, and shortcuts with each other. Sometimes these are found through careful research when “there must be a faster way…” Other times, we find these gems completely by accident. Here, we offer up some of our favorites—both old friends and recent discoveries.

Clare

With two screens and a lot of open tabs and windows, I’m often trying to stay organized and find what I’m working on during a conversation (particularly when sharing my screen!). I’ve been improving my use of the Windows + keyboard shortcuts. There are a range of these described on this webpage, but I’ll recommend my two favorites: Windows+P which allows you to change your display/presentation mode quickly without going into settings and Windows+Left arrow or right arrow to use the “side-by-side docking” options for two different windows.

Marjorie

I love shortcuts! Here are a few of my favorites and/or most-used shortcuts.

• Ctrl+L: Locking the screen. Be the shield!
• Ctrl+D: Accessing my desktop.
• Shift+F3: Selecting text, then using this shortcut to switch between lower case, UPPER CASE, and Title Case.
• Ctrl+Shift+F9: Selecting text, then using this shortcut to remove hyperlinks

Anna

I often use several programs at once, so I love using the Alt+Tab shortcut (Command + Tab on Mac) to quickly toggle between windows. To use this shortcut, hold Alt continuously while pressing Tab until the window you want is outlined. Then simply release the keys to access that window. You can also use Alt+Tab to quickly close multiple windows, which is what I do to maintain a decluttered workspace and stay organized.

Chris G.

My unsung tech hero is Ctrl+F. Many of us have used it in word processing to find specific words, which often moves us to the chapter/section we are looking for, but this shortcut also works for more common situations like internet browsing, .pdfs, and even entire e-books! (though Acrobat reader still has some difficulty at times). Paired with excel, Ctrl+F helps me easily navigate between spreadsheets and workbooks. Now if I could only Ctrl+F for my keys and wallet… and sometimes my shoes.

Sarah

I don’t feel particularly tech savvy, but I used to get a lot of NAs when I used VLOOKUP and have been able to solve that problem by applying F4 after I’ve selected my table array; this makes it so that the column and the row reference can’t change. Very satisfying. I’ve also been using the TRIM option to help convert ONIDs to IDs in Core; first, in Excel, I apply the TRIM formula to remove any extra spaces; then, in CORE, I receive a more complete list of IDs.

While perhaps slightly hyperbolic, I’m forging ahead with this title, courtesy of the Random Title Generator. This after a lengthy brainstorming session via Teams and mulling over a number of compelling options from the generator. Clare didn’t feel that “Wizard of History” was a fair representation of what I’d written, and I felt that “Eye of Thoughts” was too Mordor. So here we are with “Voyages of the Soul.”

The new year always seems like a time for reflection on the past year, though reflection right now feels challenging. While I am not offering a reflective deep dive that encompasses all the learning and thinking I’ve done this past year, I would like to share a few things that have helped me navigate working remotely the past 10 months and that I hope to continue moving forward post-COVID/remote work.

Flexibility (no crisis required). Flexibility shouldn’t require a crisis. While I usually try to have flexibility in classes I teach, I’ve been more intentional this past year—requiring fewer assignments, offering options for engagement, grading complete/incomplete. Students often believe that any request for flexibility is a big ask—even when they’re dealing with the unimaginable. From the instructor side of thing, the ask is often small and easily accomplished. I hold onto the idea that students shouldn’t have to ask. If I can build in flexibility from the onset, I can establish it as a norm rather than an exception.

Less urgency. So often everything feels urgent. Emails, asks, the 10-week term. And while some things are urgent, many things don’t need to be. I’m trying to push back on that culture of urgency, become more aware of its relationship to power, and be mindful of how I contribute to this culture. The more I look, the more opportunities I find to be slow down, create boundaries, and make space for myself and for others to work in more manageable ways.

Music. And dancing. As I write this, I’m at a standing desk with wireless headphones, dancing. Many afternoons this past year have been improved through music and dancing. I’ve been fortunate to work from home, and that set-up process challenged me to think about workspace in a new way—to imagine what it could be. Now, this whole set-up may have to come back to campus with me. Waldo Hall dance party.

Time between meetings. While it’s now possible to transition between meetings with a few mouse clicks, back-to-back-to-back meetings are not good for us. Days with 5 or 6 meetings in a row, constantly on screen, are exhausting. I imagine this is equally hard on students in remote classes. I’m trying to be mindful of the meetings I’m leading, time needed, and how I can encourage people to engage in ways that work for them. Sometimes brief audio calls or Teams messages are enough. When an hour is scheduled, I’m working to end meetings at :50 and keep transition time between conversations.

Community. In November, I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). To achieve that goal, I needed to write every day. Knowing Clare was also committed to daily writing provided solidarity. Evening writing sprints on Discord connected me with others in the same process. And Sarah’s check-ins, excitement for the project, responsiveness to random writing questions, and encouragement were so helpful. As I plan for future projects and as I support others in their planning, I’ll be looking for more connection points and ways we can create a stronger community of support and encouragement along the way.

These are just a few of my reflection points, but I’ll be adding to my list in the coming months. I’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to share! What have you learned about your work? Or about supporting students? What are you holding onto moving forward? Feel free to email me a short description that we could include in a spring issue of The Success Kitchen.