I am heading out from Boston from my visit here for the ACUI International Conference. I’ve been a frequent proponent of ACUI, the people at ACUI, the education the conference offers and the college union idea, so you would think I would have been excited. I wasn’t. Honestly, I’ve been dreading this conference. It’s really not anything to do with ACUI; I still think this association has the best people and makes the best attempts at conferencing of any of the associations. The problem has been me. I’ve been absolutely burned out for at least 8 weeks. My employer is in a state of flux, and our department has been the nexus of that flux and I’ve been exhausted by it. Part of it is a not altogether unfounded fear for my own job, as it feels that we’re persistently waiting on the guillotine to fall on some unnamed person, and part of it is that an aggressive vision for the future of the school that happened to coincide with an economic collapse has everyone, i believe, on our campus feeling like we’re scrambling. I’m excited about the future and the vision being espoused, but a time of such tremendous change has left me feeling exhausted for weeks. I wasn’t looking forward to ACUI because the college union and student activities discussions that are had there, while very exciting, just felt like more than I was ready to take.
The conference was cool, and I enjoyed hearing a lot of what people had to say. I also got a kick out of presenting a couple times and sharing about some topics that are near and dear to my heart.
What I didn’t anticipate was leaving the conference feeling slightly rejuvenated. I think I’d feel more rejuvenated if I wasn’t so exhausted from lack of sleep.
I had the opportunity, along with a crew of ACUI folks, to sit down with Dean Ken Elmore from Boston University, over some pints (okay, a lot of pints) and chat about the future of higher ed and higher ed professional associations. I’m not going to regurgitate the entire conversation at this point as I’m still processing, but it was inspirational for me.
I loved student activities as an undergrad and that’s why I went into it as a professional. I realized we could make a difference on our campus with the money and programming that you have in student activities. I’ve struggled with that as a professional because while we have the ability to make an impact on our campuses, I believe our maximum impact on an individual campus comes from connecting with students that then learn how they can make an impact on their campuses. We’re in their world and not of their world. In all reality, it is the students that define our campus.
It’s no secret to anyone that follows me on Twitter that I believe we as higher ed are heading towards an inflection point. The state governments are showing less and less ability and willingness to support us, student costs to attend higher education are skyrocketing as well as student debt, and technology is revolutionizing the way we function as a people and the seeds of it revolutionizing education are all around us. Higher education needs to be thinking about new ways to do things, and my profession needs to be thinking about new ways to do things as well.
My passion is to push higher education to where we need to be. For right now, I think that means beating that drum about where I think higher ed is going, equipping professionals with technology competency, and starting to think about how we can deliver student affairs in this new world order that’s coming quickly.
Dean Elmore wants to revolutionize our conferences, and I think he’s on to something. I’m not done chewing on this though.
But thanks to ACUI for helping me to get rejuvenated. Not in the way I expected. But seriously. Thanks.
