STRATEGIC

The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.

IDEATION

You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.

COMMAND

Command leads you to take charge. Unlike some people, you feel no discomfort with imposing your views on others. On the contrary, once your opinion is formed, you need to share it with others. Once your goal is set, you feel restless until you have aligned others with you. You are not frightened by confrontation; rather, you know that confrontation is the first step toward resolution. Whereas others may avoid facing up to life’s unpleasantness, you feel compelled to present the facts or the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. You need things to be clear between people and challenge them to be clear-eyed and honest. You push them to take risks. You may even intimidate them. And while some may resent this, labeling you opinionated, they often willingly hand you the reins. People are drawn toward those who take a stance and ask them to move in a certain direction. Therefore, people will be drawn to you. You have presence. You have Command.

INDIVIDUALIZATION

Your Individualization theme leads you to be intrigued by the unique qualities of each person. You are impatient with generalizations or “types” because you don’t want to obscure what is special and distinct about each person. Instead, you focus on the differences between individuals. You instinctively observe each person’s style, each person’s motivation, how each thinks, and how each builds relationships. You hear the one-of-a-kind stories in each person’s life. This theme explains why you pick your friends just the right birthday gift, why you know that one person prefers praise in public and another detests it, and why you tailor your teaching style to accommodate one person’s need to be shown and another’s desire to “figure it out as I go.” Because you are such a keen observer of other people’s strengths, you can draw out the best in each person. This Individualization theme also helps you build productive teams. While some search around for the perfect team “structure” or “process,” you know instinctively that the secret to great teams is casting by individual strengths so that everyone can do a lot of what they do well.

ADAPTABILITY

You live in the moment. You don’t see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. And so you discover your future one choice at a time. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have plans. You probably do. But this theme of Adaptability does enable you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment even if they pull you away from your plans. Unlike some, you don’t resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. You expect them. They are inevitable. Indeed, on some level you actually look forward to them. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.

I wanted to share my response, and then I have some thoughts on going from undergrad straight into student affairs.

“You’re talking to someone who took 3 years off between undergrad and grad school. I think you can guess my opinion just based on that alone.

However, my advice to most people is don’t do grad school until you’re ready and 100% sure that it’s the field you want to be in. IF you feel that way on both counts, then definitely do grad school as I think it’s more of a “separator” than most people realize. Grad school has a way of making you reconsider your hopes and dreams, so I think you need to be committed to it before you go.”

As for student affairs, in particular, if you go straight from undergrad to grad school, you’ll be working with students who are literally months younger than you in some cases.  Personally, I don’t think this is a good thing.  I took 3 years off between grad school in student affairs and undergrad.  In between I gained some life experience, tried out some fields that were of interest to me, and just had some fun being a young person that was making a little (very little) money.  I think these three years served me well, made me more committed, and gave me some time to mature and get out of academia for a little while.  I don’t want to make mass generalizations, but I’m going to anyway – I think the folks that went straight out of undergrad to grad school, in many cases, could have used some time away from the academic world and in the “real world” instead of going straight from undergrad to grad school in student affairs.

I’m curious to hear some other people’s thoughts in the comments.

Break the System to Remake the System

student engagement: participation policy vs participation

the debate rages on and i’m tired of it

trenton, the wire, and jasper howard

change is blowing

staff led or student led

One of the most interesting criticisms to me was that “Jordan never would have wanted to have help, he wanted to do it on his own.” Now, while that may be true, I thought that was an irrelevant criticism of this group. I study college students, we’ve studied millennial students. To those who’ve studied millenials, these young men’s decision should come as no shock. Let’s go back to Howe and Strauss and their characteristics of millenials….

Team-Oriented – They are group oriented rather than being individualists. They may sacrifice their own identity to be part of the team. They prefer egalitarian leadership, not hierarchies. They are forming a tight-knit generation. While they are group-oriented within their own cohort, they may “politely” exclude other generations. They do not want to stand out among their peers, they want to be seen as part of the group. They dislike selfishness and are oriented toward service learning and volunteerism.

Doesn’t this sound like exactly what’s happening in Miami? Doesn’t this sound like exactly what Lebron just did? He clearly has lost some of his individual identity to join what will be perceived as Dwyane Wade’s team.

So my question is…does this whole thing say more about Lebron or more about millennials? I think only time will tell. But I’ll admit, the first thing I thought when I heard that they were considering joining together was that it sounded like the ultimate millennial move.

I was able to read Anya’s Book DIYU (you can read her blog or buy the book here) before the interview and I found my head spinning quickly at several points as I contemplated the ramifications of what was being said.

The book is broken down into 2 sections, essentially a “how did we get here” and then a “where do we need to go.” I’m not going to do a book report, but this review will center on the things that stood out to me. Anya touched on the Rudolph text that many of us saw in grad school as well as research that sounded as if it came from her “Generation Debt” series. Essentially her argument can be boiled down to several critical points.

1. Higher education in the US was founded as an institution for the white male elite.  Many things have changed in 2010 but essentially our society still mainly benefits these elite, white males over everyone else.  If you come from privilege, you will be privileged.  Things like ratings systems for colleges and the lack of real quantitative data to help us understand student experience on a deeper level only perpetuate these inequities
2. Access has stagnated since the 1960s percentage wise and because of lack of support from states and tuition that is growing at an unsustainable rate, the money to increase access will not be there.  Also, we already spend as much on higher education as anyone in the world so it seems that spending more money is illogical.  Instead we need to increase return.
3. The population of students is changing as is the value of a bachelors degree due to the market being slowly flooded with bachelors degrees.  Also, the nature of work is changing as the jobs of 40 years ago do not exist anymore.

Some of this was surprising to me and some was not.  Who hasn’t heard your parents say that a bachelors degree is worth what a HS education was worth to their generation?  I know mine did.  It was striking to see some of the numbers that were thrown around about debt and access; I had known these things to be true from story but had never really seen the numbers in front of my face.  Even if you’re not on board with the technology changes, it’s worth picking up DIYU just to learn a little more about the state of higher education and what we actually face as a profession.

The second half is about what to do:

1. Rethink educational delivery.  How can we serve underserved populations through connecting with different ways that people learn?  Can we educate people outside of the bounds of the traditional classroom?  Can we better prepare people for actual jobs?  Is the traditional liberal arts education of value in the 21st century?  Anya addresses all of these questions.
2. The internet is lowering the cost of doing education and changing the way that people connect.  Let’s use the internet to aid us in making education better.  Listen, we all know the data on outcomes for online learning (it’s active – this isn’t rocket science), but the forums we’re using to deliver this content right now are by and large clunky (blackboard).  We can do better
3. The innovators are already out there.  Anya highlights a large number of folks who are out there innovating and creating this next wave of education delivery, from our friends at P2PU (startups) to Grand Canyon University (for profits) to MIT Open Courseware (the academy itself).

I was personally fired up by this section but also slightly discouraged.  I feel like I’m paying attention constantly, reading and keeping up with the cutting edge of what we’re doing to deliver education and yet I was still behind on what was going on apparently.  I can’t imagine how behind those folks are who haven’t even opened a Facebook account or seen Google Docs.  We have a long way to go, but I think there’s hope.

As I mentioned on the podcast last night, I think Anya’s comparison between higher ed and the journalism industry is right on the money.  While the changes have already occurred and the journalism industry is having to make major changes to stay alive, many in the industry are still trying to provide the same service that they did a few years ago before things began to change.  Those days are gone, folks.  With higher ed, the changes aren’t in the offing, they’re already here.  The question is whether we’re going to be the first institution to adapt and grow with the changes in our field or the last to be dragged in kicking and screaming.

I would like to thank Anya for writing this wake-up call of a book.  I highly recommend all that work in higher education to pick it up and read it.  I don’t know that all of the changes are completely viable or will even come to fruition exactly as they seem they might.  However, I do know that change is here and it’s not going anywhere.  Reading DIYU may not give you the answers, but it will at least get your brain thinking about the possibilities.  And to be honest, that’s exactly where we as an industry need to be in 2010.

Anya Kamenetz is a staff writer for Fast Company magazine, where she writes about sustainability, technology, design, and innovation, and the author of the new book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education (Chelsea Green, April 2010.) The Village Voice nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize for contributions to the feature series Generation Debt, which led to a book in 2006. She has written for the New York Times, appeared on CNN and National Public Radio, and been featured as a “Yahoo Finance Expert.” A frequent speaker nationwide, Kamenetz blogs at Fastcompany.com, The Huffington Post, and DIYUBook.com.

It should be an interesting podcast. I’ve really enjoyed DIYU so far and plan on having it finished in time to discuss it with Anya.

1) Post frequency. How often do you want to post? Before you answer that, the conventional wisdom is that the less frequently you post, the more lengthy your post should be. It’s just very time-consuming to post long posts frequently and unless you’ve managed to be one of the lucky few who does this for a living, you probably don’t have the time. I’ll just throw out some numbers that may or may not have any reason to them. If you post daily, 100-300 words. If you post weekly, aim for 500 words. If you post less frequently as that, it should be damn good. My posts typically fall in the 300-500 word range since I usually post something at least every third day.

One common complaint you’ll hear is that you’ll “run out of ideas.” Honestly, this is going to come and go. Write what you care about, write what you’re passionate about. I find a lot of inspiration in my work and in the news, so I find that I really have endless post ideas.

2) Use the draft function and schedule your posts. I use wordpress so this is fairly easy, but you can really do this with any blogging software. If you’re using posterous, you can store posts in your email account under drafts until you’re ready to send them. I once had posts scheduled out for 16 days in the future. I only post on weekdays, so if I come up with something good over the weekend, I’ll schedule it for the upcoming Monday. Dont’ post more than once a day (unless you’re committed to posting more than once a day consistently – if you are, they should be SHORT). If you come up with three in a day (totally plausible, I did it yesterday) then schedule them out.

3) Do use tags. WordPress especially gives room for tags. It’s always smart to tag your posts with some themes of the post as it will drive more traffic to your blog.

4) Don’t write to please the peanut gallery. DO create quality content. Hey, this is your space. Tracking hits to the blog and posting based on what gets the most hits is stupid. Post quality content and ideas that YOU like. If you want to up your hits, talk to @ericstoller about how to up your Search engine optimization. The best way to get noticed by search engines though is to post content that people would want to click on. But one of the biggest keys to blogging and blogging well is quality content. You’re a smart capable human being in your area of interest, if you’re posting about that you’re going to be a kick-ass blogger.

Here are a few questions and things you may want to think about:

1) Why do you want to blog? This makes a big difference for what you will want to post. Is it an outlet from your job? Is it about bolstering your current career (this is my reason)? Is it to vent? Is about trying to find a way into a new career (a great reason)? It’s a good idea to plan this from the beginning because it will help you to think about how open you want to be and what you want to share. More than that, it will help you figure out layouts for your blog. Personally, with the reason for my blog, I recently changed it to where an intro about me always come up when you go to jefflail.com. My hope was that every visitor is getting a consistent message about what I’m about instead of it changing day-to-day. My blog is still easily accessible, but it’s not my front page.

2) What forum do you want to use? Think about what makes the sense for the content you’re posting. Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger all have great interfaces. Posterous is a different sort of animal but is great for the people whose needs it fits. Look around and ask around. Think about what content you’re going to post – is it pictures? words? video? This brings me to my next question.

3) Is a blog even for you? I’ve done videos, I’ve done podcasting, and I’ve done blogging. All are very good for long form posting of ideas and content. I’ve found that blogging works the best for me because I’m a bit of an introvert and being able to form thoughts a bit without the pressure of an audience works for me. If you’re an extrovert, it may be more interesting to do a video blog or a podcast. Try out all of them and see what works. For a video blog, you really only need a webcam, but if you have a Flip camera that also works great. Your smartphone may be able to do it as well unless you have a Blackberry – in which case, you probably are pissed off anyways and shouldn’t add to it by trying to stream video from it.

4) Careful on the content My general rule is don’t say anything on a blog or on twitter that you wouldn’t say at work. Everyone has different barriers for this sort of thing (mine is fairly loose) but I think if you practice this principle, you won’t end up saying something you regret later.

These are a few beginning tips. I’m interested in hearing yours!

You can check that out over on the BreakDrink.com page or on the BreakDrink Blog Talk Radio page. It’s also available on itunes if you search for “breakdrink” in the itunes store or with this link.

Next week, our guest is Anya Kamenetz @anya1anya, writer for Fast Company magazine and author of Generation Debt and DIYU. Hope you’ll tune in!

Here’s the link to the actual article http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_15215560. I’m sure if you’re interested, you can read the whole thing for yourself.

Here’s one part I found interesting….
“The study by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity found that UTEP diverted $774 per student into athletics in the year 2008-09 — the third-highest in Conference USA and significantly higher that the national average of $506.”

So what exactly do they mean by “diverted”? It seems that they’re saying that students are paying an athletics fee or the money is coming from a big pot. But it’s never really clear in this article.

I think what they were trying to say was stated below…”In the minor conferences such as Mountain West, Western Athletic, Sunbelt and C-USA, subsidies are greater than 43 percent from institutions. Schools in the Mid-American Conference were subsidized with 72 percent on average.”

To put that as simply as possible, in the MAC, schools (is this state money? tuition? fees?) are picking up 72% of the tab for athletics, and the athletics department is making enough to fund the other 28% through donations from boosters, ticket sales and sponsorship/advertising dollars.

To summarize, a lot of these figures thrown around in this article are nonsense. The central question that they’re trying to ask is how much money into athletics is too much?

They make a great point that I think is worth remembering when you’re having this discussion though…
“Of 99 schools studied, UTEP had the highest percentage of low-income student in Division 1, with more than 62 percent of the students receiving financial aid.
The authors of the study, Matthew Denhart and Richard Vedder, called the athletics subsidies “a regressive tax” that burdens mostly lower-income students nationwide.
In UTEP’s case, Denhart said, it is a tax of 16 percent”

Laymen’s Terms – when you’re paying big money to keep the sports afloat, you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. Is it hurting student affairs? Is it hurting low-income students because of less access to financial aid? That’s difficult to say without a more in-depth study of the numbers and will greatly vary from school to school.

However, 72% is a big number. Might be something worth talking about.

It’s for that reason I invest countless hours listening to students talk. It’s for that reason I stay in constant contact, it seems, with students and friends that I very rarely or may never again see listening to them talk and giving advice.

It’s for that reason that I support 3rd world citizens through Kiva (making micro-loans to help fund businesses in the 3rd world) and through Charity:Water (a huge first step to pursuing dreams is having the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid). These organizations help to set people’s dreams and goals free from the bounds of their situation. (full disclosure: i actually had tears running down my cheeks typing that last paragraph. I really believe in these causes. If you can participate, you should.)

And it’s for this reason that I’m supporting breakdrink.com. As a blogger and website maintainer and podcaster, I feel like I understand the incredible amount of work that Jeff and Gary put into their site. These guys aren’t just pushing a product though, they’re trying to help our profession to find it’s way through a dark hour and to emerge stronger and better. I can get behind that 100% as someone who not only believes in helping others to pursue their dreams and goals, but someone who personally benefits from the service that breakdrink.com provides and will provide.

That being said, go to indiegogo.com and donate to breakdrink.com’s future. Help push student affairs and higher ed forward. Help someone make their dream and passion a reality.

Here’s the link. Do it.

I’m not going to debate the usefulness or import of instant replay in baseball, even though I do like the idea even for balls/strikes. What I would like to discuss was a throwaway comment in the article.

“Mike Port, vice president of umpiring for MLB, says that when it comes to calling balls and strikes, the umpires are about 95% accurate. But here’s the interesting part: The Pitch-f/x system’s ball and strike calls are very near 100% accurate.”

A statement like “the umpires are 95% accurate” to a person with no common sense sounds brilliant. “95%! wow that’s really good!”. But let’s break that down a little bit…

95% accurate means that the umpire misses 1 out of every 20 calls. In a major league game with around 300 pitches, that amounts to about 15 calls a game that an umpire misses on balls and strikes. That means, on average, one call is missed in every other at-bat. Not bad, right?

But again, this is where common sense comes in. I don’t think it’s out of the question to say that 80% of those calls are easy. A pitcher throws a fastball straight down the middle, off the ground, or nose high and even the person watching at home on their couch can easily make these calls. So if 80% of those calls are easy, you’re only worrying about the 20% that aren’t easy (again, the 80% is a guess but just follow me).

That means on those questionable 20% the umpires get about 75% right. That’s definitely better than guessing, but shouldn’t someone who does this for a living be able to get better than 3 of 4 right? What if my #s are off and 90% of the calls are relatively easy? That would mean the umpires are only going 50/50 on the questionable calls (essentially a guess).

My point is not that umpires suck and should be crucified. My point is not that I think we need instant replay in baseball (even though I do think that). My point is that it’s asinine to argue that umpires get 95% of the calls right because it doesn’t show the true statistical picture. Umpires are on the field to get the close calls. If a pitch is clearly a strike or clearly out of the zone, players could police themselves. It’s the close calls that need the umpire and to fairly judge the accuracy of an umpire we need to know how they did on these close calls. Only then can you make an intelligent, reasonable, and thoughtful argument for/against instant replay in baseball.

To fairly make judgment calls based on any statistics (or assessment data, higher ed folks), we need to use the information and our common sense to determine if those stats truly reflect the answer to the question we’re asking. We can’t just pull random statistics and expect it to be useful for anything. As the phrase popularized by Mark Twain said “there are lies, damned lies and statistics;” the mediating factor between foolish decision making and statistics is using our common sense, expertise and knowledge to analyze and break down what we see in the numbers.

More than that, I wanted to give props to Ed for continuing to push our profession forward and pursue his personal passion in technology.  Ustream is still an emerging technology (i presented on it at #acui2010) but Ed did an excellent job of using this real-time technology to develop a personal and connected presentation with the Dean.

Awesome job Ed.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can see it here.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7094502

The kicker was directly connect.  We need to show that our programs directly connect to the mission and foster student life at the college.  But what does this mean exactly?  Well, here’s what that means at TCNJ.  Go ahead and read that and I’ll continue.  Back?  Good.

I want to focus on the phrase “student-centered and learning-focused”.  Folks, gone are the days of “this event was for fun” or “stress relief”.  It’s bullshit, we all know it, and it’s going like a poof of smoke in the wind.

Coming are the days of justifying pennies, defending why this program existed and directly connecting it to learning.  If you can’t do that or if you’re NOT PREPARED to do that, prepare to be excised or marginalized.

I love the fact that the big wigs on campus are expressing support, but I think what people missed is that it also comes with a cost of needing to justify that support.  I hope we’re ready.

With the threat of litigation, enormous bureaucracies to contend with, and legal questions of responsibility in the event something goes afoul, I think functionally we’ve inhibited our students ability to go about things their own way.  We have to fight their battles for them, we have to take the fall and be responsible should something bad happen and we have to lead them through the maze of the university system.

It’s sad.  It really is.

I believe that systems have the ability  inhibit growth.  It’s essentially the message of much of Malcolm Gladwell’s work – systems can be used for good or evil and I believe many times the systems in student affairs work against giving students the freedom to try and to fail and to take ownership.  The staff is pressured to lead things, partly so there can be someone “responsible” (a bullshit idea that students can’t be that person) to blame when something goes wrong.

Systems become overwhelming to students because they are so complex that it can take a new staff member a year to learn them.  How can a student be expected to learn them in 5-10 hours a week?

And I’m not even going to begin on the threat of litigation….

But shouldn’t we as staff work towards making what we do a more visible part of student learning?  Shouldn’t we make the student learning that happens in student affairs more visible and work to eliminate systems that inhibit learning?  Isn’t this our damn job?

I don’t do student activities because I think it’s the best thing in the world.  I don’t do student activities because I love playing bingo or setting up picnics or arranging late night dance parties.  Let’s be honest, in the big scope of things in life, these kind of events are meaningless and a diversion.

I do student activities for bigger reasons.  I do student activities because the students that get on the inside and participate can be set free from the bullshit that happens in the classroom, the pressures of families and friends and can really pursue their own interests and curiosities unabated in a way that’s completely different from ANYTHING else on campus.

Have a passion for social justice?  Set up a service event or bring a speaker to talk about Darfur.  Love music?  Invite one of your favorite bands to rock out your campus.  Politics more your gig?  We’ve bought Cory Booker (the man!  @corybooker) and Mike Huckabee to our campus this year.  The possibilities are literally endless as well as the experiences.

I’m all about self-actualization and there are very few things that give the opportunity to self-actualize more than doing student activities, at least in it’s best form.  I’d forgotten that in some of my latest blogs as I’ve tried to find my niche in the blogosphere.  But you can’t write that way and expect to produce anything more than boring bilge.  No more, my friends.

His op-ed on espn.com provides fascinating information about the graduation rates of NCAA tournament teams as well as his opinions on connecting their graduation rates to whether they could actually go to the NCAA Tournament.

I think Secretary Duncan was just trying to spur discussion (ironically ESPN tucked this editorial in a corner of it’s page), but I highly doubt it will have any effect.

Look, we all know that the graduation rates of many athletic programs have terrible graduation rates (i’m looking at you, Ohio state football), but we all know why their is no scrutiny. The TRUTH of big time college sports and all that really matters, to borrow from Herm Edwards: YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME. If you win, the game and thus make alumni and students happy then NO ONE CARES about anything else.

Secretary Duncan and the others among us can talk till we’re blue in the face, but until college sports stops being big business any talk of graduation rates will sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher “Waa waa, waaa waa waa”.

What are college sports about, my friends? “Straight cash homie”. Cash in the form of alumni dollars, cash in the form of student support (tuition dollars, new applications), cash in the form of jersey sales (of athletes with no reward for their sale) and cash from corporate sponsors.

You can take that to the bank, my friends.

I’m Jeff Lail. And this is what I’m burning on.

For those who don’t know anything about CAS, here’s information from their website…
“The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) has been the pre-eminent force for promoting standards in student affairs, student services, and student development programs since its inception in 1979. For the ultimate purpose of fostering and enhancing student learning, development, and achievement and in general to promote good citizenship, CAS continues to create and deliver a dynamic and credible Book of Professional Standards and Guidelines and Self-Assessment Guides that are designed to lead to a host of quality-controlled programs and services. These standards respond to real-time student needs, the requirements of sound pedagogy, and the effective management of more than 30 functional areas, consistent with institutional missions.”

And here are the ones that apply to campus activities. These SHOULD be guiding our professional decisions on what events we do and helping to guide our professional decision making. That is to say, if your event doesn’t match up with these guidelines, then you shouldn’t be doing it.

knowledge acquisition, integration, construction, and application
o Dimensions: understanding knowledge from a range of disciplines; connecting knowledge to other knowledge, ideas, and experiences; constructing knowledge; and relating knowledge to daily life

cognitive complexity
o Dimensions: critical thinking; reflective thinking; effective reasoning; and creativity

intrapersonal development
o Dimensions: realistic self-appraisal, self-understanding, and self-respect; identity development; commitment to ethics and integrity; and spiritual awareness

interpersonal competence
o Dimensions: meaningful relationships; interdependence; collaboration; and effective leadership

humanitarianism and civic engagement
o Dimensions: understanding and appreciation of cultural and human differences; social responsibility; global perspective; and sense of civic responsibility

practical competence
o Dimensions: pursuing goals; communicating effectively; technical competence; managing personal affairs; managing career development; demonstrating professionalism; maintaining health and wellness; and living a purposeful and satisfying life

During my grad school internship in assessment, I stated that the currency of student affairs was learning outcomes. After thinking about this comment for almost 2 years, I’ve realized that I was wrong. Our currency does certainly lie in outcomes and the assessment of those outcomes, but more than that, the currency lies in a need to provide the best possible efficiency, and it follows quality, of programs with the dollars we’ve been provided.

At it’s root, looking at cost per student is at the root of what we should be understanding, no? The current calculation is to use the overall cost of a program and divide that by student attendance and that gives you cost per student. My analytical mind tells me that this is grossly oversimplified though and does not measure all of the metrics needed to determine success in a program. Shouldn’t learning outcomes also be included in the equation? I say yes.

Another question…can we figure out a way to estimate attendees for a particular program, as well as cost and thus in theory determine whether we SHOULD do an event? If we can apply learning outcomes, get an estimated attendance figure and an estimated cost per student, then shouldn’t this allow us to ask the “should we do this?” question a little more clearly? I think so.

Either way, if we’re looking into the question of whether an event is worth it (either pre or post event), cost per student is a key efficiency metric that we need to make better decisions about the true cost of our events and programs.

In grad school, it took the form of obsessing over assessment and questioning the role of staff in programming. I understood the spirit but I didn’t think what we were doing was producing optimal outcomes for our students or our programs. Unfortunately, being a grad and running out of time, I left before I could get my questions answered.

As a young professional, I continue to spot inefficiency, conventional wisdom, and opinion as the driving force behind student affairs programs. A big driving force behind my question is economics and statistics, especially the work of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Dan Airely and even Bill James of sabermetrics fame. I think a big reason many staff are disinterested in assessment is that it doesn’t fit that conventional wisdom, or when it is done it doesn’t really provide anything of actual value.

A simple question last night has my wheels turning again. A student group was holding a late night dance party and I became engaged in conversation with the chief of police about our police presence. The crux of his question was “how do we determine attendees before an event?”. My response was that I don’t know but we should be able to.

The question is where the data is to start drawing conclusions and the time and investment to mine it for answers. I hope to dig a little further and find some answers.