Here’s part 3 in my ongoing tale of bringing the kind of student affairs assessment that I want to our student activities office.
If you need to catch up, here’s Part 1 and Part 2.
When we last left the tale, I had been given notice by our IT guy that not only were we capable of storing and saving the data that I wanted, we already had the software that we needed present on our computers and, not only that, we were already using it, just not correctly. I was more amused than anything, but not overly surprised. Given an environment of high turnover, a system that is fairly complex, and an overall student affairs fear of data, I found it not altogether shocking that this information would have disappeared somewhere along with the names of the guys who shot Tupac and Biggie and the Iraqi WMD’s.
So, Chapter 3 starts where the IT guy warns me that he was nearing the end of his effectiveness, as, most likely, we didn’t have access to the student database that we needed to cross reference the IDs that we swiped so that we could actually make something reasonable out of the data other than just a collection of scrabble like number combinations. Quite literally, the data we were collecting would be useless without access to this database.
Let’s pause here for a little personal interlude. After we’d figured out that we could in fact collect the IDs with our swipes and save the information, I was feeling particularly empowered. I went across the hall to @curtistmed’s office and immediately told him that, not only were we good to start collecting data, but that we would eventually be able to use it. Frankly, I had nothing to back this up at the time. However, we all know that the university is largely about politics. Going into an assistant vice president’s office and saying “we need to collect some data and use it” is a far different than “we’ve been collecting this data all semester but IT won’t let us use it”. Huge difference, in fact. Question 1 is complex and multi layered, Question 2 is not complex. My political clout, if you will, to get what I need, would ultimately be in the data that we were going to collect and I knew we would be able to collect it.
Personal interlude 2 – I’m relentless. Keep turning me down and I will keep knocking at your door. Acting like that is a stupid philosophy when you’re being selfish. Acting like that when you’re trying to do the best job possible at work, and the thing that you’re trying to get will make you better at your job is smart. Play your political cards correctly, push when pushing is wise, and step your game up when pushing isn’t wise. I should explain the step your game up piece – going and whining to your AVC when you haven’t done your research and due diligence is foolish. If you’re going to appeal to a higher power, then at least do your due diligence. I’m reminded of the story about the man drowning on the roof of the house and praying for God to save him and he sees a man with a raft, a man with a plane and a man with a hot air balloon (or was it a jet ski or something? I swear I’ve never seen a hot air balloon just randomly flying over a flood. Maybe it was a dinghy), but he turns down all three rides . When God comes back, the man says “you didn’t save me” and God says “who do you think sent the boat, the plane and the balloon?” Don’t be that dude. Regardless of your religious affiliation, I hope you understand that the idea is about using all the resources at your disposal before you start wasting your AVC’s time. The AVC is the nuclear option. If you play your cards right and utilize all your resources, you shouldn’t need to use them, unless you get to the point you really can’t do anything else. Then it’s time to push the red button.
Anyway, back to the story.
So, the IT guy sets up another appointment to come by and check out whether we had access to this student database on Banner. I’m going to spare the argument that I think could (and maybe should) be made about whether all of us should have access to these files. He was surprised to find that our office did, in fact, have access to all of the student records through Banner, and within about five minutes of clicking around in Microsoft Access, we had a query set up to pull student data like Year/Classification/Age/Housing Status/Meal Plan/Major from the student files. The one piece we don’t have access to was, this is slightly hilarious, the file that actually contains the data we’re collecting. In IT guy’s opinion, this was not especially secure information and he saw no reason that we shouldn’t be able to get access. I concur. It would be even more fun to go into our AVC’s office and say “i’ve been collecting data all semester, can i please access it?” The access has been requested, though, so we’ll see how it goes.
At this point, I felt comfortable to approach our interim director, the Assessment Director for our Student Affairs Department about the process I’d been going through and how far I’d made it, and I think it’s fair to call her reaction complete and total shock. I won’t go into the details of the conversation because that’s for her to share, but suffice it to say, she was shocked that I’d been able to get this access to data and the ability to swipe cards to tally who was attending events. My reaction “i really wish I could tell you this was complicated and I’d done something magical, but I genuinely think people had had difficulty getting access to the student data that they need, so they just started telling people they couldn’t event track attendees at all and shouldn’t waste their time”. Obviously, that statement was complete conjecture on my part, but it’s my best guess to why I got to where I did and others haven’t. I should add that the overwhelming assistance from the man in IT was a huge help. IT man, if you read this, I owe you a beer (or six).
