https://youtu.be/Glu7V0aro2g?feature=shared

Episode Description

In the midst of managing a campus hurricane evacuation during a pandemic, an administrator recounts a story of an escaped hamster lost in a hotel and his precocious 7 year-old daughter’s spirited campaign to find and rescue it.

Suggested APA Citation

Snipes, J.T. (Host). (2025, February 5). Here’s the Story: “The Hamster and the Hurricane.” (No. 243) [Audio podcast episode]. In Student Affairs NOW. https://studentaffairsnow.com/heres-the-story-hamster/

Episode Transcript

J.T. SnipesWelcome to Here's the Story, a show that brings Student Affairs to life by sharing the authentic voices and lived experiences of those who are shaping our field every day as a part of the Student Affairs NOW family, we are dedicated to serving and furthering the people who walk the walk, talk, the talk, and carry the rock all of us who find ourselves serving students and their education in student affairs and higher education, we hope you'll sit with us every Wednesday where we'll laugh, reminisce, commiserate, maybe even cry a little, but always celebrate our own little corner of the college experience. You can find us at studentaffairsnow.com, or directly at studentaffairsnow.com/here'sthestory, or on YouTube and anywhere you enjoy your podcast. Today, we'd like to thank today's sponsor evolve. Evolve. Evolve helps senior leaders release fear, gain courage and take action for transformational leadership through a personalized cohort based virtual learning experience, and I'm your host. J.T. Snipes, my pronouns are he him and his? I serve as an Associate Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. I'm trying my best to live as a free black man in a world that would have me live otherwise. I'm with you today from the ancestral lands of the Kickapoo and the Illinois Confederacy. My university resides on land seated in 1819 treaty in Edwardsville, and is now home to SIUE. I'm here with my wonderful co host, Helena.

Helena GardnerI'm Helena Gardner, and my pronouns are she, her, hers. I serve as the director of residency, education and housing services at Michigan State University. I live my life as a mom, a sister, a daughter, a friend and a mentor. I'm with you today from the ancestral, traditional and contemporary lands of the Anishinabe, three fires, confederacy of Ojibwa, Ottawa and Potawatomi peoples. The University resides on land seated in the 1819, treaty of Saginaw, and is home to Michigan State University.

J.T. SnipesHelena. So glad to be with you today. And now I want to introduce my friend Neil, who has a story to tell. But first, Neil, I'd love for you to tell our listeners about how, here's the story podcast came into being and why we're doing this project.

Neil E. GolemoY'all, I'm so excited that we're finally, after all the work we've been doing, that it's paying off our first episode. So first I want to say, you know, I'm coming to us from the lands for the COVID The atacap Ishaq and the Karen Kawa people once roamed where they thrived, where they built their lives and left their legacies. And so I'm super excited. I want to remember them for land I'm home. So about this? Okay, so we all know this is a new thing. It's a, you know, a project, this passion thing that we have. It all started, well, actually, it all started with the joke I used to tell about being the one white guy I know that doesn't have a podcast. And, you know, it really kind of comes from this idea that, you know, it's a tough world out there, and in student affairs, it's just one of those. It's not a, you know, it's a calling. It's not yeah question so much. And it's tough out there, you know, like we are problem solvers, and so often we're the ones who get called to clean up messes. Yeah? You know, it's one of those jobs where, like, when you're operating at peak, you know, and you're doing excellent, amazing work,