Dr. Jill Creighton and Dr. Christopher Lewis talk about the past season and the holidays as they prepare for a short break and then the end of Season 13.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers Your essay Voices from the Field Host.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:27]: Happy end of 2025.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:28]: Chris Happy end of 2025. It's been a great 2025 thus far. I know we've got a maybe another week or so left in it. We'll see what happens over the next week. But happy holidays to you and your family and friends.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:41]: And to yours as well. I hope everyone in Michigan is doing well in the snow and staying warm. It's just a much colder climate than I've ever lived in, so I know you must have the best coats.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:52]: We do have good coats, but I will say I have been to London at New Year's and dang cold. So though you may not have the snow, you definitely have the cold weather.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:02]: Oh my gosh, I'm freezing here all the time because it's so humid even when it's really cold. But we hope that everyone is enjoying a calm holiday season with your loved ones. This year we're going to do something a little bit different with the break in the past. We've been done with our fall season, but we wanted to make sure that we are bringing you continual episodes as best we can. So instead we're gonna take the next two weeks off. So we won't drop one on Christmas Day, we won't drop one on New Year's Day, but our last two episodes will come out the following two Thursdays in January, and then we'll take our break between seasons at the end of January with hopes that we're bringing you our next season in early February.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:42]: Looking forward to coming back. We got these final episodes are really powerful ones, so I really encourage you to take a listen once they come back. It'll be a great way to start the new year.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:52]: And one of our lovely guests will be a current college president who came up through Student affairs, which I always think is a fantastic story for us to learn from and kind of hear the perspectives on higher education from various places in people's careers. The other episode coming your way is all about public policy and higher education. We know that this has been a super funky two years of policy shifts and we're going to be bringing on our incredible chair of the Public Policy division, James Tiger and Diana Ali, who works with NASPA in Public Policy Perspectives. So look forward to those two drops coming in January. In the meantime, we wish you and yours a very warm and renewing break and start to your 26. We'll see you next year.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:41]: This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:11]: It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me, produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

The latest episode of "Student Affairs Voices from the Field," hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton, delves into the complex and evolving landscape of international education, featuring the perspectives and expertise of Dr. Zachariah Mathew, Senior International Officer at the University of Michigan-Flint.

From the outset, listeners are treated to Dr. Zachariah Mathew's personal journey—a career that began as a physical education teacher in India, transitioned into higher education in the United States, and flourished with a research focus on international student college choice. His story reflects how diverse experiences and a global outlook can enrich student affairs and the field of higher education.

One of the central themes is the motivation and decision-making process behind international students studying abroad. Dr. Zachariah Mathew identifies three drivers: economic and social mobility, the pursuit of knowledge and professional impact, and the prestige associated with international degrees. However, as global immigration policies shift and uncertainties around regulations grow, students and their families are increasingly risk-averse—reconsidering where and how they invest in their education.

The conversation explores how universities often view international students through an economic lens, sometimes seeing them as "cash cows" rather than valuable contributors to campus culture. Dr. Zachariah Mathew urges institutions to define the true purpose of internationalization, moving beyond financial incentives to prioritize perspective-building, idea-sharing, and the cultivation of global competencies.

The podcast offers valuable strategies for supporting international students and fostering a truly global learning environment. Best practices include intentional integration of international and domestic students, articulating clear institutional goals for internationalization, investing in well-resourced support centers, and scaffolding opportunities for cross-cultural engagement both inside and outside the classroom. Dr. Zachariah Mathew emphasizes the importance of intentionality—creating spaces where all voices are heard, identities are recognized, and learning outcomes span both academic and personal growth.

This episode also examines the vital role of student affairs in transforming academic degrees into holistic educational experiences. Drawing on the philosophy of Ubuntu—"I am because we are"—the conversation calls for greater collaboration between student affairs and academic departments, and for institutions to nurture students' adaptability, curiosity, and sense of belonging.

If you're eager to understand the challenges, opportunities, and responsibilities at the intersection of international education and student affairs, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in, and gain fresh insight from voices shaping the future of higher education.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your essay Voices from the Field host.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:27]: Zachariah welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:00:30]: Jill thank you very much for having me. It's truly an honor and that you consider me worthy of this opportunity. So thank you very much for having me.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:37]: We're looking forward to learning more about your expertise in the international education space. And you have an incredible journey that has brought you to your current seat in international education, weaving through different parts of higher education administration and also through the world. So we'd love to know if you could tell us, how did you get to your current seat?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:00:55]: Absolutely. It's in the process started somewhere. Today I'm here. God knows where I'll be tomorrow. So I started off as a physical education teacher in India, teaching at some prestigious institutions in Bangalore. And when I started my career I realized that I wanted to do more. And that also meant that I had to kind of not be where I was, but go up so that I can be in a decision making place. And at some point, almost seven years into my teaching career, I realized that I did not know enough to do any of these things.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:01:28]: So I decided to pursue my higher education in sports science and sports management. And this was in India at the time, sports was not an advanced field of study. So I chose to come to the United States. I did my master's in sports management. And the experience as an international student, it was the first time I really looked back into cultural vibrance or cultural competency or global competency. Because while we in India we spoke five or six languages and nobody cared. Everybody does. We eat all kinds of foods and we understood other cultures.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:02:04]: So you never thought about it. But it's only when I came to us I really realized the dynamics of those cultural diversity and perspective. But it was within me. I was thinking about it. I was very active as an international student. I was not a traditional student. I was almost 26 years old when I came here. This is about 25 years ago.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:02:20]: And that was kind of bubbling in me. I was very engaged with faculty, administrators, seniors to gain their perspective and also very engaged with the student affairs because I was doing my master's in sports management. And then I started working for State University of New York at small community college within that space. And in 2009 I decided to quit my job, go back to school to do my PhD in higher education leadership and Administration at Indiana State University from where I already had my Master's and I specialized in international student affairs there. So my dissertation was on international students college choice. While I was there, while I started, the position position opened up as one of the international student advisor position or the engagement specialist position. It was an associate director position and I was fortunate to have that position. So it started off as engaging the students and looking at it through the student development theories and to see how we can develop the student and bring a holistic education into the student.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:03:21]: You know, not just international students, but broadly all how to provide the domestic students this perspective. And that started in 2011, 2025. I'm here at the University of Michigan Flint as the Director and Senior International Officer.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:36]: That's quite a journey. And I love hearing people's student affairs and higher education journeys as they weave through different parts of education. As we've talked about many times on this show, no one grows up saying I want to be a student affairs professional. And so taking that skill set that you built in sports management, sports science and translating it into an international education career is a really great representation I of how we get into this field and move through it. Zachariah, you mentioned that you have experiences looking at international student choice through research. And I know that research is a little bit older now, but can you tell us what we knew then about international student choice in terms of where they're going to school and what that looks like presently? Because we know that that has shifted a little bit.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:04:17]: So the students choose to study abroad primarily for under three different categories. That is a college choice. So where they go is comes after why they choose to study abro abroad or stay at home. So one aspect is and most every decision has some element of all the three, but predominantly one is economic decision or social mobility. So they make this decision for social mobility or economic prosperity. So it is a one time investment. Students really take this opportunity to invest in quality education so that not only them but the coming generation can have better economic prosperity and social mobility, which is really correlated. And then there is the psychometric which is about having this opportunity to gain the knowledge and to have higher impact within the field of what they do.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:05:05]: And the third one is social. Social is also to aspect is to be able to say where they go and the social prestige that comes with it. So it could be a country it could be a university within the country and it goes on. So these are the major areas and where they go depends on a combination of all these three. So for example, if somebody can afford to go to a private university in the US where there is quality education, they might choose if they have the capacity to withstand the academic rigor and can pay for it. Whereas if somebody does not have the capacity to pay, they might not choose us, but might choose a country where the education is not as expensive as it is in the US So it is a balancing of all these three that really comes in and says, okay, this is where we are going to go. So one might choose United States States, but they might choose a university that might not be expensive because it is an economic decision that they're making because they do not have the capacity to invest where there might be other situation where it's fully funded. So a student who is looking at it through the social aspect could say, you know what, I'm going to go to the prestigious university where I can get accepted into because I don't have to worry about the pay.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:06:16]: And also then the, I mean this is not to say that the academic focus does not come into play. The students also look at the academics and the university's capacity to deliver those curriculum and the proficiency of the faculty. So it's a combination of different factors and it is very dynamic. What has changed today with uncertainties in the immigration regulations and its interpretation, students are hesitant to take the risk. So something very important that we need to recognize is if you really look at the large number of international students here in the United States, most of them are from high context cultures where there is uncertainty avoidance. They are willing to take a decision if they are certain about the consequence. But they are hesitant to take a decision when there is not much of certainty in what is going to happen tomorrow. So that is impacting the students decision to choose United States as a destination for now.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:07:11]: And in all this we need to recognize that this is a one time investment for the students. And it's also important to recognize that these international students are buying this commodity called education, which according to World Trade Organization, higher education is a tradable commodity. They are buying this purely based on perception. They have never used it before. They talk to people around, they talk to officials, they go on YouTube, they go on Facebook, they look at pamphlets and buy the most significant influential commodity in their life, investing pretty much everything that they have. So it is a significant decision that they make. And they try their best not to take chance. So students risk aversion and parents and families as well because this is a major investment.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:08:01]: Kind of not willing to take that chance at this point because of the uncertainty. I mean, the interpretation is changing. We hear something today and tomorrow. It's like, sorry, that's not true. Something else has come up and that is not helping us at all.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:08:13]: It's a tough situation, especially for English speaking countries that are receiving international students because we've enjoyed some global privilege on being quite popular destinations historically. But both the United States and the United Kingdom have put down some pretty stringent requirements for international student entry that really haven't been present in the past. And we also know that a lot of American and British universities are heavily reliant on international student tuition dollars in order to make certain budgetary decisions, work and continue to offer certain student services and things like that. So it's an interesting place to be. So with all of that said, Zachariah, what are you seeing inside of our international education crystal ball about what we're looking down the pike gap for the next several years of international ed, knowing that these regulations are changing and that affordability is changing.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:09:05]: Affordability, yes. It's a big question. That is an important thing. But I think at the national level it is important that nations define the purpose of international education. What the motivation is, is it just purely economic or is it about perspective building and bringing the brilliant minds together and sharing those perspectives and ideas and culture? We can look at different countries. Canada opened up their doors many years ago, but they did not have the infrastructure so they had to slow down about a decade ago. Australia did that because of the money. In the US it is a $43 billion industry.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:09:40]: These money that the international students bring, that's a lot of money. So there might be motivations for the universities and institutions of higher education to bring more and more international students, but they do not ask the question if they have the capacity. And very often some of the universities don't even define why they want the international students on their campus. They're seen as cash cows. I'm sorry, they are seen as cash cows. Supplementing the loss of revenue from other sides to it comes in the demographic cliff. We all talk about the demographic cliff and that there are not enough students to go to the US Universities and these universities were built on GI Bill. And then the other part that nobody talks about is the big question is, you know, is this investment worth it? This is a big question that people all around it was in the US but now globally they're asking, is this high investment worth the returns? Does the higher education have the value that it says it has? It all comes down to roi.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:10:35]: You know, I do not have a crystal ball, but I think it is very important that institutions of higher education define its purpose. And this is something that I'll talk a little more about. This is we need to define what the difference between an academic degree and an education is and what common good are we serving. So unless and until we define that, I think it would be very difficult for us to really bring a big picture on what the landscape is going to look like. And again, it is also changing dynamically. I did not know what AI was 18 months ago in the way I never thought I would use AI. But today I'm so much into it. I mean we are talking about in person classes, then it became virtual and now we are talking about meta varsity.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:20]: Let's go back to what you said about the purpose of why we're bringing international students to our college campuses. And I think you made a really poignant statement when you said that universities are looking at the dollars but not looking at effectively the human element of what we're offering to the students that are choosing to come to our campuses from other countries and how we are creating infrastructure to support them. So if you were to look at the most promising practices in international education that really are doing the of helping international students succeed in specifically US universities, what are you seeing that's on the table that's really promoting that engagement, growth, support education and academic success?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:12:01]: First and foremost at an institutional level, they need to articulate why have international students or why internationalize. This includes integrating global perspectives into everything. The curriculum, their day to day operations, and also in articulating the learning outcomes. So that's the first part, institutional level, level articulation of white. Have them. Number two, make sure that these departments or the centers like the center for Global Engagement International center are very well staffed and resources are provided. Only then can we talk about doing anything that would ensure student success. And we have to make sure and recognize that these students whom we accept to be part of our community, know nothing about our community.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:12:47]: They're coming into a new land, a new culture, culture of the land and culture of the organization. With just a suitcase and some dollars in the pocket, we then have the responsibility to integrate them into the community, not expect them to assimilate, integrate them into the community and then also make sure that we provide the added resources for them to be successful. Be that navigating the cultural differences or understanding the education system. You know, plagiarism is a major issue here, but in a lot of countries, you are required to plagiarize. You have to memorize and literally write the same thing on the paper and submit it. So we have to make sure that the campus community understands those cultural differences as well. Finally, we also have to make sure that these students are given and extended the opportunity to learn from each other. It is just not the international students having the responsibility to teach or engage the domestic students, but from the domestic students also have the opportunity to engage with international students.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:13:52]: And what really happens, and this is just not in the classroom, but also outside the classroom where the perspectives are shared, they learn from each other. We always talk about higher education being the space to create innovators, but we are so slow to innovate ourselves. We do not. So we need to create the space where the students can be innovators in the sense that they are not being taught, just taught to solve today's problem, because they need to be taught how to solve the problems of tomorrow when they graduate, and not in their home country or hometown, but God knows where. So it is very important to make sure that the students, both domestic and international students, learn from each other and provide that conducive environment where they can learn from each other, contribute towards a common cause, and that's important.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:14:41]: I think one of the most difficult things in welcoming international students into the community is that we also often do not focus on the domestic students that are on our campuses who are also going to be learning alongside students from a different cultural perspective. So we're in a space where our domestic students are for the very first time meeting people from across their home state, perhaps, or from a different type of city than they're from, or from a different type of community. And so there's so much emotional and intellectual growth happening in that space that we, we all know about from a student affairs lens. But then when we add the dimension of international perspective, a lot of times we're working with a space where maybe perspective taking is really difficult, because I have no conceptual foundation for understanding what life is like in a different part of the world, which you don't to visit a place to build that understanding. But I think that can help. But looking at all of that in combination, how do you support the journey of domestic students engaging with international perspectives so that the onus is not on that international student to always be teaching?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:15:40]: Thank you very much for asking this question. And my short answer for that is intentionality. Both at the formal and informal curriculum. What happens in the classroom and outside the curriculum? Outside the classroom, what we call the student affairs or co curricular activities. Let's take the classroom. Very often there is this assignment which is focused on the dominant culture. Even in group project, they're given a project that addresses the problems of the local region. What if the faculty reaches out to the student and really encourage, motivate them without intimidating and without calling upon them.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:16:15]: Encourage these international students to share the impact of these within that cultural context. Any of the problems or any of the solutions within the cultural context. In my doctoral classes, this is something that I was doing a lot. The faculty would be teaching, the students would be responding to a lot of those domestic issues. And I would intervene and say, you know what? Yes, but how about these and other cultures or other systems or in other higher education systems. This won't work. The tenure or the academic freedom and all those things do not work in many other cultures or in many other countries. So to be able to provide.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:16:50]: But the faculty also provided me the space to have the conversation. I could challenge. Even at the graduate level, doing my Masters, I could challenge lot of those dominant notions. And the faculty provided me that opportunity to challenge those. So there was intentionality. So I think it is we have to put an intentional effort to one engage those global or diverse perspectives, but then also make sure that the doors are open for the domestic students to receive it. So it is not a one day, one off. This needs to be scaffolded.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:17:23]: And this has to be a continuum from the day the students comes onto the campus. It's not a matter of a class, it is the entire program. And this also really gets into much larger, I do not know, philosophical or structural thought. We have these concept of majors based on the faculty expertise. History faculty has history majors. Biology faculty have biology majors. But if you're really talking about solving problems, where does that fit into that major and expertise? And that is where this intentionality needs to come into play. Where one can share and other can receive.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:18:03]: And if anybody believes that this can be done in one class one day or one semester. No, this has to be intentionally woven in to the academic programs. And this also applies to student affairs. Something that I have noticed is as an international student, when I came in, I did not see a space for my opinion or my perspective at all. Because they were talking and everything was about the dominant culture, the diversity, racism and all those things. I did not have a room. So I didn't feel belonged. That's when I started working with the chief diversity officer at my university and saying, okay, where do I fit into these conversations? I had some experience.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:18:37]: I had about seven, eight years of work experience, and I could relate to the staff and faculty. So I was able to have these conversations, and that made a huge difference. So the intentionality is the key in.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:18:48]: Both the spaces, that important conversation around whose culture is being discussed and whose culture is being included. I often have seen international students say that they need to really be quite assertive in order to recognize, represent a different perspective in the classroom or a different perspective inside of student affairs or wherever that might be. So I'm wondering if you can share an example or a moment when you saw that part of student affairs or part of academic affairs did a really good job of supporting perspective taking and inclusivity on global perspectives.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:19:19]: Absolutely. This is at my previous institution when I was working as the associate director at Indiana State University. So I did a lot of student engagement initiatives. And for me, it was very important that I'm just not creating another silo of. Of international student and that silo and all the others. So my effort was to bring everybody together, the entire campus student body, and we had the vice president for student affairs, I have to name him, because I think he played a very important role, and this is a recognition to what he has done for the international student and domestic student experience. Nolan Davis. I went to him, had quite a lot of conversations about what I do, why it is important, and I had no monies at all to do any of the student engagement.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:20:01]: A lot of those programs that we did was done with very little or no funds at all. So these conversations really led to recognizing that we both are doing the same thing. I'm doing it from the academic affairs, he is doing it from the student affairs, and he has a responsibility for a lot of the outcomes that I really do. So by the end of that year, he provided a substantial amount of funding to engage both domestic and international students within that common space. So one of the events that I did during that time was something called the Heritage Fair. And everybody does diversity fair, everybody does international fair. It is about defining the us versus them. You know, let me tell you who I am, and diversity within its own context of ethnicity or the skin color.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:20:49]: So one day I went out to a common area and randomly asked about 20, 25 students what. What they understand when you use diversity, what they understand or what is their interpretation of international and what their interpretation of heritage is. Now, I didn't pay much attention to what they said I was only looking at the kindnesses. So when I said diversity, their hands went out. When I said international, the hands went out. But when I said what does heritage mean? The hands from far came to them. It is about me. So then that year we are organized the heritage fair where everybody had a space.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:21:27]: It was not about ethnicity, it was not about race, it was not about skin color, nothing. Everybody has a heritage. So we created that space where by the second year we had almost,500 people attending those events. And the second or third year we spent almost $25,000 in organizing that event. And then further again, it's scaffolding and ongoing. The same VP provided funds to develop student leadership development program where we brought both domestic and international students together and did a year long leadership program where we did a lot of conference sessions, did some team building, and then students had to complete a project. And one of the project was a no food waste project in collaboration with Sodexo that saved a lot of money and saved a lot of food. That particular student who led that program was one who, he went during his interview for Amazon, asked the interviewers, you asked all these questions of what I can do for the company.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:22:24]: Now let me ask you this, what can you do for me? And he was hired immediately there. So these opportunities really bring out the best of the students.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:22:33]: I think this leads us nicely into our theme questions for the season on the value of student affairs. So these are the three questions that we've been asking all of our guests. And the first one is, is when you think about the value of student affairs, what comes to mind first and why?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:22:47]: So early in my conversation, I said about the academic degree and an education. The true power of higher education lies not simply in the academic degree. One earns a credential that one can carry around or hang it on the wall, but in the depth of transformation it can foster within and to others. An authentic education is not a static process, but a living influence. It shapes how you perceive the world, navigate challenges and engage others. It endows you the curiosity, the adaptability and critical wisdom that persists long after commencement. In essence, it is not the degree you carry through your life, but the education that steadfastly carries you, sustaining growth, resilience, purpose in every chapter beyond the classroom. So I think student affairs is in that position where they can be the lab that might transform an academic degree to an education.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:23:48]: And this is also where the philosophy of Ubuntu comes into play for me. I am because we are. It expresses the core idea, a person's humanity is shaped and defined through relationship with others. In other words, our individual identity and well being depends and contributes to the community as a whole. I think for me, this is the foundation of student affairs. Student affairs can be the lab where you are providing the opportunity to engage with real life problems and solve them without being afraid of being failing. Because this is a place where you can engage students, you can engage community, you can engage perspectives, cultures, you name it, and where students can get to know what what the solution. In the classroom, they may be able to come up with a solution that might give them the grade and pass them the class.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:24:46]: But once we provide these students an experiential learning opportunity or engaged learning opportunity where they can really solve the problem in real life, they might fail, but every single failure is a learning opportunity for them. So that's the space that it holds. But then also we need to really look at a much larger problem that we have. Our education or our academic degrees are founded in career and not in problem solving. Even within career, we talk about career readiness and this is within the student affairs space, we talk about career readiness and career preparedness. What does it mean? Listen, you paid me for all these services. In return, I'll make sure that you can get your first job. How about employability? So there are those big questions that we need to ask and we focus on the problems of today.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:25:33]: By the time the student graduates, the that problem is obsolete or it's gone. There's a new problem and the students are not ready to attack those problems. And now there's so much of talk and so much of buzz about AI. Yes, first it was like virtual learning or online learning. That is in a big way eliminating the need for interaction and engagement. Yes, it is convenient, it is cost effective both for students and for institutions of higher education. But what is it? We are really lacking the human interaction. And now we are talking about meta varsity.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:26:07]: All that you need to do is wear it. And then you can see the teachers, you can see the faculty, and you can feel everything. Where does that space for them to engage and learn come in? And that's where I think the value of student affairs lies in. They need to be focused on student support, fostering personal growth and development. And for me this is very important. Fostering a sense of belonging and community and fostering wellness, safety. And definitely look into that much larger picture of are we providing an education or are we offering an academic degree that could potentially get them to a job? Not per se, a career and employability.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:26:48]: Our second question can you share a specific story or moment when you saw the value of student affairs come to life?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:26:54]: It's my experience here as an international student. As I said in the initially in India, we spoke multiple languages, we interacted with people from all around the world, networking, everything happened. But you never thought about any of those things because it was part of your daily life. It's when I came here, when I really realized the importance of that gain the perspective building and gaining those perspectives and its application and its implementation. And I think I was able to really gain those insight and translate my experiences within the student affairs space and then today apply that when I am working in this field. So I think that lived experience and having a lot of opportunities to talk to professionals in student affairs was very important for me personally. If I really put in simple sentences, it was really taking in my lived experience and translating it into educational experience and career competencies. And that was very much reflected in my job interviews.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:27:53]: If I had not really looked at it through the lens of student development theory and the student affairs, I would have had a very different kind of response. Even sometimes I wonder, I might not even have brought up a lot of stuff because it's for granted.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:28:06]: Our third question, what do you think student affairs needs to do to be better understood and better seen in today's educational environment?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:28:13]: I think student affairs needs to articulate, develop or enforce its own identity. This I want to say might be. It's my feelings, but I think we are growing under the shadow of the faculty being considered the university and that we are this co curricular that provides auxiliary services. And again I'm using this word. I think it is important that at an institutional level and as a field, we need to create an identity of our own in student affairs not as the allied services, but as essential service that we provide that ensures student success and also that ensures that the students have this educational experience. Earlier when I said the faculty as the university, what I was trying to say is that the delivery of the formal curriculum is a core essence. It is important, it is very important. But it equally important is student affairs.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:29:11]: I was recently I was just looking at where the growth is in terms of nations. On average, E7 countries added 2% GDP growth, whereas the top 10 fastest growing economies had had 22% growth. And these were countries in Asia and Africa. So down the line we can really say that these job opportunities and growth there is a significant increase in potential opportunities in employabilities or employments abroad or to engage with other countries. So the question is, are we, the student affairs, playing a role in ensuring that the student can really tap into that opportunity? And then now moving with a list of few things that we really need to do is we really need to see the make sure that the programming or the engagement that we have, the learning outcomes really align with the academic learning outcomes as well. We can't also be in isolation and in silos. We have to make sure that there is collaboration and alignment of what we do purely in terms of learning outcomes. So if our learning outcome, the student affairs learning outcome has to align with the learning outcomes of academic programs, we need to, and this is something that I think most universities and most institutions really lack, is partnership with the faculty and aligning with their specific learning outcome and making sure that they are engaged partners in this process? Very often, again, they don't see a need to engage with us and we don't see a need to engage with them.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:30:47]: And that is really getting into the way. We need to create space to integrate and bring in diverse perspectives. We need to be able to articulate the, the purpose and outcomes of student affairs at the institutional level and at the community level. You know, very often we don't articulate and we don't sing praises and songs about how the student affairs contribute to recruitment, retention and graduation. And even at the programmatic level, one of the successes that I had is I always gave the ownership of everything that I did to the students. I was at the background, but the students were the leading force behind a lot of those things, which really help with the leadership skills and all those things. A real world experience. We need to be able to tell students success stories, especially alumni.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:31:35]: We have noticed that we always talk, you know, use the stories from our current students. And in my experience, what I've seen is the current students, I wouldn't say, for a lack of a better term, let me use a shallow, but it is like they are providing testimonies and they are reflecting on that experience that they had in the last six or eight months. Whereas when you talk to an alumni, they have a much deeper reflection, not only about their experience, but its application and how it brought them to, to where we are today, which aligns very well with institutional mission of advancement and networking opportunities for the current students and all those things. So we need to engage alumni and their stories also. And then as I mentioned earlier, student affairs have to recognize that they have a huge role to play in employability and career readiness because it is what takes a student far, is not an academic degree. It is the education that we offer. And finally, this is again the assessment and evaluation. We need to be able to assess what we are doing and if it is achieving it, it has to match.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:32:38]: Every single day you get a satisfaction survey. How satisfied were you? But we need to go past that and we need to assess the outcomes and then also evaluate the programs that we do.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:49]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:55]: Thanks Jill. So excited to be back in the NASPA world and there's a ton of things happening in naspa. You have an opportunity right now to submit a proposal for a new book that is being worked on. This book is called Transforming Mental Health in Higher Education Leadership Strategies and Innovative Approaches. The editors of the book are Thaddeus Montero, Ryan Travia, and Marcus Hodling following the pandemic, the mental health crisis has continued on US Campuses. Data from Healthy Minds from the data from the Healthy Minds Study show that between 2020 and 2021, student flourishing showed a 32.5% decrease among all students from 2013 to 2021 and that greater than 60% of students met criteria for one or more mental health problems problems, a nearly 50% increase from 2013. It's anticipated that these type of critical impacts on student mental health, impacts on student mental health, and concomitant effects on student success and academic achievement will continue into the foreseeable future. As mentioned, we are inviting chapter proposals for the upcoming edited volume examining the leadership strategies and innovative approaches to mental health, health service delivery and higher education, with a particular focus on post pandemic transformations in counseling center operations, institutional mental health frameworks, and community based approaches to student well being.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:28]: This comprehensive work will analyze contemporary challenges, including mental health policy implications, evidence based treatment modalities, which include stepped care frameworks, telehealth integration, embedded counseling models and more, crisis intervention models, resource allocation strategies and pedagogical integration of faculty as mental health allies within institutional ecosystems. The editors are seeking empirically grounded contributions from counseling center administrators, student affairs practitioners, faculty scholars, and clinical researchers who can provide theoretical frameworks, methodological innovations, and applied research findings that advance our understanding of contemporary collegiate mental health service delivery. This is an open call to practitioners and scholars from across disciplines in higher education. Individuals or collaborators with expertise, interest, or experience in any of those content areas are encouraged to apply. The proposal deadline for this opportunity is January 30, 2026. I highly encourage you to explore this for yourself and you can find out more on the NASPA website or through the most recent weekly update from NASPA itself that came out. While the early registration deadline for the NASPA Annual Conference has passed, the regular registration deadline is still open and there are an amazingly wide array of programs that are being offered during this conference. Recently, the Conference committee did provide all individuals the opportunity to explore the entire schedule of the conference and in looking through this conference schedule, there is something for everyone in the student affairs field.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:36:14]: I am hoping that you've had the opportunity to register because we are all so excited to share the fabulous learning and engagement opportunities that have been planned for you and hope that you're looking forward to inspiring keynotes, dynamic pre conference workshops and the wide range of educational sessions, as well as reconnecting with colleagues and friends. With so many sessions that will inform, challenge and energize you in the work that you do, we hope that you will still be joining us. If you haven't already registered to be able to come to the 108th NASPA Annual Conference, you can find out more on the NASPA website. Did you know that as a part of your membership within naspa, there are seven scholarly journals that you have an opportunity to take advantage of? The journals include the Journal of College and Character, the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, the Journal of First Generation Student Success, Technology and Higher Education Emerging Practice, Community College Journal of Research and Practice and Change, the Magazine of Higher Learning Learning. All of these scholarly journals are peer reviewed and there are opportunities for you not only to learn and to grow in your own work, but also opportunities to be able to share with others. So I highly encourage you to explore all of these amazing resources. You can find them on the NASPA website by going under Research and Publications and clicking on Scholarly Journals. Finally today, a call out and encouragement to have you check out all of the knowledge communities that are a part of the association.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:38:02]: I know I've mentioned this over the years, but the knowledge communities are your gateway to the association with over 30 different communities that have been developed over the years to be able to offer you an opportunity to learn and grow with others that have similar passion areas to yourself. It is a great opportunity for you to be able to find a niche and find a community that you can connect with and be able to build lifelong friendships within. It's very easy to join these communities. All you do is go into your profile within the NASPA Portal portal and you can update and get information on any of the knowledge communities and join any of the knowledge communities. You could join all of them or only one. But I encourage you to find at least one knowledge community that you would like to be a part of. At the NASPA Annual Conference, we will be celebrating the Knowledge communities because we're coming upon a large milestone and it's a great opportunity to be able to celebrate the amazing work. After 25 years of being a part of NASPA, I've had the opportunity to be involved with knowledge communities for many of my years within the association.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:39:24]: And I continuously am learning and growing from people within these areas that are bringing not only their passion, but also their commitment to people in the association, to students at our universities and more. So I highly encourage you to find find at least one knowledge community to join today and find a new way to be able to connect with the association on a deeper level. Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the Association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways. Because the association is as strong as its members, members, and for all of us, we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with a knowledge community, giving back within one of the the centers or the divisions of the Association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit, where do you want to give back? Each week, we're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community, I see myself doing something like that, or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association. Because through doing that, all of us are stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:41:14]: Thank you so much, Chris, as always, for keeping us informed on what's going on in and around naspa. And Zachariah, we have reached the Lightning Round portion of our show. So I've got seven fun questions for you to answer in about 90 seconds. Are you ready to go?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:41:28]: Yes, I am.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:41:29]: All right, question number one. If you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:41:34]: Sorry, I can't think about one Question.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:41:36]: Two When you were five years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:41:39]: I wanted to be an engineer.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:41:40]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:41:43]: Betsy Hein, Dean of Library at Indiana State University.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:41:47]: Number four, your essential Student affairs read.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:41:50]: Whatever it is, I am against it. Rosenthal.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:41:53]: Number five the best TV show you've been binging lately.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:41:56]: CNN News.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:41:58]: Number six, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last year.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:42:02]: Not much.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:42:03]: And finally, number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:42:07]: Believe in yourself. You are the change. Be the change.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:42:10]: Zachariah I have so enjoyed learning from you today and hearing your insights on international education and student affairs. If anyone would like to connect with you as this episode airs, where can they find you?

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:42:21]: My email address is z matthew matthew with 1t@umich edu that is z m a T H E W at U m I c h. Zachariah, thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:42:33]: So very much for sharing your voice with us today.

Dr. Zachariah Mathew [00:42:35]: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. As I said, truly an honor that you consider me worthy of this opportunity. Thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:42:46]: This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email us at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:43:16]: It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me. Produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

Student Affairs professionals often serve as the heartbeat of a college campus, shaping transformative experiences for students at every stage of their educational journey. In the latest episode of Student Affairs Voices from the Field, host Dr. Jill Creighton is joined by Colleen Maeder, Director of Student Services at Miracosta College's San Elijo campus. Together, they deliver an insightful discussion on the unique value of student affairs—especially within community colleges.

This episode masterfully details Colleen Maeder's multifaceted career spanning both two-year and four-year institutions, public and private, on both coasts. Dr. Jill Creighton highlights how Colleen's trajectory allows her to offer a "bird's eye view" of why student affairs work truly matters.

One major theme centers on the personalized and community-focused approach at community colleges. Colleen Maeder emphasizes that student affairs at these institutions must deeply reflect the local community's needs—whether serving traditional-aged students, adult learners stepping back into education, seniors, or those facing significant basic needs challenges such as food or housing insecurity. "Everything we do should be a reflection of the community that we are in," she explains, illustrating the importance of adaptability and empathy.

Another critical topic is the evolving role of technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence. Both Colleen Maeder and Dr. Jill Creighton recognize AI's double-edged potential: while it evokes new concerns about academic integrity, it also offers opportunities for innovation in supporting and reaching students. Despite challenges, the human element of care and personal connection remains irreplaceable.

Building trust and fostering belonging remains at the core. Many community college students have faced systems that let them down, making it vital for student affairs professionals to be truly present. Colleen Maeder discusses the imperative for in-person support, consistent follow-through, and programming tailored to diverse populations and needs.

The episode also addresses a persistent challenge: effectively communicating the value of student affairs. Too often, student affairs professionals are "really, really bad at this," Colleen admits. She calls for improved storytelling—sharing real, transformative moments and personalized successes—to enhance understanding both within and outside higher education.

If you're searching for inspiration, practical insights, and a celebration of the deeply human work at the heart of student affairs, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to hear firsthand stories and advice from passionate professionals who are shaping the future of higher education—one student at a time.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your Essay Voices from the Field host.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:27]: Today on SA Voices, we're welcoming Colleen Maeder. Colleen earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Lemoyne College and a Master of Science in Community Counseling from Syracuse University. Her journey in higher education began as a resident Director at Binghamton University and the College of New Jersey. She later discovered her passion for community colleges while serving in the conduct office at Kingsborough Community College in New York City. Colleen transitioned to the private sector at New York University, where she advanced to Associate Director for Student Conduct and Restorative programs, focusing on Title IX conflict resolution and restorative practices. Her career then took her to the west coast where she served as Associate Director for Student Wellbeing at Santa Clara University, supporting non clinical mental health and basic needs. Today, Colleen is the Director of Student Services at Miracosta College's San Elijo campus and Deputy Title IX Coordinator. Her portfolio includes student life and leadership, student government conduct, Title IX behavioral intervention, and basic needs support.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:19]: Outside of work, Colleen enjoys yoga, running, hiking, and traveling with her partner. Colleen, welcome to Essay Voices.

Colleen Maeder [00:01:26]: Thank you so much for having me today, Jill.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:28]: It is just such a pleasure to have you on the show. For our Essay Voices listeners. I used to host a different podcast for another professional association, and Colleen was our audio engineer and co producer on that show. She and I pretty much had no idea what we were doing when we started it, and by the time we were finished, we had produced 45 episodes. That was an oral history of that corner of the profession. And so it's really lovely to be reunited with you in podcast land.

Colleen Maeder [00:01:51]: I am thrilled to be here and I can't believe we did. So you said 45 episodes?

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:54]: Something like that? Yeah, about 45.

Colleen Maeder [00:01:56]: That is an insane amount of episodes. But it was an awesome experience to do and learn something I never tried before.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:01]: And even though Colleen has spent so many hours behind the scenes doing editing, this is her first time in front of the mic. So we're glad to have your voice included in the story of the student affairs profession. And we always like to get to know our guests first by asking you, how did you get to your current seat?

Colleen Maeder [00:02:17]: Absolutely. So I think I started as mosted where I was a resident assistant in undergrad for my junior and senior year and didn't quite know what I wanted to do. So I decided to go to grad school, which was the common thing back then. And I got my master's in counseling and was unlucky to graduate right in 08 during the crash that took place and decided to work in res life because that's what I knew, that's what I liked, that's where I felt at home. So I became a residence director at Binghamton University. I had the experience of overseeing a residence hall that was a break housing building. So it was open all year, it never shut down. And the main students that it held were international students and student athletes.

Colleen Maeder [00:02:58]: So very unique combination of students there to manage in a residence hall and living together in suites. From there I went to the College of New Jersey, which is a public school, four year school in New Jersey, of course, where I was a resident instructor for several different buildings there. Absolutely loved it and had a phenomenal experience working with our Office of Student Conduct and was really able to start with the assistant director at the time, Elizabeth Gallus Mediation Program, and just kind of fell in love with that world, fell in love with student and how do we become educational? How do we resolve conflict without getting to student conduct? And from there that led me to my first experience outside of residential life, which was at Kingsborough Community College where I was a student conduct officer. Really unique, normal title, Student conduct officer. You don't hear that a lot. And it was this community college in Brooklyn. The claim to fame that I used to tell people was we had a beach on campus, loved it there, did a lot of work, really, really enjoyed the community college experience, which we'll get back to where I am right now. But from there I switched and went to nyu, so New York University, right in the heart of New York, and worked in their student conduct office where I met you.

Colleen Maeder [00:04:09]: I mean, we started the podcast and really was there all the way through Covid 2021. Loved the experience and I was in the student conduct office, but I focused heavily in the world of Title nine. I did a lot of work with our Office of Equal Opportunity, oversaw hearings, started a conflict resolution process, did a lot of conflict resolution training. So a very unique position in the world of student conduct that I haven't seen many other place. Loved NYU but really wanted to get out of New York City after Covid. So in 2021 I had the opportunity to work at Santa Clara University, which is up in the Bay Area south of San Francisco as the Associate Director for Student Wellbeing in the Dean of Students office. And it was non clinical mental health. Absolutely.

Colleen Maeder [00:04:51]: Loved it. It was a bucket list item for me to work at a Jesuit school. Cause I went to a Jesuit undergrad and I was lucky enough to meet my partner in the Bay Area who was transferred down to San Diego, which is how I got to Miracosta. Currently the Director of Student Services at our San Leo campus and I'm also a deputy Title IX coordinator here.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:10]: One of the things I love about your experience is that I think you're one of the few in the profession that have transitioned from a two year institution to a four year institution, to a two year to a four year and back to a two year. And you've also worked at both public and private institutions. So you've got this incredible diversity of experience in student affairs, which gives you kind of a bird's eye view in a unique way of why student affairs matters and why it has mattered over time. So this season we're focusing on the value of student affairs and I'm wondering if we can hone in a bit on your community college experience. And can you talk to us about what you can say about the community college experience as a professional compared to your experiences at four years?

Colleen Maeder [00:05:51]: Absolutely. And I have been lucky enough to work at two different community college experiences. In some way they are very, very similar in the sense that student affairs at a community college needs to actually represent the community where you are. So my college is located in North County, San Diego right now. Kingsborough Community College was located in Brooklyn. Everything we do should be a reflection of the community that we in. So who are the students that we're serving? What are their needs? What are we worried about? How do we help them be able to come to our campus, get to our campus, be able to take classes, whether it's online, hybrid or in person. What does that look like? What does the student experience look like? When I was at Kingsborough, this was pre Covid, right after Hurricane Sandy.

Colleen Maeder [00:06:36]: That's going to look very different than a post Covid world. But we are really trying to what are the current needs to what our community is? And what do we think the current needs are going to be 5, 10, 15 years from now? And what do we need to do as student affairs to make sure that we are meeting not just the needs of our current students, but planning for the future because we should grow with our community.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:06:57]: Having a beach on campus sounds really interesting until you realize there's a hurricane coming right at Your campus and the water level of your campus is right on that beach.

Colleen Maeder [00:07:04]: I started directly afterwards. We had a nice. There was a lot of flooding. I was told after that experience.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:10]: Absolutely. So when you think about your current student population, can you tell us who they are? Your university or your college has multiple campuses. So who are the students that attend Miracosta and what are the needs that you're meeting as a community college student affairs squad that maybe you're seeing the four years not doing?

Colleen Maeder [00:07:27]: Yes. So I will say Miracosta is a proud hsi. I'm very cautious saying that on a podcast right now, given the current political context. But we are a very proud hsi. We really want to make sure that we are serving all of our students. So we have anything from. We have the traditional student age population. We have adult students who are making the difficult choice to say, you know what, I'm going to step back from maybe my employment to go to school to better myself, to be able to then get a better job, to support my family.

Colleen Maeder [00:07:56]: We are working with students who. We have a large population of seniors who come back and take classes. We have a high level of basic needs and food insecurity that we are helping with our students at. We have a black and Latinx population that we are supporting and wanting to continue to grow and nurture all of these populations because they are what makes up North County San Diego, and we are here to support them in having our students reach their dreams and succeed in whatever avenue they want, whether it is an associate's degree, an associate's degree to transfer. We do have a bachelor's program on campus. We have many certificate programs through our tci, which is our certificate location. So really finding the. What is it? What do we need to do to be able to support our students in whatever their goal is? And that's gonna look different depending on the student population, depending on the time of year, and depending on what their go.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:08:48]: With such diverse student needs, with ranges of populations from students that are earning their first degrees right out of high school to those adult learners that you've mentioned, how does a student affairs division organize itself to meet needs on such an individualized level while still kind of stratifying across administration like we know we have to.

Colleen Maeder [00:09:06]: Absolutely. So I think some of it is just open lines of communication. It's not being afraid to pick up the phone and ask questions or say to a student, you know what? I'm not the person to help you, but I'm gonna connect you with this person in this office, and I'm gonna do that one handoff. Whether they're currently on my campus, walking them to that class, walking them to that office, whether it's sending that E introduction. I think it's also in terms of future planning, which Miracosta does this really, really well, is what does the future look like? What are kind of the signals that are going on outside of higher education that we need to pay attention to? How do we continue to support and what does that look like? How are we using our benefits? I think there's a lot of negative viewpoints right now on AI and how that's going to impact the workforce. But is there a way that we can utilize AI to better reach our students, to provide supplemental education, to be able to get them answers or help them through a process where we know higher education is complex? How do we make it less complex and easier for someone to understand, especially if they are first generation or returning to education and they've been gone for two decades, three decades? So what are we doing right now to make it easier for our students? And this is something where our division, we are across multiple campuses. We get together the senior leadership in our division once a month to be able to talk about some of these things. And I haven't always seen that on other places I've worked at.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:10:32]: You mentioned AI as a potential tool. I'm currently teaching a master's class on technology competencies and AI integration and student affairs. How are you all figuring that out on your campus?

Colleen Maeder [00:10:43]: So I think the key word is figuring it out, and I think it's trial and error. I think it's one as professionals should be trying different AI tools so that we understand what the benefits are, but also what are some of the concerns? How do we have conversations with students from a purely basic level? I do student conduct right now, and we have academic integrity issues that are almost all coming from the use of AI. How are we teaching our faculty, teaching our staff, teaching our students to use AI appropriately? And I think the issue is no one has figured that out yet. So we're kind of figuring this out as we go. And I've tried the past month or two to try things with AI to see what students are using to understand kind of that perspective. And I think we have to also be early adapters of that. I'm not as early as other people, but I am learning it. I'm trying to figure out how to use it appropriately or use it when it can be an added benefit, but when you need to stop using it.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:41]: We had Dr. Claire Brady on last season and she just wrote the NASPA AI report. And one of the things she said on the podcast is that higher ed is in danger of getting stuck in the academic integrity segment of AI without thinking about all of the other things that Gen AI could be doing for our campuses. I think that's such an important message. But I also understand that there are instructors and professors out there who are doing kind of keystroke analysis too, and having students like show their progressive videos of them writing their essays instead of of seeing a copy and paste of a ChatGPT essay or something like that. But it's an interesting lesson in cognitive development. I also saw a study recently that there's cognitive decline in people who use regular aigen for kind of solving problems rather than trying to think through the problem themselves first. So we've got a lot to kind of negotiate through how AI can benefit us, but I think it's not going to be able to replace that human element of care and that human element of empathy that we really employ in student affairs more than any other skill.

Colleen Maeder [00:12:37]: Absolutely. And I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole the other week when I was doing some research for a work project about loneliness and just how much loneliness can be tied to social media and AI. If you're just gonna rely on AI, you're losing the human interaction of engaging with someone to find out that answer to think critically about. Oh, here is all this information. Am I gonna challenge it? I'm just gonna automatically assume that it's correct. And we know AI is not always correct. So how are we balancing using that while understanding the loneliness is on our eyes and the impact that it has to our marginalized communities as well as education, social media. And it's just so this interconnected web of everything, this is a total aside.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:13:17]: But I also read something recently where someone had married an AI chatbot or something to that effect, and then the company that ran the chatbot shut down or was bought and the AI was no longer being updated. And so that person essentially lost their relationship. And it's an interesting question to on how you define a relationship with an algorithm at the end of the day. So, total aside. But I know if these things are in the media, that our students are also experiencing them.

Colleen Maeder [00:13:43]: Absolutely.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:13:43]: Colleen, you've spent time at both the two year experience and the four year experience, and you've talked a bit about how the two year experience is a lot more personalized and tailored. I'm wondering how you are different as a Professional when you're in each type of environment.

Colleen Maeder [00:13:57]: Yeah, I think that's a great question. Where it's my values haven't changed with whether I'm working at a four year public, a four year private versus a two year. But I think it's how you go about and how you interact with students and with others while also trying to navigate. Most two years are public institutions and there's a lot, at least in California you have ed code. So you're constantly of what is current ed code, what is the law as well as in how do you serve students and how do you work with them on that. And I think I'm gonna speak in very broad strokes. I think sometimes the needs at a community colle are much more basic than when you're at a four year private institution that is primary residential for the first year or two. I think at a community college it's you have to build trust.

Colleen Maeder [00:14:43]: I think there's a mistrust of higher education. There's why is higher education important? And I think the students who tend to go to four year schools at first know that there is an inherent benefit of going to college. Going into higher education where I feel like at a community college sometimes it's this, okay, I know I need to get the degree, but how do you explain to them the services that we have can help you do better, can help you succeed. So sometimes it's like we're the safety net. When you are at a community college or four year institution and you don't have enough food on the table, you're not going to do as well as you would if you had enough food and nutrition. If you are worried about where you're going to sleep at night, if you're worried about the safety of your family, if you're worried about an eviction, that's all going to impact you in the academic state. So it's how do you really build that connection to have students trust you, trust the institution you're at enough to be able to help them succeed. And I think that can be a struggle sometimes.

Colleen Maeder [00:15:41]: It's really trying to build those connections because we know what the issues are in our community. We have to help students overcome some of those issues and kind of lift them up to be able to support them in that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:15:53]: When you're talking about students who have high food security needs or housing security needs, you're probably also talking about people who have had the system work against them a lot in their lead up into being into your college. And so you're Asking those students to trust a system when systems have never been there for them in the past. What strategies are you using to help them engage with the system and then get them to work with you so you can support them?

Colleen Maeder [00:16:19]: You know, I think the first thing is you have to actually be here in person. And I know remote work is wonderful. I've had. I worked remote during COVID I've had the opportunity at previous institutions to have one or two remote dates. But people don't want to talk to someone on the phone. They don't want to talk to someone via email. They want to actually see someone. They want to know that this person cares and that they're not being treated as a number.

Colleen Maeder [00:16:42]: And I think that can be really difficult at times is how do we have this connection? How do we show up in person? How do we keep showing up? I think one of my biggest frustrations is if you have this mission and vision and these hallmarks of what your division should do, what your school should do, what your community college district should do, where are you actually following, following through on that? And I feel like these buzzwords that people say, well, you actually have to put that into action. You actually have to do that. And I think it's little by little, it's being visible on campus. It's following through on what you say that you're going to do. If we're going to say we're going to fund something, we're going to fund something. If we're going to say we're going to be there for students, we're going to be there for students, and really communicating that and rebuilding a lot of that mistrust that has been caused throughout the system. I think it's showing them and acknowledging we know not only this is potentially a cost to you, but it's also a cost in the sense that if you're going to class, you're not going to be at work. If you're going to class, who might be watching your children, if you have children, if you're going to class, if it's an online, we're assuming you have a safe space to take a class.

Colleen Maeder [00:17:48]: We're assuming you have access to Internet. And I think it's a lot of these. How do we make sure we can get all of that to students? And this is something where Miracosta. I'm very, very privileged to work at an institution that believes in mission and vision and actually follows through on that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:18:03]: Anything interesting, innovative or exciting happening at Miracosta, that maybe other student affairs professionals Would love to hear about.

Colleen Maeder [00:18:10]: Yeah, I think one of the things I just did was they have a CANVA course for open up to all faculty and staff and it's all about futures basically. What does the future look like? How do we pick up? And I mentioned this previously on these signals that might be coming up that we want to pay attention to. Not quite sure if it's going to lead somewhere, but if it does, an example is rewind. 10, 15 years ago with AI, there was an opportunity for all of us to get more on board with this. And what does that look like? What are our fellow colleagues across the world doing in higher education? I think it's paying attention to. We know right now in higher education that there is going to be a dwindling K through 12 population. We know that. How are we planning for that? I think that we know right now that mental health, at least for teens, that 18 to 24 year old, they're going through a mental health crisis.

Colleen Maeder [00:19:00]: So are we staffing up our counseling centers? And what are we doing to help students feel like they actually belong on our campus? What programs are we doing? How are we connecting with students? How are we connecting students with other students? So it's all about what are we kind of looking at? What are the signals at play and then what do we do about it? And it's paying attention to the little stuff to then have that help develop whatever that strategic plan is going to be.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:19:25]: How are you all creating belonging when you know you have a population that's maybe on campus just for the moment they're taking class, or a population that's attending kind of all hours of the day, you might have students that are only there in the morning or students that are only there in the evening or only certain days of the week.

Colleen Maeder [00:19:38]: Our campus, at least at the main campus, we have offices open until at least 7 o' clock at night. And I think that plays a big factor is having some of those extended hours. I think we're taking a look at how do we reach student populations that we might not have done a great job in the past. So we have an adult population, an adult population in the 30s, 40s and 50s. How you program and how you reach them is going to look very different than an 18 to 24 year old population. We have a high rate Latinx students. What are we doing to program towards them? We are an hsi. We can say we're an hsi, but we should be doing a whole host of things because we are a designated hsi.

Colleen Maeder [00:20:15]: We are here to serve our students. And I think that is what gets lost sometimes. Where we are here solely for our students. Students, yes, it is great to be employed but if our students aren't successful then we're not doing our jobs. And I think it's constantly going back to we are here to serve our students and to help them get that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:20:33]: Degree to change gears a minute. As a person who's been at both kind of that traditional four year and that two year institution, what advice would you give for a four year professional who wants to transition to community college work? And what advice would you give to a two year professional who wants to transition to a four year.

Colleen Maeder [00:20:47]: So that's a great question. One you should just do it. I think people get very, very comfortable in. I've always worked for a public four year institution. I'm only going to stay at public four year institutions or I've only worked at a community college. That's where I'm comfortable. I think if you want that experience, put yourself out there and do that and do your research. I think that.

Colleen Maeder [00:21:08]: Well, I will say right now, I think across the board every institution of higher education right now is struggling with budget and funding. So I think that is a commonality right now. But when you go from a public to a private, a community college to a private for budgets can look very, very different. How you spend money looks very, very different. I think that public schools have a little bit more leeway at times when it comes to some things versus a community college where community colleges, we are public institutions. That means that we can have protests on campus, that people can come onto our campus and we can't ask them to leave unless they are actively violating and becoming disruptive. They have a right to be there. And that can be very frustrating.

Colleen Maeder [00:21:47]: Especially if you've only ever worked at a private institution where it looks a little bit different. And some of the things you can do at a private institution you can't always do at a public institution and vice versa. But I think when it comes to a community college, if you want to work at a community college and I would encourage everyone to have that experience because I have loved it. I wouldn't have returned to a community college experience if I didn't enjoy my first time at one. But I think it's understanding that community college students may have greater needs and you're reaching them on a different level. At the same time you're going to have a greater impact than sometimes always working at a four year institution or a private institution. And I think it's understanding that students will come and go. It's not this trajectory of you start your first year on campus, you become a second year, then a junior and then a senior, and then you graduate.

Colleen Maeder [00:22:38]: You might know someone who's working through to get their associate's degree and it takes them five or six years because they're living their life as they do this. And I think the celebrations become greater at a community college. I think being able to see students who really took the initiative, not that you don't take the initiative at a four year institution, but I think sometimes the risks are greater for community college students because they're not always the traditional students that has the family support. They're actually making that decision to go to school full time as well as work a full time job, as well as trying to raise a family. And it just looks a little bit different and you need to be cognizant of that. But I encourage anyone, if they're thinking about wanting to work at a community college, to absolutely take the risk, apply for that job. It is a phenomenal experience. And just as the flip side, I think people sometimes like, oh, I've only worked at a community college experience.

Colleen Maeder [00:23:30]: I don't have that four year experience at a residential campus. Take the risk. It is a great experience. And I think the more experiences you get, the stronger it makes you as a professional to be able to support all students.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:23:42]: I'm going to transition us into our theme questions for the season. So we've been asking all of our guests the same three questions on the value of student affairs. Our first question is, when you think about the value of student affairs, what comes to mind first and why?

Colleen Maeder [00:23:55]: So I really thought about this when you sent me this question because I don't know if we necessarily always talk about the value of student affairs. I think we talk around it, but we don't actually talk about the value of student affairs and the importance of student affairs. And I think for me it is, we are here to help students and individuals grow and develop both inside the classroom. So the academic sense as well as outside of the classroom. When you think of student affairs, depending on the institution you're at, it can include anything from advising to health services, to counseling and psychological service to public safety, college, police, athletics, career, internship, your basic needs, your residential life and housing, student conduct. It can be so wide ranging that we are kind of that. I'm not saying that lifeboat that can help students along, but also that springboard to help students try something new. I think it's that leadership opportunity that some of our students get.

Colleen Maeder [00:24:50]: You know, our student government, our clubs in orgs, that experience there helps them figure out how they work in a team. What is this going to look like when they have a professional job and they have to work as a team? What does it look like when we're able to. We have food pantries on campus, we're able to provide food to a student to help them get through the next day or two so they can focus on their classes. What does this mean to the student athlete to also have strong academic counseling as well? It's this bullet both and, and I think this is where student affairs really is the supplemental experience to the academic that is just as important sometimes where we want them to get the degree, but we also want them to have this experience and have the services they need. So if they do struggle, we can help them overcome those struggles and get to that finish line.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:38]: Our second question is, can you share a specific story or moment when you saw the value of student affairs come to life?

Colleen Maeder [00:25:44]: I can't identify one moment, but I can identify the feeling I had during those moments. And it's this feeling of a student saying to you, I don't know if I would be here. I don't know if I would have been able to finish this class. It's the thank you for not giving up on me when everyone else did. It's the parent saying, thank you for being there for my student when I couldn't be. And it's this underlying feeling of I made that in something that student affairs did change the trajectory of this individual's experience to help them succeed. And I think it's the underlying things that we do that we don't realize we do on a daily basis, but all of us do so well. And it's across the division of student affairs that without that service, that connection, that relationship, that student might not have been able to do what they needed to do at that time.

Colleen Maeder [00:26:37]: So for me, if I had to pick an experience, I worked with a student for two years at a prior institution and they really struggled adjusting their college life for a variety of reasons. And the student ended up writing a story and framed one of the characters around how they viewed me. And that was really like, this is why I do what I do. And I have to this day, and it's up on my wall right now, I have the drawing of the character as well as kind of the tagline next to the character that kind of reminds me of this is why student affair is valuable. It's this relationship, it's this connection. It's helping that student feel like they belong. And that for me is important. And that is why I think that we continue to do what we do.

Colleen Maeder [00:27:20]: It doesn't matter if you work in career services. It doesn't matter if you're in athletics or campus safety or student conduct. We all do this for the reason of helping students.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:27:28]: And our final question, what do you think student affairs needs to do to be better understood and better seen in today's educational environment?

Colleen Maeder [00:27:35]: We need to tell our story better. We are really, really bad at this. And I can say that even just answering the two questions before, and I was like, I know, I know what the value of student affairs is. I wouldn't have spent, I think it's 17 years of my professional life in student affairs if I didn't believe in it. But we don't tell our story well. We don't explain to non higher education folks, quite frankly, we don't explain to faculty half the time the value and the importance of student affairs. And I think this is only become more and more important as we see the attack on higher education continue, as we see budgets get cut as our future students determine whether or not they want to come to college. And I think that is huge.

Colleen Maeder [00:28:16]: We have to do better at telling our story and who we are and not just saying, oh, come get a degree, because if you get a degree, you're getting a higher paying job. Well, that's not necessarily reflective in the data anymore. So we need to do better in the. And we needed to better about telling those individualized stories so students can see. I can see myself here, a faculty member can say, I can see the value of what student affairs brings and I understand the importance to that. So that to me is kind of we just need to do better telling our story. And also we need to change a little bit faster with the times. I think higher education is very reactive.

Colleen Maeder [00:28:51]: Instead of being proactive as you're talking.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:28:53]: About telling our story, I think that's probably the number one thing I've heard repeatedly from all of our guests this season, which tells us it must be true. And if you're listening to this episode, but did if you didn't catch our episode with Dr. Ana Gonzalez, Dr. Lori Reaser and Dr. Michelle Murray, please go and listen to that one because they Just Co authored NASPA's latest report, the Human Dimension of College why Student Affairs Matters. And that also includes a toolkit that's right on the NASPA website where you can input your own data and use that as an external storytelling device for your senior administration that aren't in student affairs, for your local council people or whoever else you need to be telling the story to that's not internal. Because the number one thing I've heard over and over this season is that we're okay at telling our story to ourselves. We're pretty good at telling our story to our students, but we are terrible at telling our story externally, even to our own families.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:29:42]: So there's just so much that we can do there. So I appreciate you reaffirming that message for us anytime.

Colleen Maeder [00:29:48]: I always laugh when people are like, how's school going? And I'm like, well, I haven't been in school for a very, very long time now, but work is going really well. Thank you for asking.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:29:56]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the the NASA world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:02]: Thanks, Jill. So excited to be back in the NASA world, and there's a ton of things happening in NASA. We're getting really close to the early registration deadline for the NASA Annual Conference. The early registration Deadline ends on December 17, 2025 in Kansas, Missouri. We'll celebrate the essential heart work of student affairs and higher education. So we hope that you'll come together with us to uplift students, communities and each other at the 128th gathering of the Association. Interesting fact about Kansas City Kansas City earned its Heart of America nickname because it sits at the geographic center of the contiguous United States. And just as student affairs professionals create inclusive campus communities, Kansas City has built its identity on bringing people together.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:51]: From smoothie jazz, filling historic clubs to legendary barbecue that put Kansas City on the culinary map, this city celebrates both heritage and future, much like NASA honors our profession's roots while innovating for tomorrow. So at this national conference you have some opportunities, some opportunities to come out and be able to explore the city. Whether it's at the Nelson Atkins Museum or learning more about the Kansas City Current, which is pioneering the future of the Women's Professional Soccer League, or visiting the Negro League's Baseball Museum Museum, which honors athletes who changed the game and American history. These among many, many opportunities to learn and to grow and reconnect with friends and colleagues. The NASPA Annual Association Meeting is one you will not want to miss again. The annual conference is March 7th through the 11th in Kansas City, Missouri, and we hope to see you there. There's a new book coming out from NASPA that you can order today. Basic Counseling Skills for Higher Education Professionals Identifying and Addressing Men Health Concerns is a book that is being brought to you by Rebecca Schultz and Maureen Kenny.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:05]: When college students are in a mental health crisis, they often turn to a peer or a trusted faculty or staff member first. As the number of students struggling with mental health issues continues to rise, higher education professionals are called upon to do even more. Basic Counseling Skills for Higher Education Professionals equips college and university leaders leaders with the basic knowledge and skills to address and respond to students with mental health concerns. The authors provide foundational information on the signs and symptoms of the most common mental health issues educators are most likely to encounter in their daily work, as well as guidance on how and when to intervene. With a focus on empathy and core listening skills, this essential resource empowers professional professionals to make effective and positive interventions. As mentioned, this book is available for order right now. I highly encourage you to check it out for yourself. You can go online to the NASPA website under Research and Publications and go to the NASPA Bookstore to find out more.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:07]: Also, the early registration Deadline for the 2026 Symposium on Military Connected Students is coming up on December 19th. The 2026 NASPA Symposium on Military Connected Students is the Association's premier event event designed for student affairs practitioners supporting military connected students. The Symposium is your exclusive opportunity to share evidence based practices from your campus or organization, learn from leading researchers in the field, and engage with other professionals committed to supporting military connected students. This three day symposium features keynote sessions, research, policy and best practice presentations and workshop style sessions. Sessions to help campus professionals develop or enhance their programming and services for military connected students. We invite you to connect with colleagues, participate in engaging sessions and learn from dynamic plenary sessions. As mentioned, the early registration deadline is coming up on December 19th. The conference is February 17th through the 20th in Norfolk, Virginia.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:13]: You can find out more on the NASPA web website. Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways. Because the association is as strong as its members and for all of us we have to find our place within the association. Whether it be getting involved with the knowledge community, giving back back within one of the the centers or the divisions of the association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit? Where do you want to give back each week. We're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community. I see myself doing something like that, or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:35:29]: Because through doing that, all of us are stronger each and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:35:40]: Chris, thank you so much for another phenomenal NASPA world. We always appreciate you keeping us informed on what's going on in and around NASA and Colleen. We have reached our last segment, which is our lightning round, and I have seven questions for you in about 90 seconds. Are you ready to roll?

Colleen Maeder [00:35:56]: We're gonna go with it. Let's go.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:35:57]: Question number one, if you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Colleen Maeder [00:36:01]: Anything by Taylor Swift. I will just own it. I am a Swifty and I no shame in saying that anymore.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:07]: Question two, when you were five years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Colleen Maeder [00:36:10]: I had always wanted to do something in the criminal justice system. A criminologist, a detective. That did not end up happening.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:17]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Colleen Maeder [00:36:20]: So one of the people I look back at being really influential and I do not keep in touch with them as much as I should. And you actually know this person is Delmi Lindoff.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:27]: Delmi Lindof, Dr. Lindof is the VPSA at Pratt Institute in New York. It's the Institute of Art and she's an amazing professional. So. Hi Delmi. Number four.

Colleen Maeder [00:36:35]: Hi Delmi. Miss you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:37]: Number four, your essential student affairs read.

Colleen Maeder [00:36:39]: I will say anything. Restorative justice. I think that if you are going to be in student affairs, you have to be well versed in restorative justice and restorative practices.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:47]: Number five, the best TV show you've been binging lately.

Colleen Maeder [00:36:50]: So I'm the type of person that binge watches TV shows I have watched over and over and over again. So it would be the West Wing, which I always return to every couple years.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:58]: Number six, the podcast you spent the most hours listening to in the last year.

Colleen Maeder [00:37:02]: NPR up first and NPR Politics Now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:04]: And finally, number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional?

Colleen Maeder [00:37:08]: Huge shout to my current team here at Miracosta, both the Sanaleo as well as the team up on the Oceanside campus that I work with, as well as shout out to two people at my prior institution, Ashley and Natasha, who are my support system, which I think everyone should have, is that support system that gets you through when the going gets tough.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:28]: Colleen, so glad to have your voice on this side of the podcast. You've done an amazing job representing the Community College Experience Experience today. If anyone would like to get a hold of you after this episode airs, how can they find you?

Colleen Maeder [00:37:39]: Absolutely, you can reach me at C Maeder M A E D E Riracosta.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:45]: Colleen, thank you so much for sharing your voice with us today.

Colleen Maeder [00:37:47]: Thank you so much for having me, Jill it was an experience to be on the other side of a podcast.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:56]: This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by Nest naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email us at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening Listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:26]: It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me. Produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

If you've ever wondered about the real impact of student affairs in higher education—or if you're searching for compelling ways to articulate its value—this episode of "Student Affairs Voices from the Field" is a must-listen. Host Dr. Jill Creighton brings together three leading voices in our field—Dr. Anna Gonzalez, Dr. Lori Reesor, and Dr. Michele Murray—to discuss NASPA's groundbreaking report, The Human Dimension of College: Why Student Affairs Matters.

More than ever, higher education is under scrutiny. Public questions about its worth, declining college-going rates, and increasing skepticism about return-on-investment are creating intense pressure. Against this backdrop, Dr. Anna Gonzalez explains, this report began as a "bold" effort to clarify—and elevate—the unique contributions of student affairs to both the value (market-based outcomes) and worth (intrinsic and societal benefits) of the collegiate experience.

The conversation quickly gets to the heart of what makes student affairs essential. As Dr. Michele Murray points out, college isn't just about earning a degree or improving one's economic prospects; it's a profound period of personal and civic development. The panel identifies seven core dimensions where student affairs "animates" both the value and worth of higher education: career and academic development, civic engagement, access, health and well-being, leadership, innovation, and personal growth.

Listeners will appreciate how candidly Dr. Lori Reesor and Dr. Michele Murray share their own personal journeys and the collaborative process behind the report. They emphasize the vital but often "invisible" work of student affairs—preventing crises, fostering dialogue, and guiding students through transformative moments. They also celebrate the report's new toolkit, which is designed to help professionals tell their story better to external audiences—presidents, trustees, legislators, families, and beyond.

As the discussion closes, the call to action is clear: the time has come to showcase our impact on students and society, both quantitatively and through powerful stories. Whether you're a veteran or a newcomer, this episode offers insights, practical tools, and inspiration to help you articulate why student affairs is more valuable—and more vital—than ever.

Ready to dive deeper? Listen to the full episode and access the toolkit via NASPA's website—start telling the story of student affairs in a whole new way!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your essay Voices from the Field host today on Essay Voices. We are thrilled to be welcoming the curator and CO authors of NASPA's latest report, the Human Dimension of College why Student Affairs Matters, which is perfect for our season on the value of Student Affairs. We've got three phenomenal student affairs professionals joining us today.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:45]: Our past board chair and curator of this report, Dr. Ana Gonzalez. Welcome, Ana. Hello.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:00:52]: Hi.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:00:52]: Hi Jill.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:53]: Lovely to have you back on Essay Voices. And if Ana's voice sounds familiar, she did one of our episodes in her board chair year. So you can go back to past seasons and check that out. Our second guest is Dr. Lori Reesers. Lori, hello.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:01:04]: Hi Jill.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:05]: Good morning and welcome. Coming in to us from Wisconsin today And then finally Dr. Michelle Murray.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:01:11]: Michelle, hello.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:01:12]: Hi Jill. Thank you so much for having us.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:14]: And Michelle, one of our good old region fivers. So we've got people from all over, all over the US today. So I want to get started by asking you all how you got to your current seats and then we'll dig into the reports. Ana, I know you've told some of your story before on our pod. You're still at WashU. Anything you want to add to your journey?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:01:34]: Yes, thanks, Jill. I'm still the Vice Chancellor for Student affairs at Washu. And now the last time I spoke to this podcast, I was actually the NASPA Board chair. I am now on my last year as a NASA board, as the board chair, pass board chair, recent passport chair. So I think that's all that's changed.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:51]: And Lori, it's your first time here on SA Voices. You were at UW Madison. What you have going on in terms of your journey and how you got to that seat.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:01:59]: Yeah, thanks, Jill. It's great to be on and my first podcast. So a little nervous but a little excited. I have spent almost my whole career in student affairs. This is my third ssao job and it was a way to continue doing the work as a student affairs leader, but also come back home to my home state of Wisconsin. So it's a win win for me and my family and just excited to be doing the work.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:20]: And in our pre show chat I mentioned my mom is an alum of UW Madison, as well as all of her siblings and her dad. So I have to say, go bad on behalf of my fam.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:02:29]: Go badgers. Love it.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:30]: And Michelle, welcome to our show for your very first time. We're excited to have you former region fiverr. Now region one person, tell us how you got to your current seat.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:02:40]: Yeah, sure. So I'm at the College of the Holy Cross here in Worcester, Massachusetts, and it's my third Jesuit institution. My second time as the senior student affairs officer. But also at Holy Cross, I serve as the senior mission officer as well. So staying very busy and we like.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:57]: To see that VPSA em in combination. I think you get a much more unique perspective on the whole arc of the student experience when you're going from recruitment to graduation.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:03:07]: Sorry, you know what? It's not admission, it's mission. So. So the Jesuit Catholic mission and identity of the institution.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:15]: Excellent. Well, we're here today because you all have put out the latest NASPA report. And Ana, this began as a charge under your board chairship. Can you talk to us about why this report? Why what drove the board in this direction to create this.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:03:31]: That's great. So when I got elected as board chair elect, I've been really. I was really thinking, where are we going in terms of as a student affairs as a profession? It was a time when people were saying they wanted to leave the profession. How hard it was a little past Covid and really thinking of the value of student affairs and why student affairs and why higher education. The numbers were shocking in terms of people not wanting to go to higher education, not believing in our. And then in many ways student affairs over the years being blamed or being shut down, but yet being needed when times of COVID or other disasters were happening. And so it was really trying to get the lay of the land to really respond and frankly to look up bold ideas about why student affairs is actually the value proposition in higher education and why I believe we bring worth to the institution of higher education. But is that right? Is that just my voice? And so getting really a group of experts in the field and then being led and tapping Michelle and Lori to lead that discussion has been like an honor for me.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:04:42]: And I just love how the report ended up to be. But it was really that response in my head thinking, what is the worth of higher education? And as a first generation college student, I always knew the worth. But it seems like so many people are questioning it now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:55]: Absolutely. And we're seeing a shift in how the value of higher education is being perceived across The US Right now in terms of what does the value of that education mean for everything from employability through positionality in society and other things. So this is very, very timely for what we're seeing. How did you select Lori and Michelle to be leading the charge forward?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:05:20]: They are brilliant. So I've known both of them in different capacities, met them both through naspa. Lori, during my first time as a senior student affairs officer, she actually invited me to be on a panel at a session. And then Michelle, she started kind of taking on different leadership roles, and so. And then culminating when she was the conference chair. I was always like, she's so cool. Both of them are so great and cool. Both of them also represent different regions, right? The east coast, the Midwest, large R1, and then a private Jesuit institution.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:05:55]: And so all of the things mattered to me. And so I wanted brilliant leadership and then different experiences in the field.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:06:02]: You started with a blank slate and idea to represent the value proposition of student affairs. What was the charge to Laurie and Michelle when you invited them to participate in this new adventure?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:06:12]: It was so funny because I come up with great ideas, and then I did get brilliant people to actually make it happen. And they did. But the charge was to think boldly, to really center the conversation in our contributions in this profession and in the world. Why does someone choose to go to higher education? Everyone gets a degree when you go to higher ed, or you hope to. But what are the unique things that actually enhance it? What increases the value of that education? And so I kept saying, it's student affairs, centering student affairs into dialogue, into discussion. And we've had some fun conversations. They were like, oh, this is going to be a little bold, a little scary. I'm not sure our other colleagues would believe it.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:06:56]: And so just kind of pushing that through. And they both said yes. And so I love that. And. And they both led the conversation in terms of making sure that the right kind of individuals, in terms of who they represented, really fit in the group.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:10]: All right, Lori and Michelle, you get the call from Ana. She says, please help us build this thing. Tell us what your experience was putting together the task force, as well as figuring out what the heck you were going to write about beyond this idea.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:07:23]: I'm happy to start. First of all, I'm a huge fan girl of both Ana and Michelle, so you can't say no to Ana Gonzalez. I think everybody knows that. And in all true confession and transparency, I didn't get her vision. I knew she had it, but I wasn't sure like, just like she said, like, what are we doing? Like, I get the concept, I get the. But, like, how are we going to do this? And I'm a little bit more on the operational kind of strength. I think of things. And so I think that's just a lesson to, honestly, to NASA members is sometimes you get asked and you're like, okay, I'm in.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:07:56]: I don't really. I don't think this is my strength. I really didn't. But then when she partnered us with me and Michelle, which was like, oh, my gosh, again, everybody knows Michelle Murray and the, you know, the savior of the NASPA conference and all these other things, I mean, it was just like, no. Yes, it's true. It's true. She's shaking her head. Anyway, it was just an honor and privilege and then to work with really amazing people, too.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:08:19]: Right. So that was the other gift, is that the three of us then got to put together our team. We wanted to really make sure that all regions were represented. Represented. It represented all types of institutions. And so then that made it really, really rich as well. And so I described us as kind of a think tank. And that was, again, really an honor and privilege.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:08:38]: And I think Ana might have been desperate in. In picking me to do this, but that's okay. It was fun. It was fun. It was good. It was a good stretch for me. It was a good stretch for me.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:08:46]: I'm going to interrupt to say the funny part is that I forgot to say why I picked Lori. She talked about Michelle's great, amazing, the conference, saving us and sharing that despite all Lori's strength is Lori asks questions. And so she always makes me think, like, we sit on other different boards and committees. And I love that Lori thinks things through and asks questions. She doesn't just say, this is how it's going to be. So that is why.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:09:13]: That's so sweet, Ana.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:09:14]: So my.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:09:15]: One of my NASA awards, I have a plaque over in my office says, ask the hard questions. And so thank you. Thank you for that. That's so sweet.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:09:22]: I absolutely see that. And I think, Laurie, you and I were very different, but we work together so well, and I love that you do ask questions. You're also really methodical about how we go about things, and that helped us make sure that no stone was left unturned. And really attending to all the different intricacies that were a part of the discussions that we had, and you made sure that. That we accomplished our goals. Right. It just was really helpful, I think. Jill, your question was what happened when we got the call.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:10:00]: So let me go back to that and say, yeah, I was surprised. Lori is 100% right. No one says no to Ana. So I knew that wasn't even an option. And I absolutely understood. I thought Ana was prescient in being able to identify that there's a public concern about whether or not it's worth it to go to college and what's happening at our at higher ed institutions. And I already had a concern for myself that were some populations of young people being discouraged from college attendance. And so having this opportunity to really dig in and describe what it is that happens for students when they pursue a degree was, I think, really very meaningful to me.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:10:48]: And so, as Ana said, right. People attend a class college because they're hoping to get a degree. They work hard to earn that degree, and that's one piece of it. There needs to be of economic benefit in terms of employability at the end. And I get that too. And there is something that's happening during college attendance that's really about an informed citizenry, that's really about how people work and live together that is less talked about and less known. But still, as a society, we rely on all of that. We rely on that human development.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:11:26]: So having an opportunity to think boldly with a group of colleagues about how might we represent this, this side of college attendance that isn't really talked about very much, how do we represent it fairly and in a way that people understand it and can get on the train and believe in its importance? I thought that was a really great vision that Ana had and I'm really feel really lucky to have been a part of it.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:54]: I want to make sure we mention for NASPA members, this report is available for free with your membership. It was also sent out in an email earlier in October. So please go back and check it out and you can kind of follow along with our conversation. One of the things that's right up front in the report is the executive summary that distinguishes the importance and delineation of value versus worth. This is such an important component. Our season theme for the podcast is the value of student affairs. As soon as I read this, I went, oh, maybe we should have reframed this as both value and worth. And so I want to just read a moment in the report.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:12:26]: It reads, the value refers to the market based outcomes of higher education such as employment, income and economic security, Whereas worth encompasses the intrinsic and societal benefits of a degree such as civic participation, personal growth, and community vitality. Both are essential and both are strengthened by student affairs. Why did you all decide to anchor the report with this message?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:12:48]: I can start a little bit and maybe the two of you can jump right in there. You know, I've been thinking a lot about, as I thought about the podcast and this work, I had a trustee at my former institution at Harvey Mudd, and he did not have a college education, did not, and is executive vice president of a major, major corporation. And always said they just thought it was too late to get a college education. But he invests his time and money and energy in college education. And again, saying that there is something both the worth, right, you graduate. But more importantly, he said, there's something that is so valuable about college education that you can't put money on it. But the students learn to be leaders. And so I think in our discussion of value and worth, the different ROIs, what are they and how do we categorize them? But the value and worth piece did not come from me, although that's in a way what I was thinking.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:13:50]: We led to it. So Michelle and Lori can jump in there. But I remember it vividly. The conversation at my dining room table with the committee at my home.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:13:59]: Let me jump in there. And Ana just referenced our first in person meeting. And maybe it was our only in person meeting. It was several days long and she opened her home to us. And so we had these very deep conversations about what is happening for students when they are enrolled in our institutions in a really comfortable, hospitable environment that allowed us to play with the different ideas and identify what it is that we observe and have been observing over the course of our careers. And very quickly, actually, we settled into this conversation about value and worth. And NASPA is doing its strategic planning concurrent to us having these conversations. And so maybe part of it was related to the conversations that NASPA was having separate from this task force.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:14:51]: But almost very quickly, you know, we said there is something that's happening for students in their growth and development that has everything to do with their out of classroom experience. And that's the piece that we have to capture because the public conversation is about the worth of the degree and what happens around employability. And we were focused on how students, the only words I have for this is how they come home to themselves and discover a bit about who they are and how they want to be in the world. And so that's what we wanted to identify as. At least that's my recollection of how that all came together.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:15:32]: You can tell Michelle's Mission driven purpose in life always comes through which I adore and respect and admire so much. And that was a huge integral part of this project too, I think. Like Ana, I'm a first generation college student and going to college changed my life. I'm the oldest of six children. I'm the only one that finished college. And I love all my siblings and they have great lives, but they have different lives and in a lot of ways and so I'm grateful. And that's what propelled me to go into student affairs, that's what propels me to stay in this work, is that I truly believe higher education changes lives and I believe higher education changes society and democracy and all of those really important things. And I respect it's not for everybody.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:16:14]: I totally get that. And that's part of that narrative out there. So I do struggle a little bit with elitism and those messages that are coming out in our society or from some sectors of our society. And yet I think it should be be a core value of education. It should be a core value of learning. And so learning can happen in lots of different ways and lots of different places and with lots of different strengths. But it's learning either a subject matter, whether that's political science or biology, or how to be a great plumber, all those things are about learning. And then I think the other piece though, that that is where we do make this difference is about, as Michelle said, learning about oneself and one's community and the broader world as well.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:16:57]: And so that is the piece that I do have a bias that I think would be great that everybody does focus on that. And if they don't do it through higher education, okay, then I hope that they do it in some other forms. And maybe it's through their religious or other communities or some of those other kinds of things. But we have to get better in our society about caring more about others and respect and dignity for all of humankind. And I do believe that's a huge. I always struggle with the value and worth that's a huge worth that we provide in student affairs and through higher education. So those were some of the important things that we were trying to document. And I just want to give a quick shout out because I don't want to forget this.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:17:31]: And I know Michelle and Ana will jump in on this too. Brian Sponsler helped, was really, really instrumental and he was our consultant that worked with us on this project and a phenomenal thinker and writer. And I just want to, he really helped also, I think, shape some of this conversation and the value and worth. So we had a great committee and everybody contributed and they were all fabulous. But Brian absolutely deserves a huge shout out for the great work that he did. And so thank you, Brian, on behalf of us and NASPA, all of higher education.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:18:02]: I 100% agree with that. Thank you, Brian.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:18:04]: Thanks, Brian.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:18:05]: Ultimately, you landed on seven dimensions that represent areas of student affairs and as you say, animate the value and the worth of our profession. They were career and academic development, civic engagement and community responsibility, access and opportunity, health and well being, leadership and ethical decision making, problem solving and innovation, and personal development and life skills. Our profession is hard to encompass and capture because we work with a lot of intangible pieces of the human experience, with mostly young adults and things like that. So I'm wondering, how did you choose these seven dimensions? Why were they the ones that rose to the top as the most important things to be talking about in the framing of value and worth of student affairs?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:18:51]: When we started talking about this in our, we call like we had a retreat, an in person retreat. You know, you can't do this work. You can't depend on just the virtual, right? We had to, to really cast it out a few days together. Although some were virtual, it was a hybrid, I guess. But to really sit down and really talk about what is going on in higher education and in student affairs and what is the why? I remember that. What is the purpose? What is the why? And what are people doing? What are the great issues that we were trying to address? And it was a long list. I mean, everyone kind of came in with roi, of course, career and what do we do dialogue. There's the issues of protests or people engaging with one another, all of the things.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:19:34]: And so we started doing that and it started categorizing it and we kept hashing and rehashing it out. And even I think midway through this project, I remember thinking, are we including everything in it? And even issues like well being, you know, we're known for that. And so we basically started with a blank slate of both what the expectations and the work of student affairs are, what the greater issues that we were trying to solve and address in our work. And then I think from there started piecing together groupings, but also hashing it out because an issue for students in community colleges might be different or look different than someone in an R1 and might have more weight than someone in an R1 and vice versa. So I'll start that off to say it was a bit of a, let's put everything on this white big board or whatever we were using. And let's start engaging and trying to figure out who are we, what are we trying to do, what is our value and our worth? What are the issues? I don't know if Laurie and Michelle want to jump into like the selection process of things.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:20:41]: Hannah, you just described the process, I think really well. And, and I would say one of the things, you know, sometimes in student affairs people interact with us as crisis managers, right? Or as event planners. And all of that is true. And that's all there. And we're also educators, all of us have gotten into this as educators. And so we did have this conversation about what is the change that we see in students as a result of the work that we and our colleagues are doing with them day in, day out. And then it wasn't that difficult actually to get to the seven. I mean, everything grouped together pretty well.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:21:24]: And then I think it took probably more time to make sure that we were using the accurate language to describe each of the categories than it did to actually create the categories themselves. So we wanted to be really careful about it. One of the things that I'll say that real affirmation point. Ana and our staff actually at WashU decided just kind of out of the blue, maybe in support of this project to gather a bunch of students and ask them on video, what does it mean to you that you're in college? Describe your experience, why is college worth it? And just those very open ended questions and the things that students said to describe their own learning and how they experienced the worth of their college attendance matched right along the seven dimensions that we had identified. And it was almost uncanny. You know, they weren't told what to say, they weren't prompted in any sort of way except for an open ended question. And what was really nice was to hear that the students, at least on Ana's campus, and then several of us went and did the same thing on our own to hear from our own students that how they experience their own growth and development and what's worthwhile to them about being in college and why this may be makes a difference to them are the things that are happening for them outside of the classroom and how they experience their own growth and development. So that I think more than anything said, we are definitely on the right track here.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:22:56]: I think that's a great lead into my curiosity around how were the examples investigated, what were the methodology of the task force to decide that these are going to be what's represented to showcase these examples of the dimensions, because the dimensions could have gone so many different ways in terms of what data sets were being represented or what messaging would have been important. And the examples are amazing. So, yeah, can you talk about how those ended up being the ones that are shining?

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:23:26]: NASPA was a great partner, of course, and supporter in this work. And again, a shout out to Stephanie Gordon, who was on the team and helped lead a lot of the internal operational aspects of it. So I would say that these sentiven impact areas were sort of this broader philosophical skills, attributions, outcomes that we were looking for. And then again, we wanted the programs that exemplified that. So NASPA used some of the programs that won some of their excellence awards, which was a national transition. Right, to lift those up. They've already been acknowledged and rewarded and recognized in that way. But what I love about this project is that NASPA has created a toolkit that all of us can then plug in our own programs to meet each of those seven things and really encouraged to do so because it's one thing to have this kind of national thing and it doesn't speak maybe to your local community, your local politicians, your local boards.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:24:22]: And we really wanted this to be, again, very, very practical and useful because this is such an important topic to talk to folks about and to educate them. And so I absolutely am so proud that we that NASPA created this toolkit. I can and I plan to will take this document and make it UW Madison focused. And I think Michelle's gonna do the same thing for the College of the Holy Cross and so in Wash U. Right. So, so then everything becomes more localized as well as nationalized. And I think it's just really a beautiful things. 100% want to encourage our colleagues to go online.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:24:55]: There's a website, there's all the stuff that's there. I think it's very practical, very, very useful. So the goal would be that there'd be hundreds or thousands of these documents that would be out there swirling amongst all of our states and local communities to do this education and make it very real and very, very practical for all of our colleagues across the country.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:16]: For our NASPA members to find the toolkit that Lori is referencing, just go onto the NASPA website and find the report that is labeled the Human Dimension of College Worth. And on that landing page, you can not only view the report, you can also click down to view the toolkit, which is right at the bottom of the page. There are some template links where you can add your own information. And it will pop and look as polished as the report that is currently published. And I really appreciate this activation because a lot of times we see things come out where we're going great, I've read this. Now what do I do with it or why does it matter to my campus or my local community? Or how do I tell the story to the president of my university or the other cabinet members at the university? And this gives a real tangible way to activate this work, which I think is just a great addition.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:26:01]: And Jill, I want to pop in on that point and also give Lori a lot of credit because Lori first of all asked us over and over as a task force, how do we assess our work and where do we need to be better? And so the toolkit also includes here are the kinds of metrics that you might need to collect, here are the kinds of things that you might want to talk about. Some of us are better at assessment more systematically than others, but I think Lori's questions helped fuel we need to provide examples for how this work is done well and then how institutions might describe what's happening on the ground. And to your point, Jill, about explaining the work or the impact of the work to different audiences, we heard that loud and clear from our NASPA constituents. You know, our colleagues at naspa, we had a couple of sessions at annual conference in New Orleans and we heard any number of times that people would find this document the most useful if it didn't speak to us as student affairs people, but really opened up the world of what we're doing to educate students outside the classroom and helping them grow and develop and open that world to whether it's colleagues inside the campus, so members or people outside, whether that's parents or lawmakers, or if we need tools to talk to our trustees to help people really understand what's happening for students when they are on our campuses. So I really thank Lori for focusing us on the need to tell the assessment story, recognizing too that a lot of times we don't see what happens in the two years or the four years that a student is with us. The outcome is really five or 10 years later. And so going back to talk to our alums about the impact of their college going experience is an important part of that storytelling as well.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:28:03]: I'm going to give a shout out and reach back to Dr. Mike Sagawa who initiated this conversation on the NASPA podcast about telling our student affairs story better. And that episode is a couple seasons ago, so please feel free to go back and take a listen. Dr. Sagawa is a distinguished pillar of our profession and just an incredibly intelligent critical thinker voice in our field. I can't say enough positive things about Mike, so please go back and listen to that episode. Yes, but that theme of needing to tell our story better externally has been just absolutely prolific through this season of our show on the value of student affairs. Every time I ask one of our theme questions about what do we need to do to be better seen, the response is almost always we need to tell our story better.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:28:44]: And we have this ongoing joke internally in the profession that my parents don't even know what I do, which is kind of funny, but kind of not because it means that our profession isn't really understood by even many who have gone to college. So there's such a value in showing us how do we tell our story through this toolkit. It's just such an incredible tool to add. And so I want to make sure that our listeners, wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you be in your first year, whether you're a grad student or whether you're an ssao, have the opportunity to take this and to put it out to your communities in this way.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:29:21]: I love that. I think that when we think about telling our story and student affairs have used different ways to tell the story, but through another lens, right? Through academic competencies that we've taken on, through different things that stand up the role, which is great, our academic partners, but even they are like, okay, what do you all really do?

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:29:41]: Right?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:29:41]: And we don't just serve. We work with our colleagues, we work with our students. We are co curricular. And what's exciting about this project, when my team read through it and we're working right now to insert it and for our chancellor to say the trustees need to read this and need to know what you. What student affairs does that the student experience is elevated as a holistic experience. And I think that's what one of the things that we do. We're not just the ambulances that take them when they're in crisis, right? That's the narrative that everyone knows. Earlier someone had said, you know, and then the activities port is it that our students are learning.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:30:21]: And so this is pushing it in a way that is our student affairs language. So I just really am excited about this project.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:30:27]: This project closes with a call to action. And normally when we see a call to action in a report, it's to us internally in student affairs. But this one is different in that it makes three external calls to action, which I think the Toolkit, again, embodies an opportunity on how to do that effectively. So the call is for leaders in public policy and private philanthropy, for other institutional leaders outside of student affairs and for the public. This is something that I again have deep appreciation for in terms of the way that this is framed, because it starts to help us get a framework on how to push the narrative outward as opposed to continue to kind of internally support ourselves through these narratives, which is often what has happened historically. Can you talk about how you decided to frame these and why they matter for the value and worth of our profession?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:31:16]: I'll jump first to say that I think that the danger we've seen different student affairs divisions get divided it up and those are decisions made from very high up level, right in a way external to the inside the profession in many ways. And also that the questions about the value and worth of student affairs in particular comes a little bit from inside, but a lot from outside that we needed to get outside of our echo chamber to talk and tell the story and own that story and what we really do. And I think even the audience of this, well, of course, our entire student affairs professionals, all different levels, should read it and understand it. And my vision of this, and I think the group bought into it, was that our chancellor will have it at his desk and when he will talk with a state legislature like, this is what we do and this is these student affairs folks and this is the student experience and why this is worth it.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:32:14]: I think two things I want to echo what Michelle said earlier about what we learned from our colleagues at the NASPA conference. They inspired us that again, they need this document for all these purposes. And so again, I think they pushed us appropriately. So again, it's not just something that goes on the shelf, but it needs to be an action oriented piece. And that everybody, really everybody is struggling in trying to manage this narrative and have these conversations. So to have that as a tool I think is super important. I think the other piece though also is, in addition to to the data and the assessment and the storytelling, a good colleague of ours, I think both Michelle and Anna and angel, you might know too, Eric Groepich, Dr. Grosspich from Washburn University just posted this article and it was referencing social work.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:33:01]: But he pushed me to say that this also applies to student affairs. But the heading was success often looks like nothing happened because a crisis was prevented. And that's kind of the nature of our work too in that. And one of our colleagues said, yeah, you don't really know what we do, but trust me, if we didn't do it, you would know. And so it's an inverse now. I don't know that that's the narrative that, you know, I think it, it makes it challenging to present it that way. But we just had Halloween weekend, which is a huge, sometimes chaotic, high risk management weekend. It was crazy, but it was managed.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:33:35]: That was because of all the, the intentional efforts and education and process and support and all the things that we did. But I was like, like, okay, another weekend, it's on Monday. And it's like, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We did a lot of work to have that happen. And so that's really kind of forced me to really rethink some of this and how do I communicate that? To say, yes, you're welcome, that that protest went really calmly and didn't make the national news. You're welcome, because that was us. But this article also then talks about the individual and the impact. And I think this also goes back to what Ana was saying is the morale is that then you don't really get that recognition.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:34:13]: You don't really get that apprecia. So that has to come really intrinsically from your own self to go, I made a difference with that student today, or I made a difference in this situation, or I made a difference. And especially whether small or big places, it doesn't matter. You have to continue to feed that to yourself and have that be your own value and worth for how you're contributing to our students and our universities as well. Again, I think there's lots of good action steps. Maybe I went a little different way, Jill, but I think that intentionality of these action steps are really, really important and y external. But I think there's opportunities for us to do more work internally as well and to tell that story, to support our staff, to help them feel valued and appreciated for all the important work that they do on a daily basis.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:34:58]: Yeah, I really appreciate that, Lori, and I think that that's important. Not that the document is a pat on the back, but it is a recognition of the multiple dimensions that we are at work in students lives. And I think that that needs to be recognized. I also actually really very much appreciate that the call to action is outside of the profession, really, because you know, as we started this session talking about the narrative around higher education nationally is not at the caliber or level that I think higher education actually deserves. And part of what is happening with this report and the calls to action being externally focused rather than calling to the people who are doing the hard work on the ground is that I think this is giving different language for all the folks who are talking about higher education and to have more complete language around what's happening rather than the very narrow band in which the conversation is existing. So I think that that call to action, being externally focused, is really brilliant because I don't know that. At least I've not heard any conversation about. About higher education.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:36:16]: And, you know, I hear a lot about how people think that everything is going wrong and xyz, but I don't hear people having the language about what's going right. And when we ask our alums, because I've just done this to talk about what was meaningful for them when they went to, you know, for their Holy Cross experience, they are brilliant and telling the story of their out of classroom. And I didn't ask them that question, but that is what they actually talk about. And so giving lots of other people the tools to talk about what is really worthwhile about college attendance is, I think, smart. It's just a smart move.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:55]: As we come to a close with our conversation on the report, is there anything else that you would like NASPA members to know about? How to read it, how to use it, how to activate it?

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:37:05]: There's so many ways. It's ANA and I think role model this really well. I mean, I think about using this for our student leaders. I think about using this for our staff. And a lot of times I think, honestly, I have struggled, especially because we're so diverse and some of our people come from a higher ed student affairs background. But many of my staff do not. And so. And they don't even, like, think that they work in student affairs.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:37:25]: I'm like, no, you do. And this is what that means. And so to have that kind of educational tool of this is what I do or this is what we do holistically is just a fabulous thing. So again, internally, there's so many opportunities and uses, but then also, as we've indicated, that this is really our chance to shine and to tell this story. And I really implore that all of our colleagues across the country at all of your institutions use this to do that, because that will make us better, that will make us stronger, which then obviously impacts our students. And that's the bottom line is everything that we do impacts our students. So the more belief and support that there is for the work that we do, the better our students will be. And that's what it's all about.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:38:07]: Can't think of a better place to end than that. It's about our students.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:38:11]: Thanks, Laurie. That was great.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:38:13]: Thank you. You're sweet.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:14]: For all of our other guests this season, we've been asking three questions on our theme of the value of student affairs. But because we've spent our entire dialogue today focused on this, I'm only going to ask you each one question, which is our normally second question, and that is, can you share a specific story or moment when you saw the value of student affairs come to life?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:38:34]: It was actually during a contentious time in higher education. It was protest, and a student was really upset with another student. And I had brought them together at a meal at my house, and they came together as part of different groups, and I saw them, and I talked about the importance of dialogue and having a meal and engaging. And at that moment, the student who was so upset was so upset that the student was going to be in the same space as them, went up and said, I don't like what happened, but I would like to talk with you, and I want to just listen. And I'm going to ask that we listen to each other. And they didn't end up being best friends, but it was the first time they sat down and listened and engaged, and it didn't end up in the shouting match. And they continue to listen and engage over the years, and they keep in touch with me. And I thought that was just the beauty of our work.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:39:32]: There's no theory. There's no grades involved. It was just bringing them together and engaging and listening.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:39:39]: I had a challenging conversation with some of our student leaders a couple weeks ago about a situation that happened and the lessons that could be learned from that. Multiple sides, of course, to every story. But the gist of it, from my perspective, was that we weren't all on the same page of how a situation was gonna be handled. And so there was a surprise element of it. And I just remember talking with these four student leaders of here's the life lesson. No surprises. People don't like surprises. Your bosses don't like surprises.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:40:09]: Your partners don't like surprises. Communication is a tactic. But if you want to build trust and if you want to build community and if you want to build collaboration, surprises is not the way to do that. And so it was really one of those just really important lessons of what they were doing, but then how it translates to their broader perspective. There wasn't not a big, like, Ana. It wasn't like a big, you know, Kumbaya. And everybody's like, oh, there's, you know, but But I think there was learning, and I think that there was reflection. And so I think it's just taking those time, those moments, to really help people understand their behaviors and their both intentions and impact.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:40:50]: And what are the life lessons, both professionally and personally, that you can take away from those situations? So those are that I love those kinds of situations, and we have them all, and our staff have them all the time. But that was probably a most. A more recent one that was significant for me.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:41:06]: Like my colleagues, I have lots of stories, especially whenever I have the privilege to speak to an alum who can reflect back and talk about how their experience at the institution really shaped the adult they became, or how they do their work or the work they do or what they do, whatever the family they raised, all of that is really important. But I think the piece that I want to call out, it's the work of some of my colleagues who do work on constructive dialogue here on this campus. And we just honored that at our football game over the weekend. And we have a group called the Speech Peer Educators, and they are specifically trained to help people dialogue across difference. But we also have a program with it called Dialogue Dinners, and this past month, we did two. One was focused on the history of slavery in this country and the intersection of slavery and the history of this institution. So that was the subject of a Dialogue Dinner. And the other one that we had that was also, I think, pretty hard hitting was AI and its impact on society and on individuals.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:42:15]: And what that means means, you know, for students who are in college and to see these student leaders facilitate and navigate dicey conversations and to have their peers stay in it and be in dialogue with one another, I thought, yep, this is what we do, and this is why we do it. And to have people walk away, I learned something here. My thoughts are more complicated than they were when I arrived. That was a win on both occasions. So to have both of those happen in the last month, I felt really proud of my staff and of the student leaders they work with.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:42:53]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world. It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:43:05]: Thanks, Jill. So excited to be back in the NASPA world. And there's a ton of things happening, happening in NASPA. Did you know that NASPA offers on demand recordings for all the webinars offered throughout the year? These recordings are available for purchase and can be viewed at your leisure. Topics for the webinar range across the NASPA competencies and provide professional development from student affairs professionals. On Demand recordings can be viewed by yourself or with a large group during a lunch and Learn or another professional development opportunity within your department or your division. The presentations are about 60 minutes long, including question and answer, closed caption and transcript viewing are available for all webinars. The cost of A webinar is $79 for members and 179 for non members, and institutions that want to register 25 individuals or more will also receive a 15% off coupon.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:43:57]: On Demand recordings are then available for 365 days after your program purchase. If you want to find out more, go to the NASPA website and on the NASPA website you can go under Events and Online Learning and click on the On Demand Catalog to see the whole list of On Demand webinars that are available and I think you'll be surprised at the breadth and depth of webinars that are available as a part of the NASPA Annual Conference that's coming up in March 2026 in Kansas City, Missouri. There's a number of other webinars, affiliated conferences or institutes that are going to be a part of that same conference. The Undergraduate Student Conference is happening on March 8, 2026 and currently you can still submit proposals that showcase diverse experiences in student affairs across different contexts and engage students through creative formats. The program proposals are due on January 5, 2026 and if you're planning to attend the NASPA Annual Conference, this might be a great opportunity opportunity for you to be able to speak to undergraduate students that are considering student affairs. Go to the NASPA Annual Conference website to be able to submit your program proposal today. Also on March 7th and 8th there will also be the Community College Institute, which is a great opportunity for individuals from community colleges to come together and explore innovative teaching technology and collaborate with colleagues to enhance the student experience and shape the future of our associations. On top of that, also on the same days March 7th and 8th will be the International Symposium where you can connect with global leaders and experts in student affairs.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:45:39]: This year's theme is Promising Practices Without Borders. The symposium will explore innovative partnerships and practices shaping the future of international student services. If you have an interest in adding on any of these affiliated conferences or institutes, as well as the wide array of pre conference programming that is happening on March 7th and 8th as well, go to the NASPA website, open up your conference registration information and you can add on an additional pre conference or affiliated conference right there if you missed it. There is a new Journal of College and Character that has recently been released that is accessible for you as a member of naspa. The Journal of College and Character is is a professional peer reviewed publication that focuses on character development in college and how colleges and universities influence, both intentionally and unintentionally, the moral and civic learning and behavior of their students. The journal includes resources and information designed to encourage discussion, research and innovative educational practices, publishing scholarly articles and applied research on issues related to academic ethics, values and character development in higher education. The new issue that is available is available on the NASPA website and you can access it by going onto the NASPA website and go under Research and Publications. Scroll down to Scholarly Journals and you can find that in the other scholarly journals there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:47:08]: This recent journal has a number of different powerful articles that are both peer reviewed articles as well as invited articles Articles including one entitled Student Suicide and Spirituality by Serena Margaret Saliba and also another one called Greek Life, Character and Religiosity, A Study of Fraternity and Sorority Members at a Christian University by Aaron Ellis, Isaiah King, Will Baxter, Kevin Dougherty and Perry Glanzer. There's a number of other pieces that are in this journal that I would highly encourage you to review for yourself. And as mentioned before, this is only one of the journals that are a part of your membership in naspa, and I highly encourage you to check out all of the journals to extend your own learning and offer you opportunities to be able to bring some of that learning back to your own campus. Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get get involved in different ways. Because the association is as strong as its members and for all of us, we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with a knowledge community, giving back within one of the centers, or the divisions of the association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit, where do you want to give back each week. We're hoping that you that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community, I see myself doing something like that, or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:49:09]: Because through doing that, all of us are stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:49:20]: Chris, thank you so much as always for keeping us informed on what's going on in and around naspa. And we have reached our lightning round, which means we're almost at the end of our show. Since you have been here before, we have a different lightning round set for you than we do for Lori and Michelle. So we're gonna go for Ana's lightning round first. Ana, are you ready?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:49:38]: Ooh.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:49:38]: All right, question one. I'm gonna give you an opportunity to change your answer from the first go around. If you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:49:47]: It would be Apatapeta.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:49:50]: Number two, what was your undergraduate degree and do you use it now?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:49:53]: Bachelor's in business. And yes, I do use it now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:49:56]: Question three, your guilty pleasure TV show. Bing.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:50:00]: It's Black Doves. It's my new one.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:02]: Question number four, if someone ever visits your city, which is St. Louis, what's the one place they must eat?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:50:08]: The one thing that they must eat is St. Louis barbecue.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:11]: Number five, what's your favorite work related podcast?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:50:14]: NASPA. This one. It's the only one I do.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:17]: Number six, your favorite, not work related podcast.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:50:20]: I don't do other podcasts. I'm boring.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:50:22]: Fair enough.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:23]: And number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional?

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:50:26]: Yeah, just. Hello, NASPA colleagues. Thank you so much, Jill, for doing this and interviewing. Interviewing us. And this is fantastic.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:33]: All right, Michelle and Laurie, we are on to you. We're gonna have Michelle going first, Laurie going second on all of our questions. Question number one, if you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Dr. Michele Murray [00:50:44]: Earth, Wind and Fire, Shining Star.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:50:46]: I would say ditto, but the other song I just heard is Thunder, but I don't know if that's the name of it, but that's kind of my, like, get Psych song. Yeah.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:53]: Number two, when you were five years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Dr. Michele Murray [00:50:57]: I'm so old that when I was five, the choices for girls were nurse and teacher. So one of those hairstylist.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:06]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Dr. Michele Murray [00:51:09]: There's so many. I can't answer that because if I say one person, I'll feel bad about all the others that I didn't say, but I am really grateful to you know what I'm going to say. Susan Donovan I agree too.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:51:21]: Many, many, many, many and so blessed for that. But David Ambler from the University of.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:25]: Kansas, Number four, your essential student affairs read.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:51:28]: Well, obviously the Chronicle Daily, but I think it's important to read other things and so the Atlantic is my favorite.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:51:35]: Harvard Business Review would be my favorite.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:38]: Number five, the best TV show you've been binging lately.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:51:40]: The Gilded Age.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:41]: Love is Blind Denver season just finished. I watched that too. Number six, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last year.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:51:48]: I don't listen to podcasts. So boring.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:50]: Mel Robbins and finally, number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional?

Dr. Michele Murray [00:51:54]: Yeah, I want to shout out Lori for co this thing with me and for what with our task force we produced. But also to Ana, who had the vision and brought us all together and shined. The guiding star.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:52:09]: Well, of course, ditto. See, this is why I love Michelle. I'm just gonna say ditto to everything she says, but my shout out would always be to my daughter Sarah. So she gives me hope and purpose and love and humility and perspective. So love you, Sarah.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:52:23]: All right everyone, you've made it to the end of our lightning round. The very last thing I will ask you is how can anyone, anyone reach you? If they'd like to reach out, they.

Dr. Anna Gonzalez [00:52:31]: Can email me at Ana A N N A dot Gonzalez with a Z at the end at uustl and folks.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:52:38]: Can reach me at Mmurray M M U R R a yolycross Edu and.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:52:46]: Ulreser R E E S O R at wisc U I S C edu.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:52:52]: On behalf of the NASPA community, thank you so much for creating this document and this toolkit for us to use at our institutions. I know so many people being able to put forward our student affairs stories through this document. On behalf of everyone and of course myself as the host of the pod, thank you so much for sharing your voice with us today.

Dr. Lori Reesor [00:53:10]: Thank you.

Dr. Michele Murray [00:53:11]: Thank you Jill.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:53:13]: Thanks. This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so great grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email us at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:53:40]: We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now. It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton, that's me. Produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

Season 13 of "Student Affairs Voices from the Field," hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton, shines a spotlight on the value of student affairs through engaging stories from both fresh perspectives and seasoned experts. In the recent Thanksgiving break episode, Dr. Jill Creighton and Dr. Christopher Lewis reflect on the whirlwind pace of the academic year and extend heartfelt wishes for rest and rejuvenation to their listeners. They express gratitude for the incredible guests featured so far and tease upcoming episodes with compelling new voices that will continue to explore the impact of student affairs work.

A main theme of this episode is the importance of reflection and self-care, especially as the term comes to a close and the holiday season approaches. Dr. Jill Creighton also highlights the complexity of Thanksgiving, encouraging listeners to learn more about indigenous communities through resources like Native-Land.ca. This thoughtful acknowledgment underscores the podcast's commitment to inclusivity and deeper understanding within student affairs.

Whether you're looking for inspiration or practical wisdom for your work in higher ed, this podcast delivers accessible, relevant professional development. Tune in to be part of a community that values learning, reflection, and authentic storytelling. Share "Student Affairs Voices from the Field" with colleagues and dive into the conversations shaping the future of our field!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your essay Voices from the Field host.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:27]: Happy Thanksgiving, Chris.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:28]: Happy Thanksgiving, Jill.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:29]: It's always catches up with me this time of year that we're already at this time of year.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:33]: I know it really, it sneaks up on you and I am never prepared for it. And then you realize right after this, there's only a few weeks left before the end of a term and only a month left until the end of the year. It's crazy.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:47]: Well, this year we've had such tremendous guests in the first three quarters of our season. When we come back from our break this week, we'll have a couple of episodes, including some folks that we're just really excited to bring you their stories. And then we'll be back in January. But traditionally we take this week off from releasing the podcast. We hope that all of you who are based in the US Are enjoying some rest this weekend and getting to spend some time with family. We also like to take a moment to acknowledge that Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday for a lot of people. And because of that complexity, we want to remind you that if you're interested in learning more about the indigenous communities that originally were caretakers of the land where you live and work, that there's a really great website resource for that, which is Native Dash land Ca and this is a website where you can input your address or your city where you work or live, and you can see what indigenous people used to have caretaking for the land that you're currently living on the map has expanded a lot over the years and it used to just look at the US And Canada. Now we're seeing that they've covered information for all of South America and Central America, Australia, New Zealand, parts of East Asia, parts of Russia, parts of Northern Europe.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:01]: So it's become a really great and robust resource and we encourage you to check that out. Chris, is there anything else that we want to add as we head into the break?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:09]: Just wishing everyone the best as we move into this holiday season. You know, take some time for yourself, rest, reflect and be able to prepare yourself for a brand new year because it's coming sooner than later.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:22]: Take good care everyone. Safe travels.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:29]: This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email us at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:59]: It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcast casting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me, produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

On the latest episode of Student Affairs Voices from the Field, host Dr. Jill Creighton explores the intersection of enrollment management and student affairs with special guest Dr. Christopher Tremblay, Executive Director of Enrollment Management at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. If you're curious about the challenges and changes facing higher education, this episode offers a timely and thought-provoking conversation.

Facing the Enrollment Cliff

The "enrollment cliff"—a predicted decline of about 15% in college-bound students—is front and center in this discussion. Dr. Tremblay walks listeners through the domino effect: declining birth rates and economic factors have shrunk the pool of future college students, and institutions are strategizing how best to adapt. He points out that while enrollment management always relied on advance notice through birth rate data, today, the challenge is more acute. Colleges are shifting focus from just increasing headcount to more nuanced "revenue management." Not every student brings the same tuition dollars, so institutions must balance both enrollment and financial sustainability. The episode also acknowledges the hard truth—some colleges may face mergers or closures as the cliff approaches.

The Looming Impact of International Policies

The enrollment pressures are compounded by changes to visa policies and regulations, making it tougher for international students to study in the U.S. Dr. Tremblay warns of a "double whammy" for colleges: fewer domestic students and fewer international enrollees, as restrictions force many to defer or pursue education elsewhere. Other countries, like Canada and Germany, are stepping in to woo these students, signaling a shift in the global education market.

The Crucial Role of Retention & Student Support

But it's not all gloom—the episode celebrates advances in student success and retention. Investing in support systems, academic advising, and holistic onboarding not only helps students persist but is often more cost-effective for colleges. Dr. Tremblay describes the value of a "high tech, high touch" approach and advocates for ongoing, personalized support through a student's first year and beyond. He even dreams of a four-person support team for each student, recognizing the complexity of academic, financial, and career decisions.

Why Listen?

If you're a higher ed professional, parent, or student wondering what lies ahead, this episode delivers valuable perspectives. It underscores the essential partnership between enrollment management and student affairs, and calls for more collaboration in service of student success.

Tune in to hear how institutions are navigating uncertain times—and why student affairs remain critical to transforming lives.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your Essay Voices from the Field host Today on Essay Voices from the Field, we're heading to the enrollment management side of The House with Dr. Christopher W. Tremblay.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:33]: He brings three decades of leadership in higher education enrollment management. Currently serving as Executive Director of Enrollment Management at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He also serves as Director of ACRO Strategic Enrollment Management, or SEM Endorsement Program. Tremblay earned both his bachelor's and Master's degrees from Western Michigan University. He has a post Master's Certificate in Enrollment Management from Capella University and a Doctor of Education in Education from the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Tremblay is the co founder and co editor of the Journal of College Access and has served as Editor in Chief of College and University Journal since 2020. He's a scholar and researcher of Walt Disney, teaching the only college course on the life of Walt Disney called Walt's Pilgrimage. Christopher welcome to SA Voices and today we're going to be speaking to you.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:01:19]: Thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:19]: Great to be here about the enrollment management side of the house and all the things that are going on in acro. But before we go there, we always like to get to know our guests by asking you, how did you get your current seat?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:01:31]: Wow, that's a long journey. But I will give you the abbreviated version. I actually am grateful that my career in higher education I'm now in my 32nd year and it started because I was an undergraduate orientation student leader. So I feel like it was the impact of student affairs that changed my life and brought me to this profession. So my first job in college was at Western Michigan University as an admissions counselor, actually before I even graduated from college, which was an incredible opportunity. And then I got hooked and I just loved admissions. I loved higher education. And then throughout my career I have done college admissions, I've done financial aid, I've done orientation, and have been doing enrollment management, gosh, for probably over a decade now.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:02:16]: And I've been at the University of Michigan Talbon's College of Architecture and Urban Planning for five years now. But just prior to that I also worked in College Access within the State of Michigan at the Michigan College Access Network. And I have a huge passion for college access, especially as a first time.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:32]: Sitting at one of the university universities that's largest in the U.S. i think you'll be in a great position to be able to speak to what you're seeing in terms of changes. One of the things that we've been talking about in student affairs, and I'm sure more so in enrollment management for about the last 10 years, is this pending enrollment cliff that has been coming towards us. We knew that birth rates in the United States had declined in the Great Recession that happened in 2007. For those of you who were in the profession at that time, it was a bit of a squeeze for everybody from a budgetary perspective. But we also saw massive impacts around housing crises in the country, food insecurity and some other things. And that greatly impacted people's family planning choices. And now we're in a position in higher education where there's, I believe it's a 15% drop off of potential enrollees in universities.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:20]: So I would love to start there. Christopher, if you can talk a little bit about how enrollment managers are planning for this, how colleges and universities should be bracing for this and, and what that means for our profession.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:03:33]: I guess the blessing of our work is that we always have advance notice because of the birth rate of how many people we think will be ready and eligible to enter college. And so we do have that lead time, but it is definitely a challenging time. While we're still trying to increase the percentage of high school graduates going to college so that we can increase college attainment rates, we know that the starting pool is much smaller and will get smaller for the next. I mean, basically indefinitely from the data that we're seeing from Wiche in terms of high school projections. So it's definitely putting a lot of pressure on colleges and universities. And I would say really enrollment management is shifting to be more about revenue management. And this is where it gets very delicate because cost is one of the primary barriers for students and families as the cost of higher education has increased and there's been less investment at the federal and state level. And so therefore the cost burden is being passed on to the students.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:04:29]: So really our job is to really articulate the value of higher education and showcase its benefits both financially as well as personally and professionally, and that the workforce needs higher skill levels for those who are graduating from high school. And certainly, I think all of us who are in higher education are proponents of. There are many pathways to post secondary education and some of that might include pursuit of what we would have deemed work in the trades. But like for example in Michigan, that training for the trades predominantly is offered at our community colleges and that is going to college. And so part of it's also shifting the mentality still that college is an option for everybody and that there are multiple pathways to pursuing.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:13]: I think that's an interesting credential framing that you've mentioned that enrollment management is shifting to more revenue management. Can you talk more about what that means to the profession?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:05:23]: Historically, as I always experienced the work in enrollment management, it was always about headcount and the number of bodies that you enrolled and the number of students. And I think there's more of a movement and has been for a number of years of counting, you know, headcount equivalent. So in other words, not every student is enrolled full time. Some students might be dual degree and so their revenue may be split. And so really using projections that showcase both enrollment but also tuition revenue. Because at the end of the day also not every student brings in the same amount of revenue because you have different tuition rates, you have different lengths of degrees. For example, in my particular college, we have degrees that are four year undergraduate degrees, we have two year master's degree, we have three semester post master certificates. And so really looking at as we set our enrollment targets, how does that translate into the revenue that's being generated? I also feel like colleges related to enrollment management and this enrollment cliff is that I think we are working very hard to protect our existing infrastructure and the educational experience, to protect the quality of the experience.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:06:34]: And it's like, well, how do you do that when you have less expected revenue? And so I, I think a part of enrollment management is also helping institutions find alternate sources of revenue to alleviate some of that pressure. So whether that be offering some pre college programs or some non credit bearing options that allow you to still offer all of your academic offerings at the highest level in terms of the experiences you want to offer students. Because we don't want to sacrifice that, even though we might have a shrinking size of class. I think that many colleges in the country are going to be faced with some very tough decisions because we all can't win in this race, if you will. So I think that we're going to see many more mergers and or closures unfortunately just because there won't be enough students to fill every degree, every class in the country. So I think we are already starting to see that. I think many of us don't want to see that. But the reality is if there's not students because of the declining birth rate.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:34]: And this is expected to last 15 to 16 years, I believe is the current data set. So it's going to be a change in the way that we have to function, especially in student affairs. I've worked at several institutions where the student affairs model was largely based on student fees for certain parts of organizational structure. And with less students, there are simply less student fees, which means that there are less opportunities to potentially use that resource in a way that benefits students. So it's an interesting thing to think about. Right now. It seems to be more of an intellectual exercise, but I think very soon it will be a reality in our budget lines.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:08:15]: Absolutely. I think we've already seen, unfortunately, with layoffs by some of the largest and most prestigious universities in the country because they're recognizing that the dollars just aren't there to be able to do that. And so there is going to be, I think, a shift in the types of services and resources that are provided. I think everybody wants to be very conscientious and careful about that because we still have a lot of support that we need to provide to students. They just don't show up and are perfectly experienced. Our system. Right. There's stumbles along the way, there's support that's needed.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:08:47]: And so I think my hope in this as we talk about the work of student affairs is that that is not sacrificed or doesn't get to be so slim that, you know, it becomes non existent. Because I think it's still going to be just as important tomorrow as it.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:09:01]: Is today as it was yesterday with the uncertainty of the future of international students in the US and we've got an interesting time ahead of us in higher education from an admissions perspective. Christopher, can, can you talk to us about what those changes are and how you're seeing some of these things that are proposed by the current administration impacting your ability to recruit international students?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:09:23]: I think what we're seeing happening in D.C. is devastating to higher education and it's basically eliminating opportunities for international students to study in the United States. And I think it's a huge brain drain for us because we're going to see the impact of this for decades because if we're not enrolling these students, we're certainly not going to be graduating them and adding them to the workforce, whether it be in the US or if they go back to their own country or go elsewhere. So those changes obviously have been restrictions on visas. The pause on visas this past summer definitely hurt us because it caused delays. We ended up deferring many students to next year in hopes that they can still get a visa, but there's no guarantee. The new social media screening has added complexity to that and has changed students behaviors and made them much more conscientious about what they can and should be posting on social media and in what channels. So I think all of that is affecting it.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:10:21]: I think the other regulations regarding you have to get your visa in your home country so you can no longer travel to another country to get that. It is devastating for some students because our international students have been very entrepreneurial and resourceful and determined to get a visa. And so they have flown to other countries and other embassies to try to get that work done and now that option won't be there. And so I think it's unfortunate because it's just barrier after barrier being put in front and we are just going to continue to see a decline in international students. And unfortunately there's not the domestic population that can immediately or fully replace their seats and their enrollments. And so I think it's definitely caused strain and commotion in higher education that we didn't, I think, fully expect to see coming. And so I think that in addition to the enrollment cliff, this is now a double whammy for higher education and has put so much pressure that we have not seen in at least in the time that I've been in higher education, other than again, challenges with COVID Somewhat joked with colleagues that I was like, gosh, it's like I almost want to go back to the COVID years because now they seem not so hard as it does now. We didn't know that then, right.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:11:36]: What was coming. So I think, you know, the institutions that are going to be successful are going to be the ones that can be nimble and extremely responsive and act diligently regarding either the finance or the finances, either reducing expenses or generating new sources of revenue. I mean, those are really your only two options when you look at the, the financial impact of the international student enrollment crisis.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:12:04]: And for many schools that are funded by their state governments, we've seen that decline over the years and taxpayer dollars being diverted to other important public services and projects. So it's really a squeeze point for higher education at the moment with the international student enrollment component and with those visa barriers that have been broug on in the last year or so. I've also seen other countries kind of pick up on that and perk up on that. The UK has also done some similar things with putting more visa restrictions on students. So with the UK and the US in combination going, we're going to be admitting less international students like Germany have really picked up the mantle. And I've seen some advertisements where German universities are saying, we know you probably don't speak German, and getting an education in German is going to be very hard, but we're going to help you with that. So come here. We'll teach the language and you can get your degree.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:12:55]: So. So I wonder how that's going to shift the market.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:12:57]: I think we saw that with our neighbors in Canada. I know that there was some schools that immediately were trying to capture some of the enrollment that would be coming to the US and it's like, still come to North America, but just come to Canada. So, I mean, they were smart in doing it. I don't know how many students actually followed through on doing that, because if you have your heart set on coming to the United States, there's certain places that I think attract our students in our country. The large coastal cities, the midsize college towns, wherever students feel like there's a fit and opportunity for them. But, yeah, I think we're going to see other countries definitely capitalizing and providing some additional incentives to woo those students. So we. We definitely have to keep an eye on that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:13:40]: So the picture we've painted so far in our conversation is a lot of challenges ahead. But what's going well in enrollment management right now? What are universities that are attracting students still doing that, that is working in the environment we have today?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:13:54]: I would say probably the biggest sense of, I think accomplishment is related to success and a commitment to retention and helping the student in the most holistic way. So I think since I've been in the field, I would say this has been the biggest improvement and kind of mindset the concept that it's cheaper to retain a student than it is to recruit a student. How can we make sure that our graduation outcomes continue to increase? Because there is much scrutiny by the government and other organizations on the outcomes of higher education, and we still have a long way to go to demonstrate that. But I think a lot of it is our students need a lot of academic and social support. We know that there's a lot of students that experience anxiety and the stress levels of just everything going on in the world. I think we all need to be reminded that that just like it affects us, it affects our students. And if their primary focus is academics and then all of their extracurricular activities, but then they're worried about cost or they're worrying about the political environment or they're worried about things going on in the world. Those are detractors can set students up to not be successful, you know, academically.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:15:04]: So I would say that all of the student success measures from early alerts and follow up and all of the technology that allows both students and universities to track student progression I think is helpful because I think if we can teach students also how to self manage their progress, it's also teaching them a skill, a lifelong skill that should help them in their career because this isn't going to be the first and last time they have to manage life and all the curveballs at throws. And how do you learn from that? Because that's. I think one of the things that I love about higher education is just how much of a learning laboratory it is and how it transforms the lives of our students. I mean, I even think about myself as I entered college as a naive only child. So I didn't have any siblings ahead of me to learn the ropes. But I was grateful that there were people who took me under their wing and I didn't realize the value and role of student affairs until I became an admissions and enrollment management professional. And really it was working as the coordinator of orientation that I even first learned about student development theory and that all of these things that we were doing had data and research behind it as impactful practices to make a student feel like they belong at an institution and that they can be successful.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:16:22]: I think this is a nice tie in to the partnership that's very natural between student affairs and enrollment management. A lot of people see that nexus happening at the orientation process. Sometimes orientation lives in enrollment management, sometimes it lives in student affairs because we're really kind of establishing now you're a matriculated student and that student affairs engagement kind of begins. Can you talk to us, as a former orientation professional, now enrollment professional about what you see as the most successful ways to onboard students in 2025?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:16:53]: A great question. I would say that my mantra on this is high tech, high touch. I know that's kind of an old school term, but I think we have to remember that when while digital technology offers some great efficiencies and offers greater access, you know, to onboarding and orientating a student to higher education, I still believe that the personal connection, the personal contact is equally critical and I would actually say even more important because our students, while they are such digital natives, we need to remind them that we still live with and work and engage with other people in person. And that sense of belonging and what I call that Human presence factor I think is important. So I think orientation programs that do both very well. I think there also is what I think over the years I learned is what I would call a time release formula or time release model. I think we have a tendency in higher education to just put everything out there all at once and like kind of as a menu. But I think there's a value in releasing content and information and knowledge sharing in stages as we believe the student needs it and when they engage in, engage in it.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:18:08]: And so I really think that orientation starts at the time that a student pays their deposit and really needs to go through the end of their very first semester, if not their first year. Because that first year is still a time of adjustment and for some students it's a more challenging adjustment. And so I think thinking about that really almost as an entire year experience is, is critical to make sure that we're there to support students, students when they need us at the time they need us because they might know about the counseling services in over the summer, but until the rubber hits the road in November and they hit that moment where they are needing those counseling services, how do we get them that information at that time? Because we introduced it months ago. And for them think about how much information has come their way since then.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:18:57]: It'll be an interesting shift in our onboarding models to have kind of maybe weekly touch points or monthly touchpoints with students in their first year rather than bam, here we go over a full two day thing or a week thing or whatever our models might look like. I think it'd be a fascinating exercise in how to capture the attention of students in an ongoing way. But that time release formula might be a better way to engage our services and help students find their place. Because we also know that six week mark is an important inflection point for students who are going to persist to the end of their first term and then ultimately into their second term and hopefully to their second year.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:19:34]: Yeah, for sure. I have always had a dream and this is a dream that would require just tons of money. But going back to that human presence factor, I actually feel like every student who's enrolled in college needs a four person team that gets assigned to them upon matriculation at the start of the semester. Even before that four person team would include their academic advisor, a financial aid specialist, a career advisor, what I would call a student affairs or student life or engagement professional. Could you imagine having a joint conversation with that four person team and the student student? Because what we do right now, which Just blows my mind is that I'll just give an example when a student might be struggling in a class and they have to decide, do I stay in that class and get a poor grade or withdraw or do I stay in the class because it could negatively impact my financial aid. So what does the student do? The student goes to their academic advisor. They talk about the pros and cons of dropping the class from an academic perspective. Then the student goes over to the financial aid person, person and has to discuss what are the pros and cons of dropping or not dropping the class.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:20:40]: And then we expect the student to connect the dots between the two of them. Many students can do that, but some students don't do it well or can't do it at all. And so imagine the complementariness of all of those voices being in the same conversation for the efficiency and the effectiveness of the student to make the best informed decision at the end of the day. And then again, everybody kind of knows kind of what's happening. And I just think it's a more holistic approach. Again, if money was no object, I would implement it immediately because I just think that students would benefit from a team of support and the same team that could stay with them through their entire undergraduate experience.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:21:20]: That or a cross training model that allows everyone to dabble in each other's areas a little bit. I've always a big fan of that type of exercise as well. Which I think leads us to a natural question, question of what do you, as a primarily professional, wish that student affairs professionals knew about the world?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:21:36]: Wow. Well, probably the first thing that comes to mind is, and I would expect this both ways, I think student affairs would benefit from knowing and understanding how a student got to that seat in that class. Like what did it take in terms of effort in order to attract that student's attention, recruit them to apply, admit them, and then matriculate them and then vice versa. I would actually love for a student affairs professional to remind me and refresh my memory and bring me up to speed on what does it take to support a student from the day they arrive to the day they graduate. Right. Because I think sometimes there's so much going on in our separate worlds and we have to be focused and concentrate on that, that unfortunately we just don't have the luxury of time anymore to go shadow or spend time in student affairs. So I also would love that opportunity to be able to just reminded of what are the current challenges that our students are facing that are real. Now I get nuggets of it.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:22:39]: Because fortunately I have. We have a great student affairs operation within our academic, school and college. And so I actually get intel on some of the reasons our students are visiting, counseling, for example. So it gives me some insights on what our students, what they're entering with in terms of life challenges and then challenges that experience them. But I think we can always do better, understanding each other's worlds that we live in and then trying to find opportunities to further collaborate for the benefit of the student. At the end of the day, it's all about student success. And that can be defined in lots of different ways at different institutions and for different students.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:23:17]: Going to go ahead and lean into our theme questions for the season and we're talking about the value of student affairs. And from an enrollment management perspective, it might look a little different. But I think this perspective is a great value add for our season because you see us as kind of an internal external party where you're part of the team, but we're not in each other's day to day universes. So our first question is, when you think about the value of student affairs, what comes to mind first and why?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:23:44]: The first thing that comes to mind is transformation. Really think that student affairs is about developing each student's potential and meeting students where they are and taking them to the next level. So in terms of, and I think especially developing all of those soft skills that complement the skills that are being learned in the classroom and in any academic experience, because I think that's where the value of higher education is, right? It is about the degree and it is about the credential and it is about the academic training. But when I think about the skill set that I gained as a student through my leadership positions as a student, and I think those are the things that I use almost every day in my job and were most transformative for my life. And I see it time and time again for our students because that's where they feel the sense of belonging to belonging and contribution.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:24:37]: Can you share a specific story or moment when you saw the value of student affairs come to life?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:24:42]: I would say this still it was because I experienced it, but then I got to facilitate it for 300 other students who served as orientation student leaders. But I do think the summer that I was an orientation student leader, it definitely transformed my life because it put me in a position to have that peer to peer connection with incoming students. But really the major value was the four weeks of training that I received to prepare to be an orientation student leader. And I got one College credit for it, which I was grateful that there was the academic recognition. But that's where I learned about facilitation and conflict resolution and leadership skills and communication skills, all of that which has just benefited me so much in my career. And still to this day, I get many of our former students who are orientation leaders describe that experience as very powerful and impactful. And for many of them, it planted the seed for a career in higher education. And so I just really feel like those kinds of leadership development programs that are intense and short term can be just an incredible gift to our students.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:54]: And to our third question, what do you think student affairs needs to do to be better understood and better seen in today's educational environment?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:26:02]: The first thing that comes to mind is that student affairs is essential. I don't think we can operate a modern day college or university without student affairs professionals, without student development theory grounding our work. And again, this is where we create that sense of belonging and support that I think also student affairs are such role models for how to approach this work in a very personal and with humanity in mind. And I think in the world that we're living in today, where I feel like humanity is not number one priority outside of higher education, we have a responsibility, I think, to role model how we take care of each other and how we, we care for each other. Right? Because at the end of the day, to transform those student lives, to make those students feel like they are better than they realize and that we have gifted them and taught them so many things where they can impact the rest of the world because we're counting on them. They are our future leaders. And so I really, you know, always am grateful for the work that our student affairs professionals do. And I always consider myself to be a quasi student affairs professional.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:27:11]: I always joke with people that I worked in higher education for 20 years before I got my doctorate in education because my undergraduate and master's degrees are in communication, which again, I absolutely loved. But I had so many aha moments when I was sitting through my doctoral classes and I was like, oh my gosh, that's what I've been doing for 20 years. Right? So for me, it was an affirmation that the people who trained me in my work and mentored me, folks like Stanley henderson and Donna St. John, really like, took me under their wing and really taught me what I needed to know and reminded me that I was actually taught by the best in the field.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:27:48]: Christopher, is there anything else you'd like our NASPA listeners to know about the world of enrollment management and how it impacts the value of student affairs today.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:27:56]: Absolutely. Please collaborate with your enrollment management colleagues. Learn about both the strengths and challenges of their work and also, I think, be reminded of just the incredible amount of stress that enrollment management professionals are under these days and that that stress shows no sign of alleviating. And so anytime that we can do checks with each other and be there for each other again, I think we are all reminded every day that we are here because of the students.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:28:26]: Christopher, thank you for all of those thoughts, and I'm going to toss it over to Producer Chris to tell us all about what's going on in NASA. It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASA NASPA world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:39]: Hey Jill, great to be back in the NASPA world and there's a ton of things happening in naspa. Did you know that the knowledge communities in NASPA are celebrating 25 years of knowledge creation this year? And this historic milestone is going to be celebrated at the NASPA annual conference from March 7th through the 11th in Kansas City, Missouri. For some of you, you may have always known that knowledge communities have always been a part of NASPA. But prior to 2001, knowledge communities were considered what were called networks. In 1989, through a restructure of task forces, networks, and advisory groups, NASPA approved its first networks New professionals Small colleges, fraternities and sororities Ethnic minorities, gay, lesbian, bisexual urban urban gay, lesbian and bisexual urban institutions Women in student affairs, adult learners and community colleges. Through the years, these networks continued to grow organically as members identified and responded to specific issues of concern in the field. By 2001, the NASPA board of Directors recognized an opportunity to reshape how these communities connected and shared expertise. One of our past guests on our podcast, Betty Simmons, ended up being asked, at the request of the then NASPA President, Gwen Dungey, to lead a transformation that would define how NASPA members would engage for the next quarter century.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:14]: Often affectionately called the grandmother of knowledge communities, Betty championed a new format that would leverage emerging technology to communicate communication to facilitate communication and information sharing among members regardless of geographic location. So what began as nine networks has evolved into a dynamic ecosystem of knowledge communities that serve as portals to naspa. Today's knowledge communities encompass a diverse range of topics and serve as a hub for developing and connecting experts across functional areas. Across functional areas, emerging issues, and member identity identities Knowledge communities have become the beating heart of how NASA members find their people share innovation and advance the field. I'm really excited to be celebrating this at the 2026 Annual Convention at the 2026 Annual Conference. As someone that started Knowledge community back in 2001, I am so proud of the work that the SAPA Knowledge Community has done over the years, but really the work of all the Knowledge Community communities because it truly has become the heart of the association and a way for all NASPA members to be able to get engaged in a way that they want to be engaged. So at the NASPA Annual Conference, the plan this year is to honor this legacy while looking toward the future of how we connect, learn and lead together. From Casey specific programming to opportunities to engage with communities old, old and new, this conference is going to be designed to help you find your people and deepen your NASPA experience so you have a great opportunity to be able to identify with the knowledge communities that you particularly connect with.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:04]: But also you have an opportunity to be able to test the water. As you go to the NASPA conference, check out some of the different knowledge communities, see what's on going they're all about or start today. Go to the NASPA website and on the NASPA website you can easily be able to identify and check out all of the knowledge communities. All you have to do is go on the NASPA website and in the top bar there is a tab that is called Membership plus Communities. If you go and hover over that button you can go down to the Knowledge communities and see all 30 plus knowledge communities that are out there and see what ones make sense. I highly encourage you to check them out today and celebrate the amazing work that the knowledge communities have done, but also the amazing communities that they have become to allow for you to connect with and find more of your own people that are passionate about similar things that you're passionate about. A quick public policy update for this month over the past month, the federal government entered the longest shutdown in history, with potential disruptions to institutions of higher education. However, as many of you know, a bipartisan funding deal through a continuing resolution has been voted on, and this continuing resolution would restore government operations at current levels through January 30, 2026 and provide full funding for select agencies, marking a meaningful step toward ending the stalemate.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:34]: The Trump administration's Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education continues to to draw widespread opposition, with most of the nine invited universities, among them mit, Brown, Penn and the University of Virginia, formally rejecting the proposal linking federal funding preferences to tuition freezes, enrollment caps and restrictions on gender and diversity policies. Meanwhile, the administration's $100,000 fee on new H1B visa petitions has sparked backlash from higher education, healthcare and business groups who warn that it will damage research and international hiring. A coalition of unions, colleges and associations has filed suit challenging the legality of the fee, arguing it exceeds presidential authority and was issued without proper rulemaking in the courts. A major settlement between the Department of Education and the American Federation of Teachers has restored student loan forgiveness processing for millions of borrowers under income, drip driven repayment and public service loan forgiveness programs, with protections against potential tax liability. Federal judges have also stepped in to halt Education Department layoffs affecting civil rights enforcement and to block restrictive campus speech laws in Texas. As litigation unfolds, higher education institutions continue to face uncertainty around funding compliance and future regulatory direction. NASPA has remained active in advocacy efforts throughout this period, joining higher education coalitions to oppose the proposed H1B wage level lottery rule and the Department of Education's expansive Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement, warning of excessive reporting burdens and privacy risks. NASPA also continues to advocate for restoring funding for minority serving institutions, preserving support for research and student aid programs, and in ensuring stability and transparency amid the ongoing federal shutdown.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:35:31]: You can continue to monitor the 834 active bills across state legislatures and Congress on the NASPA Policy Hub, which is a unique benefit only for NASPA members. Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to to get involved in different ways because the association is as strong as its members and for all of us, we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with the knowledge community, giving back within one of the centers or the divisions of the association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit? Where do you want to give back each week. We're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community, I see myself doing something like that, or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now to offer other things to the association, to bring you your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association. Because through doing that, all of us are Stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:07]: Chris, thank you so much for always sharing with us what's going on in and around NASPA and Christopher. We have now reached our lightning round. I've got seven questions for you in about nine 90 seconds. Are you feeling ready?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:37:19]: Let's do it.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:20]: All right, question number one, if you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:37:24]: Gosh, probably Pink Pony Club.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:26]: Number two, when you were five years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:37:29]: Ooh, I actually, I never had anything in mind.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:33]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:37:36]: Stanley Henderson.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:37]: Number four, your essential student affairs or higher education read.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:37:41]: Ooh. All right, that one's a tough one, I'm going to say. One of the first books that I read when I became director of admissions was called the Gatekeepers, and it was Inside the Life of an Admissions Operation. And it was a fascinating read.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:54]: Number five, the best TV show you've been binging lately.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:37:57]: I never watch tv.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:58]: Number six, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last year.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:38:01]: My favorite podcast is actually the podcast version of CBS Sunday Morning because I just love their feel good stories.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:09]: And finally, number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:38:13]: Yes, absolutely. I've already mentioned several of them, but I also would love to give a shout out to my work wife, Kimberly Buster Williams, who I do a lot of work with, acro. She has been an amazing colleague and friend.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:26]: And for those who may not be familiar, ACRO is one of our sister associations. It stands for the American association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. So they're basically the NASPA for the side of the house. So if you maybe spend time in both worlds, it'd be a good thing to check out. Or if you're thinking about shifting within Higher Education acronym is a great place to go. Christopher, it's been an incredible and rich dialogue today. If anyone would like to reach you to have conversations after the show, how can they find you?

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:38:53]: Yeah, the best way is through LinkedIn.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:55]: Christopher, thank you so much for sharing your voice with us today.

Dr. Christopher Tremblay [00:38:58]: Thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:04]: This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field, brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listener listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email us at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:34]: It really does help other student affairs professional find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me. Produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

In the latest episode of Student Affairs Voices from the Field, host Dr. Jill Creighton brings together members of the third cohort of the Global Master's Students Program, a unique partnership between NASPA, the European University College Association (EucA), and Lumsa University in Rome. This special episode showcases graduate students from around the world—including the Philippines, Belgium, Italy, Namibia, China, the Netherlands, Germany, Trinidad & Tobago, and South Africa—sharing their varied experiences, perspectives, and hopes for the student affairs profession.

Thank you to Lida Ricci, Julia Jaque, Joseph "Joel" Parcon, Luca Corona, Vency Mupupa, Raghavendra Reddy Manda and Leah Punch for sharing their voices today.

At its core, the conversation orbits around the powerful value student affairs brings to higher education globally. Joseph "Joel" Parcon emphasizes "values formation"—the role of student affairs in nurturing not just academic talent but shaping students as positive agents for societal change. Julia Jaque and Leah Punch echo this sentiment, describing student affairs as "the heart of the student experience," fostering belonging and personal growth beyond classroom walls.

The theme of transformation comes alive through Raghavendra Reddy Manda, who poignantly describes student affairs as "the soul of the higher education system"—a journey where students find purpose and learn to make an impact. Vency Mupupa adds that key values like diversity, respect, integrity, and care reflect a commitment to inclusive, supportive campus environments.

But visibility remains a challenge for the field. Many panelists note that student affairs is often misunderstood or underappreciated. Luca Corona and Leah Punch advocate for "joyful testimony" and storytelling, letting students themselves express how involvement in campus life, community, and extracurricular activities enriches their university journey. Collaboration—between student affairs, academic affairs, administration, and students themselves—is seen as crucial to raising awareness of the broad impact and importance of the profession.

Panelists also share their personal motivations for studying student affairs: from accidentally stumbling into the field to intentionally pursuing it as a vocation. Each story reveals a commitment to supporting students, fostering development, and elevating the human aspect of academia.

If you're curious about the future of student affairs—how the profession is viewed and evolving across continents—this episode will resonate. Hear firsthand how practitioners are meeting challenges and opportunities in vastly different cultural and educational contexts. The candid reflections and shared wisdom from emerging leaders across four continents are sure to inspire anyone invested in student success and campus well-being.

Tune in to this thought-provoking episode for a truly global perspective on why student affairs matters—and how its impact ripples far beyond campus boundaries.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your essay Voices from the Field host. Welcome back to our next episode of Student Affairs Voices from the Field. We have a very special episode today where we're going to be talking to our current Global Master's Students cohort.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:37]: This is our third cohort of global Master's students and this is a collaboration project. This course is in collaboration with NASPA and EucA, which is the EucA University College Association, and also Lumsa University, which is a university in Rome, Italy. We have students today spanning the entire globe, many, many different time zones, all earning their master's degrees in student affairs, and I'm thrilled to bring them to the podcast today. So our first student is Joel. Joel, please tell us where you're joining us from, what university you're at.

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:01:09]: So, I'm Joel. I'm from the Philippines. I am the Vice Chair for Student affairs in the University of Asia and the Pacific.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:16]: Welcome.

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:01:17]: Glad to be here.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:17]: Our next student is Julia.

Julia Jaque [00:01:19]: Hello, I'm Julia. I'm project Coordinator at European University College association in Belgium.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:26]: And welcome. Julia, glad to have you here. Luca, you're our next student.

Luca Corona [00:01:30]: Yeah. My name is Luca Coroa and I'm a Catholic priest from Rome and I worked for 15 years in institutional affairs as the director of the residence of Collegio Marzza. But now I am professor of Theology at the Catholic University in Rome and I continue to give my contribution to serious affairs.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:52]: Thank you for joining us, Luka. I'm glad to have such a diversity of perspectives amongst the three we've introduced so far. We've got four more to go. Our next student is Venzi.

Vency Mupupa [00:02:01]: Good afternoon. My name is Vensi Mpupa. I am originally from Namibia. I worked previously at the University of the Free State in student affairs for 10 years, and then I moved to the University of Diukunshan in China, where I was also working in the Residence Life office and I'm currently based in Namibia, working for Safland Property Services as an executive assistant.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:26]: Welcome. And next we have Raghavendra.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:02:29]: Hello, My name is Raghavendra reddymanda. I'm a PhD candidate in entomology at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, where my research focuses on sustainable pest management in greenhouse horticulture. I also serve as the communication Officer of Wageningen Doctoral Council and the chair of Career committee at a national graduate school working to enhance doctoral well being and career development. In future, I aspire to build a hybrid career which combines my passion for scientific research with leadership in student affairs and higher education administration.

Leah Punch [00:03:04]: Good day everyone. I'm Leah Punch. I'm from Trinidad and Tobago. Currently I work in Bremen, Germany at Constructor University. There I work as a residential life manager, mainly responsible for incidents and emergency response.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:20]: Next up, we have Lida.

Julia Jaque [00:03:22]: Hi, I'm Lida and I'm responsible for educational and cultural activities at the University College of Merit in Rome where I've been working for the past couple of years. I've always been passionate about the academic world, which led me to pursue a master's program focused on higher education and student affairs.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:45]: So because there are so many of us today, I'm going to be asking us just two questions focused on our theme on the value of student affairs. And I'd love to hear all of your perspectives, especially because we're so global. Our first question is when you think about the value of student affairs, what comes to mind first and why? And we'll have you go in the order you introduced yourselves.

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:04:05]: Okay. So when I think of the value of student affairs, particularly in the University of Asia in the Pacific, we're actually, we are given the. The hallmark of values formation. So it's important for us as the center for student affairs to be able to provide opportunities for students to be able to add value to their student life so that they don't just learn on the academic side, but they also learn outside of the classroom and they graduate to become positive agents of change in service to society.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:37]: Thank you, Joel. In the Philippines, it's interesting to hear that you've got set expectations in that way a little bit more national and standard than what we see in other parts of the world.

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:04:46]: Yeah. In particular with, especially in the uanp, there are three centers that are actually given all of these different things that they need to focus on. So we are the ones on values formation. There's another unit that's in charge of research and development and another for people development as well. So we are the ones who really are supposed to be the other side of the coin of the academic affairs.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:08]: Julia, go ahead and jump on in.

Julia Jaque [00:05:10]: I guess for me it's literally the.

Leah Punch [00:05:12]: Heart of the students experience. Right. Because the student affairs help students to.

Julia Jaque [00:05:17]: Understand who they are and who they.

Vency Mupupa [00:05:20]: Want to be and also to connect.

Julia Jaque [00:05:22]: With others and to have this feeling of belonging with the community.

Leah Punch [00:05:26]: So I guess is the center of the experience of being student.

Luca Corona [00:05:31]: For me, the value of student affairs is very important in helping students think about their lives in a broader sense, not just within the specifics of university. I think that the risk of young people is over. Specializing in university students first helps them think more comprehensively. Also for example, with community not alone, I think.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:58]: Fancy, you're next.

Vency Mupupa [00:05:59]: Good afternoon again. When I think of the values I spent almost 10 years at the University of the Free State, so I'm going to be referencing the University of the Free State a lot in this podcast of ours. So when I think of the values of student affairs at the University of the Free State, I think of diversity, I think of respect, I I think of integrity, I think of care, and I also think of learning. These values reflect UFS commitment to creating an environment where every student feels included and supported. Thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:06:32]: And just for clarity, while Vency is currently in Namibia, the University of the Free State is in South Africa. So she has experience in multiple parts of the continent.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:06:42]: Ready here. When I think about the value of student affairs, the first word that comes to my mind is transformation. Student affairs transformed the education from a system of courses and grades into the human journey of growth, belonging and also purpose. So it's where the students tend to discover who they are, what they care about and how they can make a difference in the world. So for me, student affairs is not just a department or a profession. It's the soul of higher education system, which often reminds us that education is not only about learning facts, but about becoming a wholesome person.

Leah Punch [00:07:18]: When I think about student affairs or the student affairs profession, what comes to mind is probably us as student affairs professionals helping or creating a space for students to have the ability to create and learn and grow beyond the classroom. I think part of my role is also helping students or equip students with building like soft skills, equipping them with things that they might need later on in life. So equipping them with like soft skills that would be able to help them in their next job or their next just as citizens or part of society.

Julia Jaque [00:07:53]: I'm lida and when I think of values in student affairs, few fundamental principles immediately come to mind. And at the core is deep commitment to placing students at the heart of all decisions, programs and services. So has active collaborators in shaping their educational journey. This means listening to their voice, honoring their lived experiences and co creating environments where they can thrive.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:08:27]: I really enjoy learning about all of our student affairs collective perspectives, because we're sitting on four separate continents today and really kind of honing in on what the value of the profession is. And we're all trying to work together to help students succeed, to help them thrive in the environment and ultimately change the way that our universities operate to make them the best possible for students. And it's great to hear that that alignment exists across the globe right now. Which leads me to my next question, which is, what do you think student affairs needs to do to be better understood and better seen in today's educational environment and particularly in the country that you live and work in?

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:09:07]: Joel, here, that's a tough question to answer. Student Affairs. I think that it's very important for student affairs professionals to, I guess, or at the very least, to take the initiative and extend the arm and try and collaborate more with the academic affairs units of the university. Well, with the entire university that we are working in, especially in the university I'm working for. Yes, they know about the center for Student affairs, but they don't quite know what it is, the breadth of what we do. A lot of people and even students think that student affairs is all about discipline. Not a lot of them think that cultural affairs is part of student Affairs. Before our sports development was also part of student Affairs.

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:09:49]: There isn't that much awareness about the breadth of what student affairs, the center for Student affairs, actually does in our university. And I've been talking with other student affairs practitioners from across the Philippines as well in some of the conferences that I've attended, and they have similar situations that, okay, it's something that the academic affairs unit can't do. Throw it to Student Affairs. They'll do it for you. Events management. Throw it to Student Affairs. And I think that it's just a more intentional way of making people aware of what we do in student affairs more than just them having that vague idea of what it is that we actually do.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:10:24]: And I think that's a valid response in itself. Right? Knowing that we need to be more visible in our higher education spaces, that we need to be more visible with our university partners, whether they be in other parts of the administration, with the students, or with our faculty colleagues, but not knowing what to do to activate. It's a very reasonable response because I think it's a question that we've been asking ourselves as a profession for a very long time.

Luca Corona [00:10:48]: This is Luca for me. Students affairs needs to be better understood through the valuable testimony of those who work here, work there in the student affairs, I think the testimony of students who have experienced that university is not just about classes, but also about community life, volunteering, music and other activities. I think we need the joyful testimony of students who have lived this holistic experience in university to share with the peers and also with the general public and the other stakeholders of the university.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:34]: I like that framing of joyful testimony. We can tell that you come from the spiritual side of the house for students, but you know, we talk about storytelling all the time in student affairs and that is just a really lovely way of putting it.

Vency Mupupa [00:11:46]: Vinci here. Again, thank you for that question. I am going to keep referring and making reference of the University of the Free State. So at the University of the Free State, student affairs needs to show its impact through evidence and collaboration. You know, by highlighting how it supports student success, well being and leadership, it can gain great visibility and recognition across the university, but also not just at the University of the Free State. I think all over the world, when people hear student affairs, I don't think they understand the role that student affairs practitioners play in student success. So if we are able to, through evidence and collaboration, show the impact that we have on this, then I think we have hit the ball right in the middle there. Thank you for that.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:12:34]: Thanks for the nice addition. Vancy Reddy here. So, to be better seen and understood in the Netherlands, the country where I work, student affairs should focus on defining its unique identity while also celebrating its existing strengths. So unlike North America, where student affairs is a well established profession, in Netherlands it's more decentralized, so it's spread across study advisors, psychologists, graduate schools, study organizations, student associates. So this diversity is not a weakness. It's a reflection of Dutch culture of collaboration and also student independence. So by bringing these elements together under a shared vision of student success, well being and also community, we can show its collective impact more clearly. So it's about just connecting the dots, demonstrating how every conversation, mentorship and program contributes to student feeling supported, engaged and also empowered.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:13:30]: So for me to be better understood in the Netherlands, we don't need to reinvent the student affairs itself, but we simply need to tell the story more visibly and also profoundly.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:13:41]: Can I also ask you to weigh in on what you've recently been listening to in terms of student affairs and its value? In India, you talked about recently listening to a podcast in Hindi language that was kind of having a similar debate. Any thoughts there?

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:13:57]: Yeah. Also in India, as I mentioned earlier, student affairs is not a profession and it's not so popular like North America, most of the student affairs professionals that are recruited doesn't have a specialized training or degree in student affairs. So that was also a sort of eye opener for me. And it's important to have the trained student affairs professional because as I mentioned, it's the heart of university education, not only in India, but everywhere in the world.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:14:25]: Thank you.

Leah Punch [00:14:26]: Yeah. So I think for me it's quite difficult to like answer the question immediately, but I think I agree with Luca, especially in the context of Germany, I think student affairs, it's like a fairly new concept. We don't have many residential campuses or residential life. We have offices where students could go for information and help. But student affairs isn't really a big thing in German culture. So I think I would agree with Luca, where I think the first step might be having students actually understand. So the students who come to construct a university, having them first understand and giving them, equipping them with the language of like, what we do. So starting from when they arrive at the university, kind of like introducing them into, yes, we help build a community, we help them learn, also helping them identify the things that we actually learn.

Leah Punch [00:15:17]: And I think first implanting this seed into the students and then having them be able to tell their stories to people who they meet, but also creating more like formalized spaces where maybe we could engage a bit more in the community or have events where people could like showcase these things, maybe partner with some, not only with like social media things, but maybe partner with like a local paper and just like showcasing some of the work that we do just to like have people get familiar with student affairs. So I think my thing would be like starting with the students, kind of like instill in them what we do, giving them the ideas of what we do, have them storytell, but also have us storytell together with them in like a broader sense of the German community.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:16:02]: I like the synergy of you being at Constructor University and really telling the story through a co constructivist lens. I think that matches really well with how student affairs stories can be kind of shared successfully, especially when the language is new to the environment that you're working in.

Julia Jaque [00:16:20]: And Lita, I also believe that a collaboration between all departments is necessary and that student affairs should have a voice and be well understood by others. Equally important is ensuring that students themselves understand the role of student affairs, not just as a support service, but as a vital resource for their personal, social and academic development.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:16:53]: What I'm hearing from across all of our conversation is that the themes are really the same in terms of the global student affairs identity. So I have a friend who likes to say, same, same, but different. So we're reaching the same goals, we have the same motivations, but the pathways that we reach those goals through are going to be different based on our different cultural contexts about what our communities need and what our students need. So it's lovely to hear from all of you in this regard. And we have a little bit of time left, so I'd love to know from each of you, can you just tell us you decided to study student affairs? Why it's important to you because you all are the future of the profession.

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:17:30]: Well, I actually stumbled onto student affairs. I was sort of an active student when I was studying, also from uanp. And then afterwards, one of my could call her my mentor, she recruited me to get into student affairs, and then I found a home in the profession. I've seen student affairs from both sides when I was a student, and then later on when I started working, I saw the value and how it became such a noble thing to do to see how these students develop. I've seen my fair share of students graduate and to get in touch with them after all of these years and to know how their experience with us in student affairs while they were active in the university and to see how that has enriched their lives afterwards, it keeps me going in the profession.

Luca Corona [00:18:18]: Yeah, this is LUCA for me. I can start thinking about that I was a student at the college and that I then I began directing ten years later, and I heard wonderful testimonials about this wonderful job. And so I thought that it was for me a calling, not just a job. And so in this time, it's very good for me, dedicating myself to students, to their human, academic, professional growth.

Vency Mupupa [00:18:55]: Vancy here again. Thank you for that question. I can actually write a paragraph or a book on this question, but I'm going to summarize it because we don't have enough time. I think having gone back to school, to the university when I was 31 gave me an opportunity to experience residence life because I had never stayed in a residence. I had never stayed in a shared space, except with my family members. And immediately when I walked into that residence hall, I felt that I could contribute to that space. And within three months, I was appointed as a residence assistant. And I think that's where the passion was born.

Vency Mupupa [00:19:33]: And as the years went by and I got involved in residence, I mean, student affairs, residence life as a student assistant, the passion just kept on being fueled. Although all of my qualifications are in law. The passion was just there. I left the university and I went to work for a law firm for a year. But I was still yearning to come back to the university to contribute and play a role in the lives of so many students. And I think when I heard about this degree, this Master's degree, it didn't take me a second to complete the forms because I really wanted to get an in depth understanding of what student affairs is, but also gain a lot of skills that I hope to impact wherever I go to in the world. So I'm literally excited about this Master's degree. So thank you for that.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:20:25]: Ready? Again, I'd like to also provide a bit of context. It's important to explain it. As I mentioned, I do my PhD in Entomology and alongside this scientific work, I also serve as a Communications Officer at the Wageningen Doctoral Council where we work to enhance the quality of PhD trajectories and also promote the overall well being of the doctoral candidates at Wageningen University and research. So in this role I also get an opportunity to collaborate closely with the university leadership to improve the doctoral education communication and also the inclusivity. And I also chair the Career committee of the PhD Council at the National Graduate School in the Netherlands. And together with my colleagues we design and organize initiatives such as career talks, company visits and also alumni sessions at final year PhD retreats in close partnership with the PhD graduate schools. Experiences have allowed me to develop good leadership and organizational skills and more importantly, they have given me a deep appreciation for the human side of the academia, supporting students, fostering the professional growth and create an environment where everyone can thrive. So over the past three years my interest has steadily evolved towards the student affairs and also higher education administration.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:21:44]: And as a researcher I realized that scientific progress is not only about experiments or publications, but also about the people, how they are supported, mentored and guided through the complex journey of higher education. My administrative involvement showed me how much impact does this thoughtful student policies and academic support systems can have on us. This realization really motivated me to take this Master's from Lumsa University because it combines the theory with also hands on experience, bridging both the European and global perspectives on student development, education, leadership and also the campus well being which is offered in close collaboration with UCA and naspa. And this is very much a unique opportunities to learn from international experts. And our cohort is really amazing. We have people from different countries covering four to five continents. So what I want is through this Master degree I really aim to gain Deeper understanding of student learning, advising and development, where I can apply this knowledge within the academy and beyond. So my long term goal is to build a hybrid career, one where I can continue my entomological research while dedicating part of my professional life to student affairs and higher education leadership.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:23:00]: So I believe that by combining this scientific inquiry with a commitment to the student development creates more holistic, impactful academic career, one that not only advances science, but also strengthens the communities which sustain it.

Leah Punch [00:23:16]: So why did I choose to study student affairs? So my background is also not in student affairs. My background is in geography. But while studying geography, my interest was always in community building and development and how we could develop communities. Just like many others in student affairs. I kind of also like just landed in student affairs. Like the air blew me into student affairs. But once I started working at my current university, I realized, like, I really enjoyed working with students, supporting students, kind of like co learning with them and helping them. Like, it's kind of like molding them for their future.

Leah Punch [00:23:53]: I really enjoy that because I really enjoy that and I really enjoy supporting students. I was always like, interested in, okay, how could I support them better? How could I do this? And I think the natural next step was when I saw this master program was like, oh yeah, I could like formalize my learning a bit more. So not only what I learned from my job, I could also learn it like more in a more professional way. So yeah, I really enjoy what I do. So the natural next step for me was joining the master program to kind of like support my learning that I have in practice. Yeah, that's why I chose to like, further my study in this field.

Julia Jaque [00:24:32]: I truly understand how valuable it is to have someone from student affairs by your side. During my own university journey, there were moments both academically and personally, when I felt the absence of a guiding presence. And that experience has shaped my desire to become that support for others. I would like to be that guide for someone else and help students achieve their academic and personal success.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:02]: I want to thank you all for sharing your motivations for being here. I also want to let you know that our dear colleague Julia unfortunately ended up having a technical difficulty, so she's not able to join us for the rest of our session today. But it's such a joy to work with you all in the technology space for this master's program and for our listeners. Our class today was learning about podcasting as a technological medium for working with students and student affairs. So I want to thank you all for choosing to share your voice with the naspa, AUKA and LUMSA communities and I'm looking forward to continuing our learning journey together. Thank you all so much.

Julia Jaque [00:25:39]: Thank you very much.

Raghavendra Reddy Manda [00:25:41]: Thank you very much.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:42]: Thank you.

Joseph "Joel" Parcon [00:25:43]: Thank you for having us.

Luca Corona [00:25:44]: Thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:45]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:51]: Thanks Jill. So excited to be back in the NASPA world and there's a ton of things happening in naspa. The Certified Student Affairs Educator is the core certification credential intended for mid level educators and above. NASPA offers both self guided and moderated opportunities to learn to help learners successfully prepare for the CSAED exam online. If you plan to apply to take the certification exam, you can utilize these resources to help you prepare to asap. There's a virtual info session on this application and preparation resources that are available. That will happen on November 18th and the application for this certification closes on December 15th. You can find out more at studentaffairscertification.org As a remember the NASPA Public Policy Hub consists of a compilation of policy research, coalition work and resources from naspa, other associations, nonprofit organizations and think tanks with expertise in various areas of higher education.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:53]: Based on input from staff, organizational partners and members, NASPA has curated this centralized resource to include policy trackers, articles, fact sheets, legislative summaries, and informational videos that outline state and in federal legislative and policy changes for student affairs professionals. The Policy Hub is a NASPA member only resource, so it is an amazing benefit to you as a NASPA member. If you've never logged in to check it out for yourself, I highly encourage you to log in to the Public Policy Hub for yourself on the NASPA website. You can get there by going to Learning finally, today, NASPA is proud to announce the release of its first ever Sexual Violence Respondent Services toolkit. Developing a framework Working with students accused of sexual violence, dating violence and or stalking in higher education as colleges and universities continue to strengthen their prevention and response systems, the need for thoughtful, equitable and trauma informed the respondent services has never been greater. This new publication provides practical guidance for higher education professionals supporting students accused of sexual or gender based harm, helping institutions balancing compassion, accountability and community well being. This publication explores what effective support services can look like beyond legal or clinical frameworks. Offering both theoretical foundations and actionable strategies to inform program design and institutional planning.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:31]: Campus practitioners will find in this book guiding frameworks for developing and evaluating respondent services Concrete strategies to define service scope and approach Adaptable tools and suggested language for direct practice reflection prompts to support professional development and staff training. Grounded in NASPA's commitment to holistic student well being, this resource is designed to help campuses create equity minded, community aligned approaches that meet the needs of both students and institutions. Whether you are building new support structures or refining existing processes, this framework offers a starting point for sustainable values driven practice. You can purchase Developing a Framework on the NASPA Learning site@learning naspa.org Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the Association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways. Because the association is as strong as its members and for all of us, we have to find our place within the association. Whether it be getting involved with a knowledge community, giving back within one of the the centers or the divisions of the Association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit? Where do you want to give back? Each week we're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:15]: I see myself doing something like that, or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association. Because through doing that, all of us are stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:30:45]: Chris, thank you so much again for another informative NASPA World segment and keeping us updated on what's going on in and around naspa. If you're a regular listener to student affairs voices from the field, you might know this is where our Lightning Round usually pops up in our episodes. Because of the size of our guest list today we weren't able to complete the Lightning Round as normal, so we'll be closing out our episode here. But I want to thank all of our master students for being brave and being willing to put their voices into the space today. And also to all of you who are out there listening if you want to add more ideas to our show or if you'd like to contribute as a voice yourself. Friendly reminder, we're always looking to cast new voices in student affairs. You can find us by emailing us@sa voicesaspa.org if you want to find any of the students that were featured today, please feel free to search for them on LinkedIn. This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:31:43]: This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to to reach the show, you can email us@sa voicesaspa.org or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now. It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:16]: This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me, produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

If you're looking for fresh perspectives on careers in student affairs—and a truly honest conversation about the journey ahead—don't miss the latest episode of Student Affairs Voices from the Field. In this episode, host Dr. Jill Creighton sits down with Dr. Amy Hecht, Vice President for Student Affairs at Florida State University and co-editor of the new NASPA book, The Next Act: Realigning Your Mindset, Purpose, and Career.

The central theme of the conversation is the evolving nature of careers in student affairs, especially as professionals face mid-career questions and disruptions in life. Dr. Amy Hecht shares her own journey, returning to her alma mater after years spent at various institutions, and reflects on the unique challenges and opportunities this brings. She emphasizes how being away for decades allowed her to maintain objectivity and openness to making necessary changes—rather than being "married to" her undergraduate experience.

The podcast dives into the origins and vision for The Next Act book. As Dr. Amy Hecht explains, the project emerged during the COVID era, spurred by widespread burnout and the "Great Resignation." The book fills a major gap in the literature: it doesn't simply celebrate student affairs. Instead, it highlights realistic, sometimes raw conversations about burnout, career shifts, and redefining success. In her words, "There isn't one true path... It's an ebb and flow of a career over time and ways in which we find fulfillment."

You'll hear about chapters spotlighting professionals who've moved into K-12 education, consulting, the faculty route, or transitioned into other sectors within or outside higher education. Stories from people like Karen Warren Coleman, who found new fulfillment in K-12 school leadership, and Jeanna Mastrodicasa's pivot within her institution, show just how many ways student affairs expertise translates beyond traditional upward mobility.

Another powerful element highlighted is the Deck of Disruptors, adapted from Bruce Filer, which visually maps all the life events—both positive and negative—that can throw established plans off course. The episode makes it clear: disruptions are normal, and reevaluating career goals is healthy and essential.

Finally, the conversation underscores the enduring value of student affairs: building community, supporting students through crises, and adapting to meet institutional goals. Dr. Amy Hecht urges professionals to articulate impact in data-driven and narrative ways, showing how student affairs shapes retention, graduation, and life outcomes.

If you're contemplating your next steps, seeking inspiration, or just want to hear authentic voices in higher education leadership, tune in to this enlightening episode. It's a must-listen for anyone in student affairs considering what purpose, fulfillment, and possibilities look like in a changing world.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your Essay Voices from the Field host Today on Essay Voices, we are going to be talking about the book the Next Realigning your mindset, purpose, and career. This was a book published by NASPA in March of 2025, co edited by Jason B. Pina and Amy Hecht and Associates.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:42]: Our guest today is Dr. Amy Hecht, who has served as Vice President for Student affairs at Florida State University since 2017 and is a nationally recognized leader in higher ed with extensive experience shaping student success, campus life, and institutional strategy. Prior to returning to her alma mater, Dr. Hecht served as Vice President for Student affairs at the College of New Jersey, or tcnj, and held positions at Auburn University, Temple University, Cabrini College, and the University of Pennsylvania at Florida State. Dr. Hecht has established FSU as a national example for excellence in fraternity and sorority life, expanded on campus housing, and created new programs and services designed to advance student success. She's provided steady leadership through numerous campus crises and has also overseen initiatives such as the Lift Recovery Program, Health Campus 2030, and the launch of the DC Study Away Program. Her leadership has driven 150% increase in philanthropic giving to student affairs, reflecting her ability to align fundraising with transformational student impact.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:39]: Dr. Hecht's accomplishments have been recognized nationally with NASPA's Pillar of the Profession Award and the Scott Goodnight Award for Outstanding performance as a VPSA. Beyond her administrative leadership, Dr. Hecht is a respected thought leader and author. She's co edited two books and is frequently invited to contribute to national dialogues on student success, leadership development, and the future of higher ed. Her next book, Telling Time Management of Women in Senior Student Affairs Roles, which she co authored, will be available in 2026. Dr. Hecht earned her Bachelor's degree in Mass Communication from Florida State University and her master's and doctorate in Higher Ed Administration from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:14]: Hope you enjoy our conversation. Amy, welcome to SA Voices.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:02:19]: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:20]: We always love featuring our pillars of the profession here on the NASPA podcast, and you've been around NASPA for quite a long time, contributing positively to the profession, to the organization, and most recently as an author, which is what we're going to be primarily talking to you about today. But before we get into the book the Next act, which is co edited by Dr. Jason Pina, who's up at NYU and we also would love to start by asking you how you got to your current seat at Florida State.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:02:47]: Wow. So I started out like many people in student affairs because I was a very involved student at fsu. I, I am an alum and so it is a rare gift to go back to your alma mater. I was very involved and that is kind of my exposure to student affairs. Never thought I would come back to Florida. I actually wanted to be in the Northeast. Went to the University of Pennsylvania for my master's one year program. Got out and Pennsylvania has so many schools, was able to really spend quite a bit of time there.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:03:21]: As I moved up and got to work with vice presidents and dean of students, I realized I loved the administration side. I loved the organizational development and realized I had to go back and get my doctorate. My GRE scores were going to expire and thought I'll go back and I'll go real slow because I wasn't sure I wanted to be back yet. In the classroom and the process, I really enjoyed it. I kind of fell in love with the concept of organizational learning and got a call to go to Auburn University from a mentor and was there for four years and he kind of said, okay, now you've been an avp, you're ready to be a V. I did not think I was really loved that AVP role, but became the Vice president at the College of New Jersey right outside of Philadelphia and became region director of Region 2 of the College of New Jersey. Loved being there, but did get a call from the search firm about Florida State. And early on in my career I tried to kind of get back to the state of Florida.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:04:21]: It's where my family's from. Never worked out and was very flattered that I was nominated for FSU and said, oh, I'll just send them my resume, see what they think. Sure, there's way more qualified people. But I did get an airport interview and then fell in love with the people and the rest is history. So coming back, I've been, I had been gone, you know, over 20 years, so it is interesting. I know some of the history and some of the traditions and how important student life and the student experience is, but also worked many other places. So I kind of have the best of both worlds. I'm an insider, but haven't necessarily been brought up here and have only seen one thing.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:05:01]: I've seen a lot of other institutions and how they operate.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:04]: I think that's always so interesting to go back to your alma mater. We have stories where people loved working on both ends of that as a student and as a full time administrator and other people who said that it really changed their perspective on their alma mater and not necessarily in the way that they wanted it to. So can you tell us a little bit more about creating some sense between the things you loved as an undergraduate student and the things that you're working towards improving as an administrator?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:05:28]: I do think that's really interesting because now you kind of. Now this is how the sausage is made. And as a student, and I was not the SGA president, I didn't fill any of those roles. So I really didn't see some of the upper work happening at Florida State when I was a student. The state of Florida has a really great program called Bright Futures. So if you have a certain GPA and SAT score, you get 75% of your tuition paid. So for my family it was, this is choose one of the state schools in Florida and you're going there. Even though I had dreams of, I don't know, going to New York or Hawaii, but financially I was here, I do think it's challenging Florida State and maybe this is the same for all of the state schools in Florida.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:06:08]: We get a tremendous amount of financial support from the state. They've been very generous and that comes with a lot of oversight. Other states that I've worked in have not had the level of oversight involvement of their state legislature. And I think that has been very difficult. But I do think me being gone as long as I have been and coming back, I am not as mirrored towards my experience has to be the experience of all of our future students. There are things that have changed and some that haven't since I had been gone. So I think that has helped me not kind of taint my own undergraduate experience once you see how it works. And there had.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:06:49]: There were decisions made by administration when I was a student that now I'm thinking I'm paying for some of those decisions now, or we're trying to fix a decision that was made, you know, 20 something years ago. But for me it has, it hasn't been a problem, but I could see how, how it could be. But I do think that the length of time I was gone really helped because so much time has passed and I don't have a great memory of that long ago to really remember a lot of my undergrad experience for some reason. So I do think I'm able to make changes and not be kind of too married to any of the things that I experienced as a student.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:25]: Amy, we really want to dig into the book today, the Next act, which is one of NASPA's newest publications. It just came at an annual conference about five, six months ago. It's really filling a gap in the literature that we haven't seen before. So it was an exciting thing to see a book that really had some honesty in it around. Careers in Student affairs had more to it than the positive side of the profession. It had lots of realistic and truthful conversations in it from the people that wrote the essays. Lots of wonderful and familiar names in the author list as well. But you and Dr.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:58]: Pina had put this together. Can you talk about the vision for the book? What inspired you both to take a moment to put this into the space in the literature?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:08:07]: Right now, I have to give my good friend Dr. Pina Credit. He came to me during COVID during the Great Resignation and all the challenges we experienced, and said, I think there's something here about what are people doing? What has been the effect of COVID And then as we were writing it, Covid kind of passed and, you know, we got back into In Person and it evolved to what it. What it became as the Next act, which I think for me personally, it was a really fulfilling project because I have always been someone who is focused on a goal. What is next? Someday I want to be a vice president of student affairs. Someday I want to do this. And getting my current position as the VP of Student affairs at Florida State is, in my opinion, one of the best jobs in student affairs in the country. Maybe others feel the same.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:09:01]: And it was, well, what is next? And what if I don't want to do this work? What if I get too burnt out? So much has happened and so much has changed in the almost 30 years I've been in the profession. It is not at all what I thought it was, nor. Or is it the same as somebody who was a VP in 2001? A very different field, very different challenges, and it's all I've known as a career. It's all, you know, Jason is known as well, and it is what would be next? What could I do with all this experience, all this education and. Or am I trapped, personally, am I trapped in my current role or only in this job? And you're not, and not even if you're a vice president. But what do we do with these higher education degrees, these student affairs experiences. What if I want to get out of the fields? And what would that look like? And we, we kind of joked, I don't know if NASA is really going to want us to publish this book. That might be encouraging folks to look elsewhere.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:10:05]: I have found it gave me a sense of security in read, reading the book and all of the fabulous authors journeys and it gave me a sense of peace of actually no, I'm making a choice to continue to be where I am. But if I wanted to find a new path or do something different, I have so many options that aren't necessarily just moving up in student affairs and becoming an AVP or a dean of students. There is a lot more we can do at these degrees that maybe aren't always put front and center or it's not how we entered thinking that was going to be our next goal. But there's still very fulfilling ways in which you can still contribute, use the skills you've obtained, the degrees that you've obtained. And I think there's a certain amount of freedom that that has given me and others who realize there isn't one true path. It's not always up and to the right. You know, you're not always just moving straight up and down. It's an ebb and flow of a, of a career over time and ways in which we find fulfillment.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:07]: One of the points made early on in the book is that, you know, millennials are coming into the vice presidencies now. Most millennials are in their early 40s at this point in time, which means there's 25 working years left in a career, which is more career left than has already been in the rear view. And that's a lot of time in a seat. It's a lot of time to think about, am I the right person for this seat for that long period of time? Is that the best thing for this institution? It's an interesting question to ask. We also have perspectives from presidents who have come through student affairs in the book. I think you just made that great point that the career trajectory doesn't always have to be quote, unquote upward. Not all of us want to be presidents of institutions. It's a really tricky time to be a president of an institution.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:50]: And much like a VPSA role, I think we're seeing a lot of transition and possibly burnout in the presidency position. So this book really kind of pathways out some different choices where we're still progressing, we're still learning, but doesn't necessarily mean that we have to continue to move up an institutional hierarchy to find fulfillment. So can you talk about the different pathways that are laid out in the book and maybe some chapters in particular from authors who have taken those pathways.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:12:19]: I had that very same experience. I became a vice president in my 30s and most recently was meeting with my new president a few years ago. And he said, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I don't know. I'm happy right now, but I have another 20 plus years to work and I just don't know if I can do this work with the same energy and love for another 25 years. I'm good for now, but in all realism, I don't know if I could do it. And I think there are people who have done it and they do it well and I admire them, but I don't want to have to do it because I don't have another choice. And some of the chapters and Jason and I divided so he had half of the author and I had the other half and went back and forth on their chapters. But a few that really spoke to me.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:13:07]: Karen Warren Coleman, she is a good friend of mine. We did start the AVP Institute at NASPA together. We were both AVPs at the same time. And she is currently ahead of A K through 12 school now in Philadelphia. She was in Texas and moved to a different sort of education. And her chapter, I wrote back after reading her chapter and I said, wow, you make this sound really exciting, exciting, really enticing. And the skills that you're using are, are so similar that I don't know if I thought of it because I did not grow up attending a boarding school or I went to public school in independent school. But you think of the skill set of these K through 12 or some version of that with housing, with dining, with mental health and curriculum, these heads of school, the skill set is very similar and very attractive.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:14:05]: Something she felt would still allow her to come back to higher ed at a later date if she wanted. But I found that to be really interesting. I also had the chapter on going the consulting route and folks that have become either search consultants or working for any of the firms we've used across our campuses like Huron or kpmg and their knowledge being really great, adding some flexibility, perhaps earning a greater salary, but being aware of the differences of corporate America, the sales part of those jobs. I think I would love the research part, but they really shed light on the pieces that you might not think about is finding the business. You've got to bring in the work on that area. So I think each of the chapters are really interesting. There's a few others you mentioned the presidency, some that have gone to the faculty and are just excelling being in faculty coming from student affairs. A few that have worked outside of student affairs at their same institution are different.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:15:12]: Using their institutional knowledge in a new way I think is something we don't often think about, but our skills are still applicable, whether it's in the academic affairs arm, research arm, or so on. So really looking at that I think is exciting. I do think it really opens the door and allows us to do what we tell students to do, which is think about those transferable skills, what they're learning inside and outside the classroom, and how it applies to any number of pieces.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:15:41]: There are a couple other ones to highlight in case practitioners listening are interested in picking this one up. One is about shifting roles within the same institution and I see a really familiar name to the podcast and to NASPA, Gino Mastodacaska and Katie O'Dare. Both of them have been in the NASPA world for a bit, but Gina transitioned completely into a different side of the institution out of student affairs after a long career in student affairs and is really thriving in a very different niche within the institution. I'm also seeing one on transitioning from higher ed into new industries and these are young industries that are happening outside of higher education. And as Amy mentioned, there's also some information here on the consulting role and some other things that are really valuable. There's a chapter also on shifting institution types and particularly I've heard from people that are trying to start serving community college spaces from four years and are struggling with that because the community college needs are quite different than a four year need and complete mindset shift around that. So an interesting one to call attention to.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:16:42]: Absolutely. And I do think we're aware that serving different kinds of students makes a really big difference whether it's community college going to maybe an HBCU or an hsi urban versus rural. So those are all ways to kind of challenge our skill set, learn something new and then the going global chapter. Still you being in the uk, I dream someday of moving to a foreign country and having that experience. But the learning in that chapter and the opportunity to bring student affairs in America, which is not how most other countries deliver higher education, is great, but also the learning those authors shared because they had to also learn a new culture, not just of a campus but of a country to be able to deliver. I think is is a really interesting for those that can Find that kind of work and move their families or move themselves. I think it. That's a really exciting way and that Glass Going Global chapter.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:17:41]: And I'll give it a shout out to those authors. It's Dr. Ainslie Carey, Dr. Raphael X Moffat, and Dr. Baishaki Taylor, all of whom have been on Essay Voices. So if you want to hear their international voices, go check out our past season on International Voices in Student affairs and just give some credit for them because their episodes are wonderful. One of the things you feature in the book as well at the very, very beginning is something called the deck of Disruptors, which is kind of a theory that comes out of an author called Bruce Filer. And this deck of disruptors is basically a list of all the things in our life that can derail the pathways that we're on.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:18:14]: And I'd never seen this image before, and I thought it was quite interesting because I went, oh, well, these all are, I think, in some ways pretty obvious, but when you put them in one infographic, you go, oh, wait, this makes a lot of sense about why my pathway might need to change. Can you talk about your choice to include this image and kind of how that sets up the book?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:18:32]: I think we don't talk about that a lot. I do think Covid has led many of us to collectively have a disruption. But disruptors can be positive and in some ways they can be negative. But they could be the birth of a child, a marriage, a spouse, getting a really new, exciting opportunity that requires you to move. It could be a divorce, illness, any number of pieces that make you stop and reexamine that goal of did I really always want to be a president or always want to be a vice president? It might not fit into your current priorities of what's important in your life at that moment. And I think that that is okay to acknowledge that, you know, we always. I. I laugh and I do this to my girls as well.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:19:15]: What do you want to be when you grow up? And it's rare that you actually know the answer to that or you're going to stick to it, but I do think there's maybe an unconscious desire to stick to what we said we were going to do when we started out. I knew a lot of folks that said, I'm going to go into higher ed and eventually become a president. I know very few of them who still want to become a president of an institution. So I think it's also giving grace of just because you said you always wanted to become X, your journey might require something different. And that's okay. It's okay to shift. And there's lots of disruptions. And in fact, we in our life are having more of those disruptions than we've ever had.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:19:57]: And that is why our careers ebb and flow. And that is a natural part of life is those kinds of things that might disrupt us, our path. And growing up, you don't think of getting married or having a child as maybe causing you to reorganize, organize your priorities. But it absolutely does. And it's always interesting to see why people go on those paths. And some of our authors do share their reasons for stepping out of higher ed into consulting or going into the faculty. Some of it is just professional and career fulfillment, but some of it is because life things happened in their life and they needed to adapt and evolve.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:20:34]: If you'd like to look this up again, it's called Deck of Disruptors, and it breaks down the disruptors into five major categories of love, beliefs, work, identity, and body. So it's things like a car accident or being diagnosed with an illness or maybe a change in your living situation or, you know, something related to a change in your relationship or something like that. So lots of different ones to look up again. The author of this infographic is Bruce Filer. Fantasy E I L E R Amy, I want to talk a little bit about the process of creating an edited volume like this. You've been an author and a scholar for a long time and published your own work, but it's a little bit different when you're the holder of the keys for a volume like this. If I've been authoring and I want to do something like this, how do I even begin?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:21:19]: Sure, that's. That is a good question. I've had folks ask that. Jason and I have now done two edited books. Some people love that process and some people do not. I love it. It is important to pick great authors. So we shaped the idea and submitted it to NASPA with our wish list of authors of who we know, who we may tap to write some of the chapters we came up with.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:21:44]: And after being approved by naspa, we started inviting authors and in some cases needed to get new recommendations, making sure we had kind of a diversity of experiences that we could find and know people who went to K12 or who became president. And for us this time we divided those authors and we go back and forth on their chapter. We have found asking them to outline it and have a due date and then write us a little more. And then we are constantly reading, giving feedback, making sure that they are staying true to the purpose we submitted to NASPA at the beginning, but also capturing their voice and their expertise and their journey and making sure that as we read it, we hope that the readers aren't going to be left with any questions. So we ask, you know, them to expand on this or if you're willing, can you share the reason why you did Y or X, Y and Z? Because I think for authors, being as raw and as vulnerable is really useful to know that other people are struggling with maybe taking a step back in their career for their children or maybe stepping out so that their spouse can do something different. And we don't often talk about that. So I thought that was that was kind of part of it. I mean we read it multiple times, but then we read it holistically and together to make sure that it flows and kind of tells a cohesive story.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:23:07]: And you've got another volume coming out next year on empowering women in leadership and student affairs. Can you say anything about that at this point?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:23:14]: Yes, we have submitted that book and we're waiting for edits from our editor. But that book is will be called Telling Time. It is authored book me and four other women on senior women in student affairs and how they use their time. We conducted over a hundred studies of women's use of time in 15 minute increments, really trying to capture the story of how women prioritize different aspects of their life, how in which they care for children, care for loved ones, spend time on relationships and attempt to balance everything and prioritize at different points. And you know, you really can't have it all. We know that. But but how are women kind of using their most precious resource, which is time, when they have a lot of competing priorities.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:24:02]: Would you like to shout out your co authors?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:24:03]: I will Angela Chong, who is the VP at the University of Oregon Brittany Deves, who works at Florida State with me and fraternity and sorority life Kelly Hennessy at the College of New Jersey and Tina Torme, also at the College of New Jersey. Some awesome women writers. And so we are, we are really excited for that book to come out hopefully in 2026.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:24:25]: Looking forward to reading that study. Any highlights that you can share about your findings early on?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:24:29]: Some highlights is most of us, most of the women do not spend time thinking about how they use their time like we would our financial budget or budgeting our time doing the study kind of forced some of these women to do that and reprioritize wastes of time, things that we do to kind of decompress that feel good in the moment, but in hindsight, don't. Just like a diet, if you're writing everything down, you're going, oh, that wasn't probably the best thing for me to eat. It felt good in the moment. We found that with, with time as well. And just even if you're not participating in a study, even just doing that has helped people feel more productive. But we also found what I say, I prioritize. The majority of us don't spend our time on the things that we say are a priority. And I think that doing this periodically, even with a friend, can just help you stay true to what you say, you value or what's important to you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:23]: This season, we're focusing on the value of student affairs as our theme. And we've been asking the same three theme questions to all of our guests, so I'd love to pose those to you now. Our first question is, when you think about the value of student affairs, what comes to mind first and why?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:25:38]: What comes comes to me first is really community. I think community both on our campuses, that is what we do. We create places for people to belong, for people to feel that they matter, people to find their purpose. We do that with our students. I feel we do it with our staff and our teams. And I think naspa, they do it actually for the globe because we're an international organization. But there's so many different levels of community that I have seen throughout my career. Help students, help staff, help vice presidents and others, navigate really tough issues, but feel like you are not alone.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:26:15]: And I think that is probably our superpower.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:26:18]: Our second question, can you share a specific story or moment when you saw the value of student affairs come to life?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:26:23]: Quite a bit. During my 8 years now at Florida State, we've had a significant challenge almost every year. I'm going to knock on wood, but we had a, most recently a campus shooter in our student union, which is the living room of our campus. Brand new building, beautiful, very open space, purposefully all glass so you can see throughout the multiple levels. And our sense of safety for the staff and our faculty and our students was disrupted in that moment. Several students were injured. We lost two administrators, one that worked in our dining and one who is a visiting vendor. And in the heels of that, seeing my team come together to support each other, to support students, to do things outside of their job description, to help heal both themselves and our students and our community.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:27:16]: Everything from creating new community centers because we couldn't use our student union. So we did that on campus. But then the outpouring from colleagues across the country, offers to help was incredible. And the value of student affairs flexibility, our knowledge of emergency protocol, our ability to counsel students to be vulnerable with them was really telling. Myself and the president would often come to our newly created community center and the president would say, this is as healing for me as it is for these students. And I say, you know, absolutely, being in community with people after a crisis is the best way to heal. And I think our contributions were seen by everyone and we felt at Florida State the love from those that were thinking of us during that tragedy.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:28:12]: Thank you for sharing that really vulnerable piece of the student affairs stories because I think when we have violence and other components like that that happen to our campuses or loss of a student or something like that, I know for me, I've carried those moments with me personally for a really. And so we're there supporting everybody else and also trying to figure out how to take care of ourselves as human beings in those moments. And those are incredibly hard. So thank you and your team for holding, holding all that for the Florida State students. Our third question is what do you think that student affairs needs to do to be better understood and better seen in today's educational environment?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:28:49]: I do think that that is a challenge. It's one what we're facing at Florida State, I think some of it is we've got to translate our impact into the language that our institutions are using. Graduation, retention rates, career readiness. How are we contributing to the metrics that in the state of Florida and elsewhere, we are being measured on. We know there are other words that we can use that are important and valued, but we need to be speaking the language that others at the institution are using. We need to do better with data and telling our story and having the data to show some of what may be seen as an extra or an add on or a nice to have the value of that and the benefit, whether that's to mental health, a sense of belonging, graduation and retention, a lot of those pieces. And I feel there are so many contemporary issues on our campus event safety, free speech, mental health, workforce development, career readiness. All of those things are within student affairs realm, things that we do naturally, not just in the departments whose name, you know, are associated, but all of what we do.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:29:59]: And so I think it's really sharing that. And being at the table, I think is important for the policy and the budget, I would say, are some of the top things we need to do and Become like Pat Whiteley, also one of our authors, the best vice president on the cabinet. How are you part of those conversations and shaping the narrative and bringing the student voices and the student experience to the table?

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:30:21]: As someone who gets to interact with that cabinet and also the students and the families that are at fsu, what data points are you bringing to the table right now that are really helping tell that story?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:30:32]: Some of them are the fact that students that are living on campus with us and we have 45,000 students, but only 6,700 on campus beds. But of those, they have higher GPAs, they're retained at greater rates, and they graduate at higher levels. So that is a telling, powerful story of what is happening in our residence halls that does not happen in an off campus apartment. And how do we grow that experience so that more students have that opportunity? And so we are adding to our bed count. We are also investing in six months post graduation. Where are our students? Where are our graduates? Are they in graduate school? Are they gainfully employed? And then where are they five years out, 10 years out telling that story? And what were those experiences they had at fsu? You that they contribute to their career success? And oftentimes it is the job at campus recreation, it is being an ra, it is being in the student government that was a powerful experience that they still refer to. And I think telling those stories and putting alumni out there is really important. But part of kind of that value of what we do.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:31:41]: Are you using any narrative data points in order to help tell the story of student affairs, especially for areas of student affairs that maybe we can't as easily create cause and effect data or demonstrate that the support that we're offering students in those spaces might, might have that long term impact on their journey, but maybe is not evident. Semester one to semester two, we do.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:32:04]: We can do better. We do collect some narratives, especially when it's a sensitive topic like our emergency Student aid fund and the impact it has or victims advocate program or case management. We could do more, of course, and really bringing those stories to life. But I do think it's very impactful. I've seen it impact our board of trustees who hear one story and then we say there are 30 others behind this story that show the impact of, you know, our food pantry or any of the programs we have.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:33]: Amy, as we conclude our conversation on the book and the work that you're doing at Florida State, is there anything else you want to put into our space today?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:32:41]: One of the great things about my current gig is that you can kind of dream. I'm really proud of like a number of things we're doing, some of which are advancing like the greater goals of Florida State. We just launched a DC Study Away program which is modeled after our International Study Abroad program. We have property housing purchased in Washington D.C. and we will have our students living there and interning fall, spring and summer and that aligns with our President's goals as well as our VP of Research goals which is to have a greater presence in D.C. and it was really fulfilling to be able to kind of plant the first flag for Florida State in D.C. and hopefully others will come. A lot of schools have already gotten to the DC market and have different programs, but the one we're contributing right now is a very student centric experience that we want to give our students the opportunity to live and learn in Washington D.C.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:33:41]: so that's exciting and who knows what new ideas we'll come up with here and try to implement.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:33:46]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:53]: Thanks Jill. So excited to be back in the NASPA world and there's a ton of things happening in NASPA. The NASPA Annual Conference has identified two of their keynote speakers for the 2026 NASPA Annual Conference. The Tuesday keynote will be Dr. Kevin McClure. Dr. McClure is a professor, researcher and speaker dedicated to reimagining the higher education workplace. A distinguished Scholar of higher education, McClure holds the joint title of professor of Higher Education and Department Chair at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:25]: He is the author of the Caring Reimagining the Higher Education Workplace after the Great Resignation. His research on college leadership, workplace culture and organizational care has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Edition Education and at national conferences. Through McClure's writing, keynotes and workshops, he helps leaders create people first campuses where faculty and staff can thrive. McClure is passionate about helping colleges and universities build a culture where faculty and staff can thrive because when employees feel supported, students and institutions succeed. Our closing keynote is Dr. Amelia Parnell. Dr. Parnell is an accomplished higher education executive and an internationally recognized thought leader regarding current issues in EM trends in the field.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:35:11]: She is a passionate advocate for higher education as a tool for personal advancement and impact, and she is committed to work that centers students needs. In her first year as NASPA President, she has met the members across the world, including NASPA regions, divisions, knowledge communities and areas, and has visited more than 25 campuses to speak directly with student affairs professionals. She frequently delivers keynotes on the value of student affairs and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and the PBS NewsHour. Dr. Parnell holds a PhD in higher education from Florida State University and a master's and bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Florida A and M University. Just a reminder that the early registration deadline for the 2026 conference ends on December 17th. You can register today on the NASPA website. Do you need help funding attendance at an upcoming NASPA event? Event NASPA Foundation Access Scholarships may be able to help Donor Gifts have funded scholarships directly supporting conference registrations and on site housing for select NASPA events and opportunities.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:36:19]: The following dates are the deadlines for some of the upcoming applications. November 12th is the deadline for the first cycle of Student affairs educator certification. November 14th is the deadline for the 2026 NASPA strategies conferences as well as the 2026 NASPA institute for new AVPs and the 2026 NASPA AVP symposium. You can find out more on the NASPA website. Finally, NASPA, alongside a coalition of 38 science, business, education and research organizations, submitted public comments to Citizenship and Immigration Services opposing the proposed rule to implement a wage level lottery for cap subject H1B petition. The comments indicated that the proposed rule would privilege seniority in lower wage occupations over genuinely high wage, high skill roles, undermine the retention of early career STEM talent educated in the US and weaken US Scientific and economic competitiveness. The coalition urged USCIS to withdraw the proposed rule. If you'd like to see the comments on this proposed rule, you can learn more in the Policy Hub on the NASPA website.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:37:34]: Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the association, so we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways. Because the association is as strong as its members and for all of us, we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with a knowledge community, giving back within one of the centers or the divisions of the association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit? Where do you want to give back? Each week we're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community. I see myself doing something like that or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now, to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association. Because through doing that, all of us are stronger and and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:59]: Chris, thank you so much for another informative NASPA world. We appreciate you keeping us up to date on what's going on in and around naspa. And Amy, it is time for our lightning round where I ask you seven questions in about 90 seconds. You ready to roll?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:13]: I'm ready.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:14]: All right, question number one, if you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:19]: The Fugees, Ready or not.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:20]: Number two, when you were five years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:23]: A doctor.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:24]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:27]: Ainslie Carey.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:28]: Number four, your essential student affairs read right now.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:31]: The next act.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:32]: Number five, the best TV show you've been binging lately.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:34]: Scandal.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:35]: Number six, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last year.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:38]: The Daily New York Times.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:40]: And finally, number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional to?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:44]: My friend Jason Pina, thank you so much for always calling me to partner with any crazy idea you have. So so shout out to him.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:52]: Amy, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today. If anyone would like to converse with you after the show, how can they find you?

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:39:58]: Best Way is LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn @AmyHacked or my email at FloridaState is ahactsu.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:40:06]: Amy, thank you so very much for sharing your voice with us today.

Dr. Amy Hecht [00:40:09]: Thank you. It's great to be with you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:40:15]: This has been an episode of Savage Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple, Podcast, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:40:45]: It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me. Produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

If you work in higher education or care about college access and affordability, "Student Affairs Voices from the Field" continues to be a must-listen. In this season's fifth episode, host Dr. Jill Creighton welcomes Melanie Storey, President and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), to demystify the changing landscape of student financial aid and its deep ties to student affairs.

The episode dives headfirst into the rapid-fire changes shaping higher education funding today. Melanie, bringing decades of experience from policy implementation at the U.S. Department of Education and leadership roles throughout Washington, D.C., articulates how student financial aid has evolved. From its beginnings with the Higher Education Act and the emergence of need-based aid, she describes the ongoing tension between supporting students with the greatest financial need and responding to broader shifts in public opinion about the value of higher education.

A major theme in the conversation is the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OB3), which is making waves with its broad changes to loan programs, repayment plans, and institutional accountability. Melanie clarifies complex topics like Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), repayment clarity, and the introduction of earnings measures for universities. She urges student affairs professionals to recognize the uncertainty this creates for students—not just in their financial planning but in their emotional well-being and sense of security while pursuing degrees.

For families embarking on their college journey, Melanie recommends making the most of resources like StudentAid.gov and financial aid estimators, emphasizing that fit—academic, social, and financial—matters more than chasing prestigious institutions. She also unpacks new programs like Workforce Pell, which expands grant eligibility to short-term vocational programs, opening new avenues for career-focused students.

Throughout, Melanie champions student affairs professionals as the human heart of higher education. Whether helping students navigate anxiety about finances or bridging connections with financial aid offices, she sees these campus leaders as vital advocates and problem-solvers.

If you're looking for practical insights, clarity on policy changes, and a dose of optimism in "interesting" times, this episode will deepen your understanding. Tune in to hear about the evolving relationship between student affairs and financial aid—and be reminded why student affairs matters more than ever in helping students thrive.

Listen to "Student Affairs Voices from the Field: Melanie Storey" now and join the conversation shaping the future of higher education!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your Essay Voices from the Field host Today on Essay Voices, it's our privilege to welcome Melanie Storey, who is the President and CEO of nasfa, which is the national association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. She began her tenure on May 1st of 2025. With decades of experience in federal higher education policy, financial aid operations and organizational leadership, Story brings deep expertise and a steadfast commitment to advancing access and equity in higher education.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:52]: Storey most recently served as Director of Policy Implementation and oversight at the U.S. of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid, or FSA, where she led cross functional teams in translating federal policy into practice. She played a central role in implementing the FAFSA Simplification act and the Future act, and contributed to major initiatives like federal student loan debt relief. She frequently represented FSAA before congressional staff, administration officials, and higher education leaders. Before joining the department, Story led policy and strategy work at the College Board and served as Director of National Initiatives at the American Council on Education, where she supported national commissions, analyzed legislative proposals, and led public service campaigns. Earlier in her career, she was a policy analyst at the national association of Independent Colleges and Universities, or naicu, conducting research and collaborating with government relations staff on federal policy proposals impacting private institutions. A proud first generation college graduate and financial aid recipient, Saray earned a Master's degree in Public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School at the University of Texas at Austin and holds a bachelor degree in Economics and Public Policy seat from Smith College.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:03]: Melanie welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field.

Melanie Storey [00:02:06]: Thank you, thank you. Hey Jill, it's great to be with y' all today.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:08]: I always love doing crossovers with other higher ed professional associations because we all occupy the same industry but very different lanes within the industry, almost like many verticals. So it's great to talk to a subject matter expertise in in an area that deeply affects the student affairs profession. But most of us definitely are not.

Melanie Storey [00:02:25]: Experts on yeah, no, I really appreciate it and I think more than ever in the current environment it is so important that we we be talk about the things that we're facing within our own lanes, but across our lanes because it is really a pretty transformational time that we're dealing with right now. I keep saying that I welcome to live in less interesting times, but I don't think that that's going to happen anytime soon. So I really welcome the opportunity to spend some time together, talk about student affairs and financial aid.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:52]: The meme that I keep seeing is, you know, I'm tired of unprecedented times. I'd rather go back to precedented times. And I think a lot, you know.

Melanie Storey [00:03:00]: Whatever the Confucius may, you live in interesting times. I'm like, no, thank you. I'm have a NASA thumb. Thanks. I'm good.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:06]: We could use some boring around here. That'd be fine.

Melanie Storey [00:03:07]: I'll take it.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:08]: But Melanie, you've been with NASA now just for a hair over a year, I believe, and came to NASA from the U.S. department of Education. But we like to get to know our guests more specifically by asking, how did you get to your current seat, if you wouldn't mind sharing the journey?

Melanie Storey [00:03:22]: Yeah, so it might feel like a hair over a year, but it's really only been about five months. I started in late spring at NASA, took some time off from my time at the department. I took a little cleanser time before jumping in. So I have always been what I will say, say is financial aid adjacent. I guess I haven't worked in a financial aid office in my career, but I started even in undergrad, really focused on education policy. I was really interested in policy from the very start. And when I finished my undergrad, I moved to Washington, as many young, eager people do with, you know, kind of like a suitcase and a very light checkbook and hope for the best. I kind of fell into higher education policy.

Melanie Storey [00:04:01]: You know, I think a lot of policy programs tend to focus on K12, and that was kind of true for me early on. And then my first job was with a contractor on the Pell Grant, Right. Fundamental grant to support low income students. And I kind of, it opened my eyes to higher education policy and access and affordability. And I'm a first generation college student. And it was really like, well, yeah, duh, this is, this is important. Like this really makes really important change in people's lives. And so it kind of started there.

Melanie Storey [00:04:30]: I've been in Washington almost the entirety since then. I've worked for various associations that represent college and university presidents, the College Board, and then as you mentioned, the U.S. department of Education. So I've always been fully committed to affordability and access and making sure that the doors of higher education are open to all those that seek it. And so when the NASPA position opened, it really is a dream job. For me, I mean, it is leading a group of incredibly dedicated professionals who share the principles and goals that I have built my entire career around. And so I'm thrilled to be in the job. It is definitely a challenging time, but I'm fully committed and proud to be the voice of those who are committed to the students that they serve.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:10]: And NASFA for our listeners, if you're new to this particular acronym, is the national association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. So a sister cousin organization to us here at naspa.

Melanie Storey [00:05:22]: And oftentimes you use naspa, nasfa. You have to be very diction has to be really good to make sure you're not confusing us.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:28]: There's also nafsa, which is the students abroad.

Melanie Storey [00:05:32]: You know, we joke about the Alphabet soup. It's real. But yes. Yeah, NASA, student financial aid administrators.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:37]: And just because I'm originally from the Seattle metro area, I do want to clarify. Melanie's in Washington D.C. that's important.

Melanie Storey [00:05:43]: That is the bubble you've identified that we, when you're here too long, you just, you make these assumptions. Yes. I have largely lived in Washington D.C. for most of my career. I did spend a few years in Austin doing some graduate work. Washington D.C. which quite frankly Washington State and Seattle sound much better these days.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:06:01]: Melanie, you have seen the arc of student financial aid, student affordability change drastically over the course of your career. Can you talk us through a bit of kind of what that rainbow has looked like from what the mission looked like when you started versus kind of what the daily work looks like now?

Melanie Storey [00:06:18]: Yeah, I mean that's a really, it's an interesting question. Right, like what that ARC looks like just to like sort of level set, right. Like financial aid and the sort of art and science. And I like to talk about it a little bit as both sometimes the art and science of financial aid really came to pass with the Higher Education Act. So the Higher Education act of course is what really codified some of the core financial aid programs. Loans, preexisted basic education grants, but Pell grants, federal student loans, the kind of things we know about today. So that means it's about 60 years old. So not that old in relation to some of the other things, but pretty well established.

Melanie Storey [00:06:54]: And I think what we're kind of facing now is you kind of have the stor norm kind of things that happen. And I think that's a little bit of what you see in the arc. I think in the early days you saw this really kind of visceral commitment to need based aid and the primacy of need based aid. And just for clarity, need based aid is directing funds to the students who need the funds in order to access post secondary education. So the counterbalance to that would be merit so that, you know, scholarships and aid that is awarded based on a student's achievement in any number of areas. But I think in the federal programs you saw a real commitment and dedication to the focus on need and lower income families and giving them the support they needed to make sure that their students had access to higher education. Over the course of my time I think we've seen a lot of push and pull around this need merit debate. And you know, they don't have to be mutually exclusive, although the pie is limited.

Melanie Storey [00:07:52]: I don't want to make it seem like it is without boundaries, but you tend to see a movement where loans, federal student loans, are less targeted toward the lowest income students. They are generally since the mid-80s, I won't get into legislative language, but since the mid late 80s that middle income and even middle upper income families can also access loans with the core sort of grant programs still really being focused on the lowest income students. But that sets up a lot of policy challenges and appropriations challenges. Right? Loans are mandatory, funded, they don't have to be funded every year. Again getting kind of technical, But Pell grants have to be funded every year. So you see this kind of tension kind of building over the course of my career. The other thing that I think has really been a dramatic shift and we're seeing it play out in public opinion polling and in other places where the general public is being asked is around the value of higher education, whether it's federal or state. Governments are literally investing hundreds of billions.

Melanie Storey [00:08:50]: It's not over time, trillions of dollars in higher education. They want to know what they're buying and that they're getting a value for that investment. And I think confidence in the value of higher education has really changed over the course of my career. And so that has a kind of broader. It's not specific to financial aid, but it has a real impact because financial aid of course is the distribution of the funds that are invested in this effort. And so I think one of the things, and I'm sure we'll get to this at some point that I and thinking about at NASA is how do we recapture that narrative? How do we really fully demonstrate the transformative value of higher education, whether it be for the individual, the family, the community, but also our nation. It drives innovation, it drives research and really making sure that, that we can tell that story and the return on that investment. So that has been sort of the overall kind of context that I think has really changed in higher education.

Melanie Storey [00:09:44]: So you both want to make sure that you're focusing on need based aid. Although merit has value and we see more of that, but also that we can demonstrate that what we're investing in is really advancing individuals, communities in our nation.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:09:56]: We're in a situation now where the Department of Education is really changing the way that financial aid is implemented and distributed to students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. We saw the one big beautiful Bill ACT pass just a couple of months ago. We know a lot of those changes aren't actually going to take effect until the next academic year or some even beyond that. But NASA has developed a really great chart resource that talks about a lot of the changes and where they impact us and our students. But from a student affairs professional perspective, there's a large number of us who have been relying on public service loan forgiveness for our own journeys. So I'm wondering if we can start there and can you tell us what we know about how the OBBBA is going to change how we engage with federal financial aid from ourselves as professionals?

Melanie Storey [00:10:50]: Yeah. Wow. That's a good question. I call it OB3 because the one big beautiful Bill act is a tongue twister and a lot of words. So I'm going to just default to my OB3 if you don't mind.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:00]: That's great. I'm going to steal that.

Melanie Storey [00:11:02]: Yeah, it just, it's a lot when you talk about this and you lose a lot of time speaking that way. So a couple of things about ob. Let's start with public service loan forgiveness. Public service loan forgiveness has had a journey of its own, is I think, sort of a policy that, while deeply well intentioned, has been victim to overwrought design at times. When we saw that early on when so few people were able to be eligible or be able to demonstrate that they were, I think in the previous administration we saw great strides in being able to kind of bring clarity to it and be able to ensure that more folks who were dedicating their careers to public service were able to take advantage of it. And then the current administration, I think is looking at it a little bit differently, although, you know, I don't. My crystal ball is often cracked, I think, in terms of forgiveness programs. And I say that deliberately because remember in the previous administration there was a lot of talk around forgiveness broadly that was really around what they saw was dysfunction in the loan repayment area.

Melanie Storey [00:11:59]: And so they were there was a desire to try to provide some relief to borrowers who quite frankly had been victim of a lot of confusion in the loan repayment space. I think all the politics of that aside, that's largely settled law at this point. We're not going to see broad based forgiveness. There's no appetite for that. And quite frankly, you know, I think it has kind of been before the courts and the decision has been made. Public service loan forgiveness, however, is different. It has generally enjoyed bipartisan support. I do think that there is support for supporting individuals who may forego bigger salaries or lots of things in order to commit 10 years of their life to public service.

Melanie Storey [00:12:38]: So I'm pretty confident that PSLF is on solid ground now. Do I think that that means it won't be without some changes? The answer there, I'm afraid to say, is no. And the two things that I would point out, I'm sure if you're following this, you're aware that there was a negotiated rulemaking that's a very fancy Washington D.C. term for regulatory debate and regulatory effort to define what a qualifying employer would be. This was an unusual negotiated rulemaking. It tended to lean less from the operational regulatory side and more into what I would call sort of value driven, that kind of work. The challenging thing about operationalizing something like PSLF and just for folks who may not know, when I was at the US Department of Education, I was on the implementation side at Federal Student Aid, the operational side. So I tend to think about policies not just in their goals, but like how do you actualize it, how do you implement it? And the thing about PSLF is the way to implement it is really through the tax code, C3S, 501, C6S, where they do certain things.

Melanie Storey [00:13:37]: That is the way to do it in a broad scale way. Trying to put a layer on this of some sort of value structure based on an administration's goals is really complicated in an implementation way. So I think what you saw in that regulatory process was a honing that if you are working for an organization that has been determined to have violated the law, you may not be eligible for psof. Well, which has violated the law. Like, I mean not to get like start to split the hairs, but that just gets really complicated and I think it's going to take time. So on that arena, while I understand it is setting and maybe a little panicking, I encourage folks to take a breath. These things take a long time. They've gone through the regulatory process, they'll issue a rule.

Melanie Storey [00:14:19]: But how it gets operationalized. And whether or not someone would truly lose their eligibility based on an employer's bad act is going to be a much more complicated process than just it's not going to shut the spigot off overnight. The other piece though that I think is up for debate on PSLF is the idea of unlimited forgiveness. And I love to my colleagues in higher education, some of our wounds are self inflicted. And there have been programs who have encouraged significant borrowing based on the fact that a student would see all of their loans forgiven after 10 years. That really wasn't the intention of this program. Significant debt forgiven at the end. It was to encourage, you know, folks to consider public service careers.

Melanie Storey [00:14:58]: So I do think there's potentially an appetite to see some limitations on the amount of debt to be forgiven. Now, whether or not that can be done unilaterally without some grandfathering in of students who are already in pslf. Right. There's other debates to be had about that, but I do think on the PSLF front that that's something that is likely to be to reemerge and to be debated. The rest of the OB3 stuff. And as you said, we have a chart. I don't know how many pages long it is. It's at least a couple, maybe three, I don't know.

Melanie Storey [00:15:27]: There are a lot of provisions in there and importantly big picture spans programs for short term workforce programs fundamentally changes the borrowing landscape how much students can borrow, particularly in the graduate level. And then the repayment plans which repayment is a source of real pain for borrowers. Too many plans, very confusing. What's eligible for forgiveness, how long? I mean it's, it's NASA strongly recommended and supports a more clarity and streamlining in the repayment program. So important work there. We might have haggled around the edges in terms of where we landed but I think it's important that we have different repayment and then some accountability for institutions. Again, back to this return on investment. But so for student affairs professionals, all of this uncertainty and lack of clarity is really unnerving for students.

Melanie Storey [00:16:17]: Finance in college, it's a huge investment of time and money and commitment and no guarantee of outcome. I mean the statistics bear it out. But you know, the job market is tough, right? There's just a lot. And so it impacts you all personally. Student loan forgiveness, repayment, all of that. But also the students on your campus are increasingly experiencing worry, anxiety every semester. Is the bill paid? Can I register for my classes? It's very. And not having certainty.

Melanie Storey [00:16:46]: Am I going to be able to borrow enough money for graduate school. Am I going to be eligible for this program that will help me get through that? That level of uncertainty is really disruptive to the learning, to the experience, to all parts of it. And I think a lot of that often comes to student, you know, to student affairs professionals who are, you know, in place to really engage and support students in their post secondary life.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:17:09]: It's an interesting time as well because we just saw a modification to the FAFSA within the last couple of. I think it was the last year really. 24, 25 was the first year.

Melanie Storey [00:17:18]: Yes.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:17:18]: That the FAFSA changed. So we're just seeing kind of fast, intentional but complicated changes to the student loan grant landscape in the United States along with college affordability being part of the conversation, along with a change in administration, et cetera. So if I'm a family looking at federal aid for the first time, maybe I'm a first generation family that's attending college. What is your pro tip for making heads and tails of the situation that people see in front of them?

Melanie Storey [00:17:47]: Yeah, so I would say two things. One is if available in your community, if there is a community based organization or someone in your high school or your church or wherever your community may reside that support sort of FAFSA completion and that work, I encourage you to build those relationships. Now they are the folks on the front lines that are really along with financial aid administrators. But you don't tend to really have a relationship with them until you've chosen your school. But they are the ones who are going to be super knowledgeable on kind of how the changes are coming. That might feel like a bridge twofold. So what can you do in the Meantime? Go to StudentAid.gov StudentAid.gov is the front door of the U.S. department of Education's kind of home as it relates to federal student aid.

Melanie Storey [00:18:29]: Look up or just Google federal Student Aid estimator. We can drop a link somewhere. But the federal student Aid estimator, it's not a full fafsa, even though the FAFSA is much faster and easier now. And I'm going to put a plug in there, but it's not time. But if you're say a junior, right, A sophomore or junior, you're on the front end of this. Go to the federal student Aid estimator, ask you maybe five, six, seven questions. It's pretty easy. You don't need to bring any paperwork and it'll just give you an estimate of what is called your student aid index.

Melanie Storey [00:18:55]: It'll Give you a sense of what your family circumstances might make you eligible for the outcome of that estimator. That SAI is really important because every school that your young person might be considering also is required to have something called a net price calculator. And I'm getting into the weeds, but follow along with me here, right? The net price calculators is an estimate of the types of aid they provide to a family generally like yours, based on the outputstudentaid.gov site. And so use those net prices. Be realistic. If I had one like magic wand I could wave, I was like, please, can we move away from the narrative of elite drinking? Can we move away from the narrative that there's a single school for every individual? You know, like there's a single aspirational school. It really needs to be about fit. It needs to be about academic fit, social fit, financial fit, and students need to be academically, socially and financially ready for post secondary education.

Melanie Storey [00:19:53]: So starting to hone in on what that social, academic and financial fit is, one of the things you can do is understand what you might be eligible for generally and then at schools that might be that you might be interested in or your student might be interested in, and then start building your lists, having the conversations, understanding what the overall cost of colleges, tuition, room and board, how far away from home, what is the transportation going to look like, what other options are for housing are there. Right. There's some costs that you can control and some that you have less control over. So if I, and I do advise families at times, you know, who are first generation, first interactions with post secondary education, is to do the research up front, be open in those conversations and be open to all of the types of institutions that might be available to you that really I think there is a lot of words around aspirational schools and it's great to have an aspirational school and if it works out, great. But I want to caution people by being too myopic, that and then not necessarily making smart financial decisions and maybe not getting the right return on their investment because of that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:20:59]: I think in student affairs we be the very first to support students in their journey to find the right university or college for them. We're big proponents of community college education, of technical college education, and figuring out if the four year university is the right move for a person or if it's going to be one of the privates or if it's going to be a large public. There's different, there's something for everybody at the higher education level. So Long as we're supporting students in the journey they want to find.

Melanie Storey [00:21:24]: So yeah, that it really is. That's such a big piece. But I didn't even mention private colleges. But you know, when I talk about price, people always think private colleges are out of reach, but they often have more money to give. Right. Like. So that's why I really want you to. I want people to think broadly about their lists and do the work to see what might be a fit.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:21:40]: So on the other end of this we have some changes to institutional accountability as it applies to federal financial aid. And I think this is where student affairs plays a big role in supporting students through persistence to degree completion and then ultimately helping them help students set themselves up for success in the job market. But I think these institutional changes also maybe turn the mission of higher education for us. And I think that's a debatable point for some, maybe not for all. Some would say that higher education is to expand critical thinking skills. And for those who have kind of the luxury of time and the privilege of the financial freedom to go to college, it's about learning how to think about and solve problems. For others it's only about job preparedness and earnings capacity. And I think that this, this institutional accountability measure probably pushes us towards the latter because it has introduced some earnings measures for universities.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:22:34]: Would you mind sharing kind of the CliffsNotes version of what this is and how it's going to affect our day to day work?

Melanie Storey [00:22:41]: Yeah. So you know, you talk about sort of the critical thinking and you know, I'm a liberal art arts graduate, big fan, see the value but it doesn't, doesn't diminish the importance of. I also needed to get a job when I graduated. Like I don't always see those things in opposition. I do see it as a yes and but it does. I think it is reflected in OB3. And just again back to this value of higher education. It isn't all about earnings and getting a job, but it all has to be a little bit about.

Melanie Storey [00:23:07]: There are very few who have the privilege of just going to enjoy the experience and free think and I don't know what happens after that. Like at the end of the day, you know, there is a responsibility there but so OV3 introduces accountability as you mentioned, a new accountability framework that will hold institutions accountable for earnings of their graduates to be higher than those earnings of a student who only has a high school diploma. That's the clip Note the devil is always in the details. Someone who may only have a high school diploma may go into a high skill trade and have high significant income. As student affairs professionals, financial aid professionals know this too. Those first three, four years of earnings are not your strongest earnings directly out of college. Right. I think we have some concerns right around the details of the data.

Melanie Storey [00:23:55]: If we're going to be held accountable. And I, and I. Let me just be clear, my members in higher education, we should be held accountable for delivering on the opportunity that we are marketing. The question is how does one measure it? Where does one measure it in the arc of one's life? Very few metrics will be perfect and this is the one that we have now. And so I think what your question and lead up is kind of answering to though is, you know, will it change the, the dynamic of our institutions to be admitting and encouraging students to move into what are more our higher paying careers or you know, kind of early on whether or not that is their, you know, sort of where they want to head? And I think that's a, I think it's an open, it's an open question. I think it will. We're going to have to look at the first few years of this data and see what it kind of looks like. You know, right now we don't, we don't have very good proxies.

Melanie Storey [00:24:45]: So it's really hard to get a sense of that. There will be again going back to this negotiative rulemaking, a regulatory process around the accountability metrics later this year and early in 26. Those will be important conversations to help us define how this accountability will be measured and applied. But it is an important and dramatic shift and it's not new though. Just to be clear, there are already something called gainful employment and financial value transparency. VT for those of them know that has been in place under a regulatory structure for some time. And to be clear, it has been challenged and removed and restarted. I think we're on like our fourth round of it.

Melanie Storey [00:25:21]: The department has already gotten data, they've collected data and they have data in house that is eagerly awaiting to be reported out around some of this gainful employment and financial value transparency. The thing about OB3 is that now it's in statute, now it's statute is more powerful. It's rooted in statute versus a regulatory effort. And so, and it differs a little bit from gefbt. So our hope is that we can get to a single set of accountability metrics. We don't want to double up the burden on institutions and make it meaningful for policymakers to assess institutions. But maybe more Importantly for students and families to get a sense of the value they might be getting at a particular institution. But it is higher education bristles at the idea of earnings being our only outcome.

Melanie Storey [00:26:03]: And that's appropriate, but it is an important outcome. And so I think we need to work on a yes and as opposed to just a no.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:26:09]: Let's talk about graduate students. There was an elimination of Grad plus loans, which is going to have some deep impacts on anyone earning a master's, doctoral or professional degree. Some of the limits that are put in the Grad plus loan or the grad loans that are still available won't cover the costs of some of these educational experiences. Some people might be in the middle of their experience right now and these changes are going to come in a year. And I know that they have a year to figure out how to finish paying for that particular educational experience. Particularly worried about things like medical school. We see medical school price tags more than a mortgage in some places. And the only way to complete them for some students are through these types of loans.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:26:49]: So how are we going to get our graduate students to the finish line knowing that these are, these are coming.

Melanie Storey [00:26:55]: Yeah. So this was a big. This was. And fast and significant change, largely, as you said, focused on graduate students. On the elimination of Grad Plus. Let me take, let me take your question about those who are currently engaged in their programs right now. There are provisions in the law for grandfathering those who are currently enrolled into the Grad plus program and into the existing loan limits as long as they stay in the program and they don't switch programs or schools. So not ideal.

Melanie Storey [00:27:20]: But there is grandfathering. It isn't just, it's not quite the cliff effect next year. This is something that is also being discussed in the negotiated rulemaking about how long this grandfathering will last. Students may take longer to finish their programs. I believe the language in the law is something like, like three years, the end of their program or three years. And so if someone takes four years, are we really kicking them out? Right. I guess so. I think we're trying to understand three full time years.

Melanie Storey [00:27:46]: Right. Like there's lots of things we can debate around that. But the grandfathering provisions for those who are currently engaged I hope will provide a softer off brand for those folks. But for students who are just looking to embark on their graduate education, this is a much more daunting kind of reality because the truth is that Grad plus is, is going away. And let me, let me start with a little tough talk here around why I think this happened and why I think Congress acted pretty abruptly here is that there was a lot of frustration when we talk about return on investment, that there were at least a few marquee, particularly master's degree programs that were charging significant six figure tuitions that realistically were not going to have of payoff that one would expect from that. Now students make choices. Students make choices of their programs. They make choices.

Melanie Storey [00:28:36]: You know, they are, they, they have agency in these decisions. Right. So I don't, I don't, you know, want to dismiss that, but I think certain members of Congress and key members of the committee saw the combination of these high tuitions, limited return on investment and the combination again back to PSLF and this expectation of hundreds of thousands of dollars being, being forgiven. And they were like this was not the intention of these, this was not. And they saw it as being, they saw it as institutions, not all institutions, but some institutions being bad actors in terms of taking advantage of the programs. I say that just because I want, I think it's important, you know, we can hand wring and teach Nash like why would they do this? And I sometimes feel like we lose clarity that we're not always all perfect actors like and sometimes we have to, but we do have to operate as a community and sometimes some of members of our community don't always operate as we might wish. So I say that, you know, I do think that is at least part of what seeded where we are. But what do we do now? I can tell you that NASA and our institutions are working hard to figure out how we might fill the gap.

Melanie Storey [00:29:41]: Whether it is an institutional funds, state funded loan programs, private loan programs with Advantage Advanced, you know, kind of safety nets and benefits as we can, particularly to help lower income students access capital to pursue graduate degrees. Right. We don't want to close that much. Like we believe in need based aid and the opportunity to access higher education for all students who desire it, regardless of their income. This can extend into graduate programs as well. And I think, you know, that is what we are currently focusing on. What can we get in place quickly that is supportive and student focused in order to help students pursue post secondary education that's on the grad plus elimination. It's gotta be just a pure.

Melanie Storey [00:30:23]: What other vehicles can we find? What other capital vehicles can you support that are student friendly to do that? On the loan limit piece we're currently negotiating with the department, the negotiations are around what constitutes a professional degree which is eligible for higher loan limits versus a graduate degree. There's A lot of rain going around. And I think that's going to be an important conversation to help define what kind of capital is available. But I'll be honest, like, I think Congress is hoping that it puts downward pressure on the tuitions that are being charged on these programs. I don't know if that's a realistic hope in this world, but I do think they are hoping that institutions get creative in ways, in terms of how we finance and develop and design these programs to make them more financially accessible to students. And so I think, I think we have an opportunity and an obligation as institutions to try to think creatively around that as well.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:31:11]: Let's talk about Pell. Pell has a new program called Workforce Pell, which is something that I'm wholly unfamiliar with. So I'll just be very honest about that. My understanding is that I believe you have to. It's kind of like work study adjacent ish. For Pell eligible students. Is that incorrect?

Melanie Storey [00:31:28]: So Pell grants, generally you have to be enrolled in a program that is, you know, I think I gotta remember like 15 weeks, right? Or like, you know, it has a le associated with it, which really made it. It kind of was initially something that differed, made Pell different than some of the Department of Labor programs for shorter kind of certificate, very vocationally focused programs. The expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to short workforce programs plus Workforce Pell are, is making students who are enrolled in these kind of vocationally focused certificate, 6 to 8, 6 to 10 week programs eligible for Pell Grants. And to be clear, like a lot of our community colleges, a lot of our vocationally focused for profit institutions offer great vocationally focused programs that are very short in length, these are great for retraining, and then someone can go into the workforce with the certificate. They historically have not been eligible for Pell. So this is quite a bipartisan effort to expand eligibility to Pell Grant programs to Pell grant dollars for more of these programs. And so the tricky part is we want to make sure these are high quality programs, right? Like much else, when we are expending federal dollars, we want to be good stewards of those dollars. So part of the implementation of Workforce Pell is identifying programs and certifying programs as eligible.

Melanie Storey [00:32:46]: So institutions will have to go through a process to demonstrate the value of the program. It needs to have been in place for a number of years. There's, there's a few things in the law around that, but so, but it really just an expansion of eligibility of Pell to these more vocationally Shorter term programs. So again, a different pathway of opportunity for students to leverage Higher Education act funds towards career goals.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:33:11]: Thank you for clarifying that. So clearly I had completely misunderstood its original intention, but this is good stuff.

Melanie Storey [00:33:16]: I mean, you're not deep. There's no need for you to be deep in the weeds on that. It really is. It's a Pell Grant. It's just now Pell Grant for a different set of programs.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:33:24]: Is there anything else in OB3 that student affairs professionals could benefit from knowing that maybe we're not paying close attention to or maybe it's like a tiny technical detail or something that. That might have been. So I have my doctor's in public policy. And so I always think about like, what is the, the small thing that's one sentence long that actually completely changes the meaning of a thing? Because we all know those are in there.

Melanie Storey [00:33:46]: Yeah, boy, you're not kidding. I mean, you've covered a lot of it. But I'll tell you, like one technical detail we are watching pretty closely. And it is almost like a sentence. And this, I'll explain what it's called. Loan proration. So what this means is, is that your loan eligibility will be prorated by the number of credits that you are enrolled. So in order to be eligible for the full loan amount, you would be enrolled in 9 to 12 credits.

Melanie Storey [00:34:11]: Right. But as you drop down in credits, your loan eligibility will diminish in a prorated fashion. So that sounds, I mean, but that has not been the way the programs have operated. If you're eligible for a loan, you're eligible for a loan. So proration is kind of a like, wait, what? Because not many graduate students are. Particularly for graduate students who we know are already getting hit on grad plus and other things often are only enrolled in 6 credits, 8, 9 credits. So what will that mean for their loan eligibility? So that holistically is something we're watching. That's in the law.

Melanie Storey [00:34:42]: That's going to happen. But what we're really watching is how will they implement it? So if I'm a student and I'm enrolled in 12 credits and then life happens, because life. And I'm like, oh gosh, I'm going to drop that class or I'm going to drop two classes and take this other. So now Mulane rolls for seven credits, that's going to. Now we're going to have to ask you to hand back some of your loan funds. If we've already. So when, when does that proration happen? Student affairs and financial Aid Administrators hate to go back to students and say, oh, we gave you money, now we have to take it back. Like that's the worst case scenario.

Melanie Storey [00:35:13]: Right. That's terrible. Predictability and transparency and clarity are so clutch for planning. So communicating to students that like, you're eligible for this amount of borrowing based on your current course selections, your enrollment, and again, life happens. So it's not in any way, but just understand there's new consequences to making, having to make changes. And that is this like tiny little thing that I am. I just is going to catch a lot of students off guard next fall.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:35:43]: One of my foci in student affairs has been fundamental needs. Security. So food security, housing security.

Melanie Storey [00:35:48]: Yes.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:35:48]: And my mind immediately went to, well, that money's probably already spent on rent and food. And if we're, if we're required by the government to claw it back from a student, that's going to create a housing crisis. I can already kind of hear it coming. So that's a really important nugget.

Melanie Storey [00:36:04]: So communicating. And this can happen with your folks. With my folks, we will do, we will shout this from the rooftops. It'll be on every financial aid letter you get, every communication. But you know, students are busy, no shade on them. Right. Like these things can kind of come and go. But just understand this is a significant change that can really upend, as you said, you know, very fundamental needs and kind of stuff that we're spending a lot of time and negotiating.

Melanie Storey [00:36:31]: At what point is it locked in? Is it at certification disbursement? Right, because the loan, you know, you sort of, you know, there's a progression that happens with loans awarding, you know, and so we are trying to make sure that we minimize the impact of this on students as much as possible. But that is. Yeah, that's the sneaky. That's the sneaky1 in OB3 for us, I think.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:53]: Speaking of this particular area, our season's theme is on the value of Student affairs. And so I'm going to ask you our three themed questions. The first, when you think about the value of student affairs, what comes to mind first and why?

Melanie Storey [00:37:07]: I feel like student affairs humanizes higher education. Student affairs professionals are the human face and warmth of what can feel like a very opaque and intimidating industry at times, particularly for our most vulnerable populations. And so I am a first generation student, as I mentioned, my son is not. And it was still amazing to me the things that he didn't understand and didn't know despite I have a career in some of this work and So I just saw how much, much work and effort the professionals at his institution did to bring clarity and warmth and humanization to what can feel really overwhelming for students.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:46]: Can you share a specific story or moment when you saw the value of student affairs come to life? And maybe this is from the financial side of the house, given that's where you've been centered.

Melanie Storey [00:37:55]: Yeah. So I think in many ways, I think student affairs professionals are also like the navigators of higher education for students. Right. Like. Like when you don't know what an office hour is. Right. Like, is it office hour when you don't bother the faculty? Oh, no, no. Office hours are when you do bother the faculty, you know, and bother is not the right word there, of course, but.

Melanie Storey [00:38:16]: And so I have heard time and time again, time and again, you know, students who feel overwhelmed. Money is a very sensitive topic for families. For students, it feels very vulnerable. You talk about food and housing insecurity. These are. Are incredibly emotional spaces, but essential, essential to the journey of higher education that they, you know, that they have stable and that they see. And I. And so for me, I have seen and witnessed time and time again student affairs professionals connecting students with the financial aid professionals who can feel very much like no people sometimes because they are the ones, you know, they're the gatekeepers to dollars.

Melanie Storey [00:38:56]: And so they, I think, unnecessarily can have a reputation as not being as warm, but they are fully committed to trying to solve the financial financial issues. And I think student affairs and financial aid working together are an incredibly powerful duo. And I've seen countless examples of helping, saying like, your father lost their job, your mother has had a traumatic medical issue. We can get you more aid. Like, we can change things. Like. And it just. That isn't in the mindset of students.

Melanie Storey [00:39:25]: And so pairing that humanization over to the financial side, I think is incredible.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:29]: I always love to think of our financial aid partners as the people that help us try to get to. Yes.

Melanie Storey [00:39:33]: And creatively, that's where they want to be. That's where they want to be.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:38]: So especially if you're listening and you work in maybe student care, case management, or in any sort of advising role, if you haven't met your financial aid partners, they're a great resource to help us try to figure out how do we find aid without necessarily negatively impacting a student's future ability to borrow or what the impact of maybe like an emergency loan will have on that student, that type of thing. It's good stuff. And then our third question is what do you think Student affairs needs to do to be better understood and better seen in today's educational environment?

Melanie Storey [00:40:09]: I think we all need to be better at being strategic leaders. It's really hard and I feel this way for my members too. We're day to day dealing with individual students, with cases, with compliance, with, with. I mean, it's, the workload is extraordinary. But we are essential to the smooth functioning and success of students on our campuses. And so I think it is incredibly important that our student affairs leaders and our financial aid leadership be at the table with our presidents and chancellors solving the problems, the big problems, and bringing our voice to what we can bring to those problems. What solutions can we offer, what creative endeavors can we collaborate on? I feel like oftentimes the C suite is the chancellors, the business officers, maybe admissions and enrollment. But there's just incredibly important voices coming from student affairs and from financial aid that I want at the table.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:40:58]: Before we transition into our commercial break, I would love to hear from you on if you have any tips on, I suppose, demystifying the inner workings of the U.S. department of Education, because I feel like all of us in Student affairs have interacted with elements of what the department has put out at some point. Some of us have participated in negotiated rulemaking. Typically that's been around Title IX for most of us or other areas like that. So is there anything that you can say that will help humanize a bit of this thing that is the department?

Melanie Storey [00:41:26]: Yeah, you know, I mean, it's, this is a particularly tough time for that because generally, historically what I would have said is, is to really build relationships with the folks in your regional offices because those are the folks that have direct access into the Washington, D.C. based folks, but have a closer relationship with the institutions. Unfortunately, with the reduction in staffing at the Department of Education, a lot of those regional offices were gutted. So that is a little bit harder. If I have a tidbit, I don't have a really very good one right now. It is a pretty tough time. It is really about person and relationships. But the tidbit I might have is this.

Melanie Storey [00:42:00]: If you are calling the call centers, if you're trying to get an answer to a question and lagging, you're not getting it or it doesn't feel right. Those call centers are generally staffed by contract contractors. These are hard working, well meaning folks, but they're also racing to catch up with what is happening at the department. The real, the real answers are often found in escalations and escalations mean, it gets to someone who is a U.S. department of Education employee who's going to have to look at it and go into the systems or do whatever they need to do. Understand it. And so while it takes more effort and more lift, it is a little bit exhausting. On behalf of your folks and mine, if it doesn't feel right and you're not getting an answer, ask for escalation.

Melanie Storey [00:42:39]: Ask for the name of someone with an ed.gov email. That's, that's the way to get an answer and be persistent. And the nuclear option, if it's preventing students from enrolling, if students can't get access to funds, if it, if it is significantly impacting their journey to the point where they're going to have to drop out, the nuclear option is to call your member of Congress or have the student reach out to the member of Congress. And I don't say that with any joy because that is really hard on my former colleagues at the department to get these inquiries. But sometimes when a student's future is at risk, it's the only option. And I ask that you do it judiciously and only when a student's future is truly at risk. But it is a way to get what you need.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:43:19]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world. Thanks, Jill.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:43:26]: So excited to be back in the NASPA world. And there's a ton of things happening in NASPA. NASPA recently signed a letter with 21 higher education associations to congressional leaders urging Congress to restore FY 2025 funding for minority serving institutions, MSIs that was terminated by the Department of Education and to maintain and expand support for HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs in 2026. Citing the role these institutions play in serving students with the greatest financial need. This letter, as well as many of the other most pressing policy and advocacy updates states are housed on the policy and advocacy website. On the NASPA website. If you have not had an opportunity to be able to explore the policy and advocacy website, I highly encourage you to do so. With everything that is happening today and all the changes that are happening seemingly daily, it's important to stay on top of what is happening not only at the federal level, but in your state.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:44:29]: And NASPA is doing everything that they can to be able to track things that are happening both at the federal and at the state level that are impacting our institutions. I highly encourage you to spend some time there. Come back on a regular basis and see what the updates are, and you'll probably see some changes along the way as well in regards to new things that are coming and things that you may want to explore as well. On the NASPA website, some of you may in the past have taken a look at and identified that we have a great bookstore with books that have been written for NASPA itself, and one of those books is Careers in Student Affairs, a holistic guide to professional development in Higher education. This book was written a while back, back in 2017, but the information that is in it is as pertinent today as it was when it was written, and it provides a comprehensive look at being a higher education administrator, integrating perspectives from both research and practical applications. It's a reader friendly book addressing contemporary issues in higher education that are not typically covered in a graduate curriculum, but that employers expect student affairs professionals to be prepared for from their first position and beyond. The book is written for both new professionals and those transitioning to further levels of leadership, so it provides a cross section of topics that apply to various levels of experience. The book is filled with information and advice to assist you in your developing plans for career longevity and success.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:46:06]: Each chapter includes a question for reflection to help readers develop a career plan. It's organized into two parts. The first part focuses on professional performance and explores issues such as trends and contemporary challenges in higher education, developing professionalism and support networks and ways to navigate important issues such as organizational cultures, politics, conflicts and ethics and the second part looks at professional development with chapters that delve into defining personal and professional success, advancing a career in student affairs, becoming an effective supervisor, transitioning to faculty roles, and giving back to the profession. This is an amazing book and if you haven't had an opportunity to read it it I highly encourage you to take some time to explore it and see all of the amazing things that Peggy Holweis and Kelly Peck Parrott put together as they were putting this book out into the world. And I think you will find that it is an amazing book that can follow you throughout your career. You can find out more by going onto the NASPA website, going under Research and Publications to the bookstore. The early registration for both the 2026 NASPA Institute for New AVPs as well as the 2026 NASPA AVP Symposium are coming up on December 7, 2025. Both of these institutes are amazing learning opportunities for those that are either new to being an AVP or those that are currently AVPs and want to be able to learn and grow from others that are in similar roles as mentioned, the NASPA Institute for New AVPS is a foundational three day learning and networking experience designed to support and develop AVPs in their unique and challenging roles on campus.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:48:00]: It's appropriate for AVPs and other senior level number twos who report to the highest ranking Student affairs officer who have been serving in their first AVP or number two position for no longer than two years. The 2026 NASPA AVP Symposium is a unique and innovative three day program designed to support and develop AVPs and other number twos in their unique campus leadership roles. Leveraging the vast experience and knowledge of sitting AVPs, the symposium will provide high level content through a variety of participants engagement oriented session types. The professional development offering is limited to AVPs and other number twos who report to the highest ranking Student affairs officer on campus and have substantial responsibility for divisional functions. Additionally, VPSAs and the equivalent who are presenting during the symposium may also register at the discounted rate and attend the Institute for New AVPS is happening January 22nd to 24th in Denver, Colorado and the symposium is happening January 24th to 26 in Denver, Colorado. This offers opportunities for an individual to attend both or only attend one of the three day sessions every week. We're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the association, so we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways ways. Because the association is as strong as its members and for all of us we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with a knowledge community, giving back within one of the the centers or the divisions of the Association.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:49:45]: And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit, where do you want to give back each week. We're hoping that that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say hey, I see myself in that knowledge community. I see myself doing something like that. Or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now to offer other things things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the Association. Because through doing that all of us are stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in naspa.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:39]: Chris, thank you. As Always for another informative week of NASPA World. We always love learning what's going on in and around naspa. And Melannie, we've reached our lightning round all about you. We have seven questions for you in about 90 seconds.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:50:54]: Ready to go?

Melanie Storey [00:50:55]: Okay, let's go.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:50:56]: All right, question one. If you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Melanie Storey [00:51:01]: Oh, that's Easy, Girl on Fire. I did that this summer.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:03]: Number two, when you were five years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Melanie Storey [00:51:07]: Ooh, when I was 5 years old? Probably like a librarian. I was a real, like, book nerd when I was little.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:13]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Melanie Storey [00:51:16]: Ooh, my most, my most influential professional mentor is probably Becky Timmons, who was a great friend and mentor when I worked serving college and university president.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:27]: Number four, your essential higher education read.

Melanie Storey [00:51:30]: Inside Higher Ed, the Cron, and now occasionally, Politico every day.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:34]: Number five, the best TV show you've.

Melanie Storey [00:51:36]: Been binging lately, Ted Lasso. I just watched it a second time through.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:39]: They're filming right near where I live at the moment.

Melanie Storey [00:51:41]: I love that, you know, Ted Lasso is fundamentally optimistic in the face of lots of adversity, and I, I, I resonate with that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:48]: Number six, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last year.

Melanie Storey [00:51:52]: Smartless, I find funny and engaging. Kind of a mindless entertainment for me. And it's smart.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:51:58]: And finally, number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional?

Melanie Storey [00:52:02]: Well, I will say I would like to. I'll always give a shout out to my NASA, to my NASA team. As I said, I'm just five months in to this incredible opportunity. And whenever you come into a new organization, especially after they had a long serving, beloved leader, change is hard and they have been amazing. So Beth Maglione and all the other folks at NASA have really been, have fast become great colleagues, but also friends, and I appreciate that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:52:28]: I have deep respect for all the work that you all are doing, and I'm very grateful that you were willing to share your subject matter and expertise with the NASPA community. If NASPA members would like to join you or learn more about nasfa, how can they find you and your team?

Melanie Storey [00:52:42]: Yeah, so our website, of course, is NASFA. N a s n faa.org if they want to reach me directly, you're welcome to email me. I'm happy to receive emails. And that is story with an E. So S T O R e m for melanie.org and so welcome all feedback and input.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:53:02]: Melanie, thank you so very much for sharing your voice with us today.

Melanie Storey [00:53:05]: Thanks Jill. I appreciate it. Have fun.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:53:11]: This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on as Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:53:41]: It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me, produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan, Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.

Assessment isn't just numbers—it's a growth mindset. In the latest episode of Student Affairs Voices from the Field, Knowledge Community co-chairs Dr. Dana Weintraub (Rutgers University - New Brunswick) and Dr. Scott Radimer (William & Mary) share their perspectives with Dr. Jill Creighton on the vital importance of assessment, evaluation, and research in higher education, sparking conversations that will resonate with both experienced professionals and those newer to the field.

A key theme emerges early: assessment is not an "add-on" or a separate chore—it's a tool that empowers student affairs professionals to make evidence-based decisions, improve the student experience, and honor the promise institutions make to help their students thrive and succeed. As Dr. Radimer puts it, "Assessment work is really just an extension of that promise…we're failing to keep our promises if we're not doing that." Both leaders emphasize that assessment helps colleges move from "just vibes" to actionable data, allowing for advocacy, program improvements, and strategic change.

Dr. Weintraub offers practical advice for making assessment less intimidating, urging colleagues to see how data-driven decision-making fits into everyday life: checking the weather app before dressing for work, or setting personal fitness goals, both reflect continuous assessment cycles. She insists, "It's about growth mindset. It's equipping us with the information so we know how it helps us make decisions so much easier."

For those wary of statistics, Dr. Radimer reassures listeners: effective assessment relies on relationships, collaboration, and critical inquiry—not just crunching numbers. "Usually in student affairs, it's not that we're doing bad things…it's that we have so many things on our plate that sometimes the good gets in the way of the great." His advice: intentional planning and building assessment into the program design from the start makes it less stressful and more impactful.

The episode also demystifies involvement in NASPA's Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Knowledge Community (AERKC). Both co-chairs are passionate about the value of networking, professional development, and "work wellness" that the KC offers, encouraging anyone with even a passing interest in assessment to "just show up" and experience the supportive community firsthand.

Whether you're a seasoned assessment lead or a curious student affairs practitioner, there's something for everyone in this episode. Tune in to hear practical wisdom, relatable analogies, and uplifting encouragement from two experts committed to making data work for students—and their advocates.

Ready to turn assessment anxiety into actionable insight? Listen to the full episode and discover how you can be part of a thriving, supportive community committed to student success. TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:02]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts brought to you by naspa. We curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 13 on the value of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton. She her hers your Essay Voices from the Field host Today on Essay Voices, we are continuing our journey with getting to know our Knowledge Community leaders with the AERC or the Assessment, Evaluation and Research knowledge community. Our two guests are co chairs Dana Weintraub, PhD and Scott Rademer, PhD. Dr.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:42]: Weintraub is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Strategy, Assessment and Planning in Student affairs at Rutgers University New Brunswick and an Associate member of the Faculty at the Graduate School of Education. Since joining Rutgers in 2016, she's led division wide efforts in strategic planning, assessment, communication and development advancing student success through data informed decision making. Dana serves as the Primary Liaison to the Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support and collaborates closely with Senior leadership to shape and implement strategic priorities. She chairs the Student Affairs Assessment Learning Committee and leads training initiatives Taking that sentence over Chris, she chairs the Student Affairs Assessment Learning Committee and leads training initiatives on research and data strategy. Her scholarship, which explores topics like student leadership, gender equity in STEM and civic engagement, has been featured in academic journals and global conferences conferences. Outside of work, Dana is a proud mom of two, a marathon runner, dancer and passionate board game enthusiast. Always ready for a strategic challenge whether at the office or around the game table. She holds a Ph.D.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:41]: in higher education and organizational change from UCLA, a master's from Indiana University in Bloomington, and a BA from Ithaca College. Dr. Radimer is the Assistant Dean for Assessment, Accreditation and Accountability for the School of Education at William Mary. Prior to working at William Mary, Scott was the Director of Assessment and Planning at the University of Houston for the Division of Student Affairs. He has over 9 years professional experience in assessment, 22 years working in higher education, and serves as the co Chair for NASPA's Assessment, Evaluation and Research Knowledge Community. He's published and given presentations on topics such as One More Time on that. He has published and given presentations on topics such as assessment, men and masculinities and urban serving institutions. Scott earned his Ph.D.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:22]: in higher education from Boston College and his Master of Science in Higher Education from Florida State University and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Vermont. Welcome to SA Voices. Dana hello hello and hello Scott.

Scott Radimer [00:02:37]: Hello.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:37]: We are thrilled to have you on the episode today to talk about the NASPA Assessment Knowledge Community, aerc. And I'll let you all define that a little bit more as we get into the conversation. A lot to talk about in the assessment world right now, but as we jump into our topic, we still love to get to know you first. So, Dana, let's start with you. How did you get to your current seat at Rutgers?

Dana Weintraub [00:02:58]: Thank you. Really wonderful to be here. Dr. Creighton, thank you for having Scott and I on, on the podcast. So I am actually starting my 10th year at Rutgers New Brunswick, which is, it's been amazing to have just completed nine full years. So I actually, I grew up in South Jersey and the funny thing which my parents actually like to tease me about is when it came to me to apply to colleges, I really wanted nothing, to be in my home state. I wanted to travel as far as possible, but that flipped. Prior to Rutgers, I spent 13 years working and going to school at UCLA.

Dana Weintraub [00:03:36]: It was an amazing experience, very fulfilling experiences. And when I was graduating from the PhD program at UCLA and it was time to job search, job opportunity came up at Rutgers New Brunswick and it was, it was just, it was the perfect job on paper. It was an opportunity to create a student affairs assessment unit. And so it was going to provide me the opportunity to apply everything I was learning in my doctoral program and actually really returned to what I love most, and that's student affairs, but doing it through a research and an assessment lens. So that's how I got to Rutgers New Brunswick. And over the past nine years I've been very fortunate to gain new experiences and opportunities. And I just, I really love being at a large public research university, really love and appreciate my student affairs colleagues and campus partners and how much Rutgers really does center and prioritize and value the need for evidence in making decisions and using evidence based research to improve the student experience.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:41]: I always love it when someone is able to find a role that fits both of their passions or multiple passions and comes together to be something that you can enjoy doing every day. I'm glad you were able to find that.

Dana Weintraub [00:04:51]: Thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:52]: And Scott, how about you? How did you get to your current seat at William and Mary?

Scott Radimer [00:04:55]: Yeah, so I'm originally from Vermont, grew up in Vermont and attended the University of Vermont for undergrad. I was one of those stereotypical student affairs college students in that I was involved in everything as an undergrad. And so I kept on interacting with all the master's students in the HISA program at the University of Vermont and I thought they were pretty cool people and that's how I got exposed to student affairs as a career. When I was a senior in college, I. I thought I wanted to go to law school and be a lawyer. And then I quickly realized I didn't want to do that. So it took me a little bit of time to figure out what I wanted to do after college. And I ultimately decided that I was going to go into student affairs because if I didn't like it, I'd be working at a university, I could get a different degree and I could move.

Scott Radimer [00:05:50]: So that seemed less scary than my other kind of big idea was I might get a PhD in political science, which was my undergraduate degree. And that at the time seemed too intimidating to me. So I went into student affairs. I ended up Florida State University for my master's degree, which, coming from Vermont, I felt like that was my study abroad experience that I never had. It was a great experience, definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things that I had assumed everybody thought or did and was not the case. Worked in assistantship, in academic advising, and then moved back up north. Got my first job working in residential life at Vassar College. Worked there for three years, just in time for the 2008 recession to send me job searching again.

Scott Radimer [00:06:36]: Ended up at Bentley University working in res life for three years. Decided that I had spent enough time working in residential life and being on call all the time. And so I ended up making the transition to being a full time graduate student again as a PhD student at Boston College in their Higher Edition program. Found that I liked research a whole lot more than I had anticipated when I went in. And so when I graduated, I ended up getting a job doing student affairs assessment, which felt like a kind of perfect marriage of my prior experience and skills that I developed at bc. And so I became the Director of Research, Assessment and Planning at the University of Memphis. Memphis, Tennessee, was there for three years until they got rid of their division of Student Affairs. And so I ended up doing a similar position at the University of Houston, which is where I was for six years until just very recently.

Scott Radimer [00:07:43]: And then I actually just had my first job transitioning out of student affairs, Although I'm still involved with NASPA and the aerkc William and Mary with the School of Education, doing assessment and accreditation work. So it's kind of an extension continuation of my work in assessment.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:08:00]: So assessment in student affairs, I think has been historically a bit of a hill to climb for many of us where we find folks like yourselves who are very passionate about the way that we assess and Evaluate our work and we're able to tell stories through the data. But then others who are like, oh my gosh, assessment. I can't believe I'm still. My brain can't get around it. And I think we have that binary to a degree in the profession. So I'm wondering if you can tell us what you love about the assessment, evaluation and research process for our profession.

Scott Radimer [00:08:30]: Yeah. So my number one Cliftons strength is strategic. Right. I'm always looking at everything as what's the best way to get from A to B for that? How can we achieve the outcome? So I've always been very focused on how can we improve things, what makes the most sense, what's the most efficient, what has the best return. I feel like colleges make promises to students that if you enroll here, we are going to help you succeed and we are going to get you to your degree. And so I think that assessment work is really just an extension of that promise and that we're failing to keep our promises if we're not doing that. So we're saying we're going to do our best to help you succeed. As long as you, the student, do your part, that you do your work, that you study, and that you're a good citizen of the community, then we are going to help you succeed.

Scott Radimer [00:09:27]: And so the thing that really motivates me about assessment work and why I think it's so important and why people should view it as integral to their job, not something else that gets in the way of them doing their job is that it helps you be more efficient. It helps, you know, if what you're doing is working. It helps you tell other people why they should be involved with your programs or services, why they should support them, why they should donate money to them, is you need to have more than just vibes, right? It's like, here's some evidence. Don't just take my word for it. Here's the feedback from the students, here's their grades, here's these outcomes for that. So I view it as a real extension of the promise that we, we make, that we're keeping our word, that we're going to do our part if they do their part.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:10:14]: I feel like you just encapsulated something really important for student affairs, Scott, which is like, our whole careers, all of us have been like, student affairs is more than just vibes. But we've been saying it differently in a lot of different ways. So thank you for that nugget.

Dana Weintraub [00:10:26]: So I appreciate Scott's response because I very much See that, make a commitment to students when they offer students admission to the university. And I see that colleges and universities, it's our responsibility to provide all of the support that students need to thrive and graduate, ideally within four to six years. And assessment allows us to be able to provide. It provides us with the information that we need to be able to know what supports are needed to ensure that students are going to thrive and graduate. And what I appreciate so much about assessment is it's about growth mindset. It's also about just providing. It's equipping us with the information so we know how it helps us make decisions so much easier. And some of the things that I really like to, to kind of like help my colleagues see that they're actually doing assessment all the time.

Dana Weintraub [00:11:26]: They just don't call it that. So my easy ways that I, you know, start open up a presentation is I'll ask my colleagues, how did you determine what you're wearing to work today? You know, people don't just open up their closet and say, oh, I'm going to wear this. You check a weather app to make sure that your clothing is weather appropriate. You also check your calendar to see what do I have today, who am I meeting with? How should I dress to present myself in accordance with those meetings? Well, that's assessment, your weather app, your calendar. It's providing you with data and information to help you make the decision, what am I going to wear? And so, and that's really, and I think too often we get so concerned about if we collect data, what happens if it's negative, what happens if we're told something that we don't want to hear? Well, isn't it better to hear it? Isn't it better to find out that the program that you're planning may not have resonated with students the way that you hoped? Isn't it better to have that information so that you can make tweaks and make improvements? So I just really love assessment. I think it's really, it's about growth mindset, it's about how do we improve. And it's providing us with the information that we need to really best engage, best align, best support and best do what we are so passionate about doing in our work. One more final thing is I think too often in student affairs, I grew up in student affairs, where it was a matter of student affairs is co curricular, extracurricular.

Dana Weintraub [00:12:54]: No, no more of that. We are an integral part of the student experience. And I like to say that students will not even show up to the classroom unless they receive the nourishment they need in the dining halls, the conversations and the relationships that form in the dining halls and the residence halls, unless they have really proper care, they're not even showing up to the classroom, let alone thriving. And so student affairs really needs to believe in the value and the purpose that we bring to the academic experience. Experience and we are essential to student learning.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:13:27]: Dana, I feel like you're really good at making assessment more approachable or less terrifying for people who are a little bit scared of it. Can you give some pro tips or advice to people that are listening, that are going, oh my gosh, assessment makes my heart sad versus people who are like, assessment brings joy to my life because I think we're all out there. But I'm just trying to reflect on all of my experiences across my career in student affairs and knowing that for a good chunk of it, I was in the camp of going, oh, this is a bit scary.

Dana Weintraub [00:13:54]: Yeah, absolutely. I think what I like to do is I like to try to make assessment really relatable. And so I know for me, I happen to be someone who I really love setting goals related to fitness. So as an adult, I came into marathon running. And when I run a marathon, I'm following a 16 week plan. And for me it's very relatable to relate the assessment cycle to that 16 week plan. You set a goal, it's a nice, clear, specific goal. You pose a question on what information do you need to be able to achieve that goal and that outcome? What data do I need and how do I get that data? Is it data that is already available, like through student admissions applications or through event check ins? So is it data that I don't even have to collect, it's already it exists.

Dana Weintraub [00:14:46]: Or is it data that I have to collect in some way and gather? What are the relationships with people that I need to be able to help gather the information that I need to answer my assessment question? What are the methods that best align with answering that question and best helping me to interpret the data that I either had that exists or that I collected? And then what do I do with the information that I gathered? What do I do with the interpretations and how do I develop recommendations that are actionable? And then the beauty of assessment is the cycle continues. And so what I say, because I think too often people get stuck in two aspects of assessment. One, getting stuck in the limitations, where all assessment processes have limitations. And so the beauty of it, of assessment being continuous, is you can Think of it as I can improve on these limitations the next go around. The other piece that I often hear is there's this myth that you have to be this mathematician. But really, actually the hard part about assessment is not the analysis. And anyway, besides the fact, quantitative assessment or quantitative research, it's about telling stories from the numbers. So assessment, really, essentially, it's converting numbers into stories and how to make meaning with words if you're doing qualitative.

Dana Weintraub [00:16:07]: But what I say is the core of assessment. It's about relationship. The reality is we have a lot of programs that help us analyze both quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, research and data. But what we really need to do is it's the relationships that help us identify what aspects of student learning are we interested in measuring? How do we engage with students to really empathize, hear, narrate, form, trust with our students and their experiences? How do we develop relationships with colleagues who have information and data that we really could use to be able to help improve the student experience and our environments? So really, the key is it's about relationships. And so what I hope is that it's, you know, helping to make things more accessible, whether relating it to a passion of my colleague or relating it to, like, something we do on a daily basis that we all know that we're really good at something else. I do actually, in the class I teach is I have them thinking about sorting laundry and relating qualitative coding to laundry, where it's when you think about, you have your laundry basket and what's your method of folding and sorting your clothes? And that's very similar to how I approach qualitative coding. So I do try to make assessment very accessible and very practical ways so that it becomes. It's fun and interesting.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:17:34]: I'll give a shout out to my qualitative methods professor, Dr. Mark Smith. He brought to class on one of our first days of coding exercises, like a giant bag of crafting beads and just dumped them on everybody's table and said sort, which was a wonderful way of kind of thinking about coding. And everyone had a different method that kind of showed up. So thank you, Dr. Smith. He's now living his best life as a dean in the South. So, Scott, same question for you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:17:58]: What are you doing at your institution to make assessment more accessible and less scary for people who maybe don't interact with it as much or in the. In the same headspace that you do?

Scott Radimer [00:18:07]: Yeah. So I think the most important part is that I think we need to view our work as More of a science and less of an art, especially in student affairs. I think there can be this tendency to view this as it's a skill that you have or you don't have, that some people are just good at it and other people are not, as opposed to something that you can improve on, that there are different ways to handle it. And I think that's one of the troubles that we get into for people who have been in the field for a really long time is that that we're used to doing things a certain way. It's worked, it's been really successful. And so we keep doing it for 20 or 30 years. And some of those things stay the same, and they're great traditions, and it really makes the college experience. But for other things, they're very different.

Scott Radimer [00:19:01]: If I think back to what the world looked like when I was in college, it's a very different place than it is today. And the students are very different, and the world is very different. And so the kinds of programming that made sense in that world doesn't necessarily make sense or is interesting for this world. And so we always just need to check, like, is this what people need? Is this what is useful to our students, but not feeling like it's hopeless or that you just have to figure it out, that there are ways that we can determine what is working and what's not working and how it can help. So to Dana's point, I like to talk to people that are doing assessment to remind them that they are always doing assessments that they're judging. Like, how is this conversation going? Is this going well? Is this not going well? Is this event going well for students? Or is this application process working? Right. We're always making judgments about things. So assessment is just a way of checking our biases, the things that we don't realize that we're doing.

Scott Radimer [00:20:07]: Because our informal assessments make up a statistic. I feel like they're probably right 80%, 90% of the time, maybe even 95% of the time. But there is this percentage of the time where we're wrong that it's our biases, it's our assumptions about things. And so, you know, some people are really energized by interpersonal conversations. And so you're trying to have this big event and reach a lot of students. And maybe a lot of students didn't show up, up, or they came, but they didn't have a very good experience. But you had a really moving, engaging conversation with a student in person. So you're feeling really energized about this.

Scott Radimer [00:20:47]: And you think this was really great because this is what gives me energy. And I got energy from this event. And so that must be the case for everybody else who attended it. But it's not. Or you're really into this tradition because this event was your alma mater and you did this and now they're doing this. But that doesn't necessarily mean that people are having that same experience coming away from this. And so you want to be intentional about how you're collecting information and checking the results to confirm like, was my impression correct? And most of the time you're going to find it's correct. And it may just be a degree of magnitude that like, oh, this was good, but this event was, this other event was great.

Scott Radimer [00:21:28]: That it had a much bigger impact that, you know, this, this very intensive, time consuming process that required a lot of people hours to do, moved retention rate 1% for students. But this other thing that we did that was maybe more scalable, increased it by 5 or 10%. And so usually find in student affairs and the work that we do, it's not that we are doing bad things, it's this we have so many things on our plate that we don't want to let go. That kind of the good things get in the way of the opportunities to do great things or really impactful things. So I try and talk to people about systems. How do we know what we, we think is going on? How do we know that? Do we have data to support that? A lot of work that can feel overwhelming sometimes is just that there's so much that we have to do that takes up so much time that people don't feel like they have the energy for things and that it really becomes a lot less overwhelming, I think when you just plan on the front end. And so a lot of the work that I do is asking people to record things on the front end or tell me what you're going to do or what you just did. And maybe in the moment that doesn't feel super awesome because you've got 11 other things on your to do list today.

Scott Radimer [00:22:43]: But when you do it on the front end, when you're thinking about what your goals are, like Dana's example, if you're looking at what you're going to wear for work that day, if you're looking at your calendar, you're going to be in a lot better position than if you're just like, okay, what's clean? And here we go for that, that that might not work out so well. For you. So if you can take the time to think in advance about what you want to do, a lot of it just gets built right in that you made sure to collect the data, you took the card swipes for the students coming in, or you had a QR code for the survey, or you made a point to get quotes from students or take pictures or whatever it was that you're going to do. That when you plan it on the front end, it becomes a lot less time consuming, is a lot easier, a lot less overwhelming. 99% of the time, you're not going to be doing statistical analysis or need to do any math involved with that. So those are the ways that I like to talk about assessment work and hopefully make it less overwhelming for people.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:23:46]: Let's get into the KC a bit. You two ran and were elected as co chairs. So I'd love to know how you connected in the first place, given that you're, you know, several hundred miles apart.

Scott Radimer [00:23:55]: So we were both joined, I think around the same time, a couple years before we joined. And so when the elections were coming up and they were looking for new co chairs, we'd had former co chairs reach out and ask, hey, would you be interested in doing this? So I had known Dana before, but we hadn't worked together super closely, more just in kind of monthly meetings for that. And so as we were discussing this opportunity is when we really connected and got to know each other much better and find a lot of common ground and common perspective and experiences on things, which has been one of the really most rewarding parts of the process is getting to work closely with Dana and get to know her better and feel like we can contribute back to the field in the same way.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:24:43]: Dana, anything you want to add on that?

Dana Weintraub [00:24:45]: I was just going to say, I mean, I think that, you know, one of the really amazing opportunities about being involved in a KC is the opportunity to develop relationships and friendships with colleagues across the world, I guess you could say, because it is an international organization. And I think what I find most rewarding is always having a colleague, and especially now, and working so closely with Scott. I mean, I think we're sort of messaging each other almost on a daily basis. And I appreciate, like our weekly meetings. It's like we meet for an hour and it's like half past, we're like, oh, wait, we should probably talk about KC stuff. But it's like that that first half hour is an opportunity for either me or Scott to get advice on something, for us to just kind of share experiences. And it's just really, especially doing assessment work, which is complicated and it's just really, really like. I think it just allows us to like, grow even more and grow our passion for the work that we do when we have a colleague that works at a different university, even in a different area of assessment.

Dana Weintraub [00:25:51]: And we're really able to, to share experiences, rel the challenges and the opportunities, and provide each other with support and most of all, a really good laugh.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:26:01]: I think that's such an important story to tell because I think a lot of times, especially newer professionals can look at Casey leadership and wonder, how do I get there? We continually hear, I joined because I was interested in the subject matter. I met other people and it's such a natural evolution to maybe not being as collegially close to someone at the beginning and then at the end going, wow, I rely on this person or I see this person so often. And I think I say the same thing about Dr. Chris Lewis, who's the other producer and our audio engineer for the podcast is, you know, we didn't really know each other when we started working on the pod, but now we're very, very close colleagues. So it's such a great way of keeping connection in the field without necessarily being on the same campus.

Scott Radimer [00:26:40]: Yeah, I was just gonna say I've been involved with NASPA since 2004. Right. I've been involved for a long time. If I had things to do over again, I would have gotten more involved with the organization much earlier. I think that the best thing was colleague who's also in the KC has been like, scott, you need to show up. Like, you need to join these meetings. And so I did. And really the most important thing is just show up, volunteer if something that you're interested in that you care about, go to the meetings, show up, ask how you can get involved.

Scott Radimer [00:27:12]: Because we're looking for volunteers right now, right there. There continues to be opportunities and a lot of it is just like, show up, share your opinions, listen, and the rest of it kind of of happens naturally. I know that student affairs is a very extrovert, focused field. I am not an extrovert. I enjoy my downtime and my reflection time, but it's not difficult or overwhelming. Even if you're not one of the people who think strangers are best friends you haven't met yet. It is not this overwhelming kind of barrier. It's really just like, find something you're interested in and show up.

Scott Radimer [00:27:50]: And a lot of the work gets done just by doing that for an.

Dana Weintraub [00:27:53]: Interesting connection that I'm making right now. So one of the myths, myths of assessment is, and Scott mentioned it earlier, it's considered an add on, something extra. I have to do that I don't have time to do when really what we're trying to convey is assessment is not an add on. It is going to help you do the work that you're doing in a more meaningful value added way. And when it comes to involvement in the knowledge communities, I think too often people say I don't have time, which is true. And I felt that way too. I don't know how I'm going to have the time to do this. But what I would encourage folks to think about is getting involved in NASPA and professional organizations and especially in the knowledge communities.

Dana Weintraub [00:28:40]: Consider it like work wellness because you fit it into your schedule. But it is just such a refreshing opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with colleagues. And so I acknowledge it is intimidating. Know how do you have the time doing assessment? It feels like extra work, but when you get into the routine, you realize how much value comes from it. And the involvement, it's just, I mean the hours that I spend meeting with Scott with the leadership team, they fly by. There's just so much energy that comes out of the room and the conversation. So I really encourage folks to really kind of consider if you're treating yourself to work wellness by getting involved, what's.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:29:24]: Important to the KC right now? What are the focuses and the hot topics?

Scott Radimer [00:29:27]: Yeah, so I'll say the big focus right now is we have a new pre conference that the KC is hosting that was just accepted that is called Assessment 301 Director of Assessment Institute. And so overall doing assessment work kind of as like a sub field in student affairs is still a relatively young career track. And so there's still a lot of like kind of figuring out your way. There's not, it's not like the res life to Dean of Students kind of track that's more well established and understood. That in many ways Dana and I are still kind of trailblazers in this part of the field, which is weird to think about yourself that way. But one of the things we notice is that there's not a lot of opportunities to kind of think about professional development tracks and kind of how you handle these positions. Because at a lot of institutions you're the first person to do this or the second person to do this and you might be the only person or you have some graduate assistant support. And so we thought we should make the professional development opportunity that we're missing for that.

Scott Radimer [00:30:40]: And so we've created this pre conference ahead of the national conference in March that we hope people will be interested in and sign up for to be able to help people in these more division wide positions think about, you know, what are the things you really need to do to excel in the current job but also what are the things that you want to think about as you're thinking about next? Because for many people this might not be the last job that they, they want to hold that they might want to do other things as well and be thinking about that. And so I think for the KC it's a lot of what is the needed professional development opportunities both for everybody in the field. Right. Like what are. And we also offer an assessment 101 that's a very long standing assessment and successful pre conference for these kind of like what does anybody need to know? And you don't have to have any background in assessment to come and get value out of these kind of introductory things. But then also how do we think about this smaller, more dedicated part of the profession that maybe hasn't been attended to as much before. And so how do we help people in these more senior responsibilities think about their continued development and career growth and also just building community for people. That's something that Dana and I think have gotten a lot out of being involved in the KC and in our leadership positions.

Scott Radimer [00:32:02]: But we want that experience and opportunity for other people as well. So what are the ways in which we can help bring people together, being able to find community and maybe even commiserate at times for some of the challenges that they're going through and help them be more successful as they go forward.

Dana Weintraub [00:32:21]: Assessment, evaluation, research. Casey, we're really excited. We're still celebrating our 20th anniversary along with all knowledge communities. And so it's been really, really wonderful over the, over the year to look back on our past, the present and really chart our way for the future. We are so fortunate that on our leadership team we're still very connected with some of the, the earlier chairs of the Casey and so we really have a very, very strong, committed leadership yesterday. So I guess by the time this airs we could say in, in September we did an open meeting where we invited those interested in assessment who are part of the KC to attend one of our leadership team meetings and gather information about the role of assessment that it plays in their day to day work. What are some resources and supports and professional development services. So it gives Scott and I and our colleagues on the leadership team an opportunity to think about, you know, what are our goals and what are the resources that we want to provide our membership.

Dana Weintraub [00:33:26]: We have a thriving knowledge community, some really great opportunities, whether it be a writing group, so folks coming together on a continuous basis to pursue a writing project, gather, gain some feedback from peers, write in community. We do ongoing discussions on really important trends and topics related to assessment. So for example, our most recent conversation was on data lakes that brought together colleagues in assessment in information technology institutional research to talk about ways to bring existing data across campus together and think about the various different questions and ways that the data can better tell a story and define our work and how do we go about developing the relationships that we need with data custodians to be able to bring the data together. So lots of exciting, exciting opportunities within the Casey and we really pride ourselves in really providing our membership with an opportunity to find community and find colleagues that share their passion in assessment and to help share resources and strengthen the work that we do.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:34:36]: Can you talk a little bit about the mix of people in the KC in terms of people that are in roles like yourselves that are leading assessment, assessment for student affairs or student affairs adjacent roles versus people who might have full time positions in a different functional area but really appreciate assessment?

Dana Weintraub [00:34:50]: Our membership and also our leadership members of our leadership team hold very diverse roles related to assessment. So some are in very traditional director of student affairs assessment positions, some at large public research universities, some at smaller schools mid size. We also have members that work in academic assessment, may work in program review accreditation roles at their universities. We also have folks that work in other functional areas but really believe and are really value assessment and enjoy have been exposed to assessment, whether it be, you know, in their graduate program and taking an introductory course in assessment and really want to be doing assessment more infusing it into their role. And so we could have folks that work in for example student activities work but do assessment concentrated in student activities or for example maybe a liaison between their department and an assessment committee. So within the knowledge community we really aim to provide a community for all folks, whether it be I'm really passionate, I believe in the value of assessment and I want to strengthen my assessment assessment skills all the way to I'm in a full time assessment role whether it be in student affairs or in academics or at the university and for example accreditation role.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:36:18]: And if I'm a NASA member thinking about joining the AERKC but haven't done so yet, what would you like me to hear?

Scott Radimer [00:36:23]: Think that if it's something that you're interested in at all. If you think that this is something that you want to learn more about, then you should sign up to join.

Dana Weintraub [00:36:34]: Join.

Scott Radimer [00:36:34]: You can just do that on your profile. You'll get our emails about that. You can find us on LinkedIn. We have a page for the KC and you can see what are the programs, what are the webinars, when are the meetings for that and you can choose to opt in. So it's really as much or as little commitment as you want to make that if you come to one program you're not promising to show up to every program for the rest of your career.

Dana Weintraub [00:37:00]: Right.

Scott Radimer [00:37:01]: That it's really challenged by choice for that and that to the points we've made earlier that it's really not as difficult or overwhelming or separate from your work as it might feel at times that it might feel like especially for those of us that maybe feel more imposter syndrome at time it might feel like oh no, this is something that other people do that aren't like me. That this is really complicated and extra. And it's something that everybody does in their our day to day life. And it's just when you add a little bit more structure to it is what takes it from like having an opinion to doing an assessment or evaluation for that. And so I encourage everybody to think of themselves as assessment people. We're all assessment people as humans and it's just kind of how extra you are in it as we're going through. Yeah. Consider learning more if you don't know anything about it and if you are engaged in it, I would love to have you join us and be engaged with us in there.

Scott Radimer [00:38:02]: And that's what I'd say.

Dana Weintraub [00:38:03]: One more response to my previous answer. I would be very remiss if I did not acknowledge faculty. Faculty are also a part of the ARKC and our faculty partners who teach assessment student affairs assessment who teach in college student affairs programs. It's time to take a break and toss it over to learn what's going.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:27]: On in the national Anything else you'd like to share with NASPA today about the AERKC or the assessment profession?

Scott Radimer [00:38:33]: So I would just say that kind of along the lines of people thinking that this separate work I would just encourage people to think about the skills that your assessment staff have in there at your university, that if you're a senior administrator, chief student affairs officer, your student affairs assessment people have skills and experiences that are very valuable outside of assessment work too. That these are people that you should be considering for AVP roles or executive director roles outside of I think that as a field we have a tendency to preach transferable skills to students and talk about how amazing this is. And then we do not practice that at all when we are actually hiring people, because we end up hiring people who have these very traditional career paths and career trajectories and experiences because we just want someone we know can do it, that they've done this before. And then we miss out on we're hiring for experience rather than hiring for skills for that. And so I would just encourage people to think about the skills. When you're doing strategic planning, when you're doing evaluation, when you're working in assessment, you know what everybody in the division does because you're reading those reports, you're helping them design assessments that they can really have a broad and deep understanding of the the work that we do across areas and bring a lot of insight and innovation to those areas if they are given the chance. So just like we shouldn't view ourselves as just, you know, data people are not data people, we shouldn't also view other people who do that as just data people or not data people. So that's my plug professionals.

Scott Radimer [00:40:21]: We can do more than just. Although that is very important, I hope that people value it there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:40:27]: Finally today a big announcement that the NASPA 2026 Full Housing and Registration is open. I hope that you have had an opportunity to sign up for housing and for the registration. I hope that you have had an opportunity to sign up to attend the 2026 NASPA Annual Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:40:51]: Missouri.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:40:51]: If you have signed up, definitely sign up for housing today. You don't want to miss out on the housing opportunities before they fill up. And we're looking forward to seeing so many of you at the conference, looking through all of the pre conference opportunities. There are so many to choose from, so also take some time to look through all of those. Many of those are hosted by our knowledge communities or through other institutes or other individuals that are spending a lot of time to prepare and to allow for you to do a deep dive into topics that are meaningful to you that are impacting your campuses or you individually. So I highly encourage you to check out the pre conference opportunities that are also available for sign up. Every week we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening with within the association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways because the association is as strong as its members.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:41:59]: And for all of us, we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with the knowledge community, giving back within one of the centers or the divisions of the association. And, and as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself where do you fit, where do you want to give back? Each week, we're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, hey, I see myself in that knowledge community. I see myself doing something like this. That or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association. Because through doing that, all of us are stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in NASA.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:43:06]: Chris, thank you so much for keeping us up to date on what's going on in and around naspa. Another great NASPA world segment from you and Scott and Dana. We are now back with our Lightning round. I have seven questions for you to answer in about 90 seconds. Scott, we're going to start with you and then go to Dana. Are you both ready?

Dana Weintraub [00:43:23]: Yes.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:43:23]: All right, question number one, if you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Scott Radimer [00:43:29]: I'll say Britney Spears, Toxic by Survivor.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:43:33]: Number two, when you were five years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Scott Radimer [00:43:36]: A paleontologist.

Dana Weintraub [00:43:37]: To be a Solid gold dancer.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:43:39]: Number three, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Scott Radimer [00:43:42]: I will say that it was my friend and colleague Molly Monahan, who was a GA when I was an undergraduate student and is the reason why I'm in higher education today.

Dana Weintraub [00:43:53]: I'd say Dr. Larry Mineta, retired vice president of Student affairs at Duke University. I worked with him as a graduate student and really amazing mentor. And to this day, friend number four.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:44:05]: Your essential student affairs read.

Scott Radimer [00:44:07]: I Will say Guy Land by Michael Kimmel. I think that a lot of the things that happen on college campuses are specifically about how men and women view themselves as men and women. And we usually don't think about that. And so Guy Land's a great way to kind of make the subtext text.

Dana Weintraub [00:44:28]: So I'm going to take this as answering it from a more personal and what was most meaningful in how I entered in the work that I do is reading Dr. Alexander Astin Sandy Astin's what Matters in College. It really just kind of that's the reason why I do what I do. And it was through that read that actually I think kind of like formed a dream. What was a dream at the time and never knew it was going to become reality of actually studying at ucla. And my time at UCLA was my most formative years in higher education.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:45:02]: Student Affairs Number five, the best TV show you've been binging lately.

Scott Radimer [00:45:05]: Frieren is an amazing anime that I highly recommend.

Dana Weintraub [00:45:09]: I don't really watch tv. I wish I had time, but I don't. But I would like to get back to I started watching and binging Veronica Mars and so yes, that's the first that came to mind. That's how I'm answering these questions. The first thing that pops into my mind.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:45:22]: Number six, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last.

Scott Radimer [00:45:26]: Year, the British History Podcast.

Dana Weintraub [00:45:28]: I would love recommendations listeners, please give me your recommendations.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:45:33]: And finally, number seven, any shout outs you'd like to give, personal or professional?

Scott Radimer [00:45:37]: I'm going to shout out my former supervisor and friend from the University of Memphis time together, Daryl Ray, who is an awesome person and and continues to reach out and check in on me even though we haven't worked together for like six years. Amazing person. Shout out to Darrell.

Dana Weintraub [00:45:55]: Wow. Well one, I want to give a shout out to everyone on the ARKC leadership team who have been phenomenal colleagues and just thank you for believing in Scott and me and all of your support and it's just so fantastic to work with you. And then I want to give a shout out to some of the folks that are the reasons I'm doing the work that I'm doing today. So Dr. Kristen McKinney for giving me that first position as a graduate student at UCLA Student Affairs Research Office. My current supervisor, Dr. Salvador Mena, who's also a very involved member of NASPA. Thank you for believing in the work that we do in Student affairs assessment.

Dana Weintraub [00:46:35]: Want to give a shout out to all of my colleagues at Rutgers and just Scott shout out to you and how much fun it is to partner with you in strengthening the area.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:46:46]: It's been such a wonderful conversation today getting to know about the work of the AERKC and a little bit more about your styles and leadership on assessment. If anyone would like to find you after the show, how can they find both you and the AERC so you.

Scott Radimer [00:46:58]: Can find me on LinkedIn is the best way to connect me. Also, in addition to signing up for the KC through NASPA's platform, you can also find us on LinkedIn as well.

Dana Weintraub [00:47:11]: And same for me, LinkedIn is the best place to find me. You're also welcome to email me and I hope that we get a spike in LinkedIn members from after this podcast.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:47:24]: Thank you both so much for sharing your voice with us today.

Dana Weintraub [00:47:27]: Thank you, thank you.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:47:33]: This has been an episode of Essay Voices from the Field brought to you by naspa. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be so grateful that you choose to spend your your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn by searching for Dr. Jill L. Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions always. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:48:02]: It really does help other student affairs professionals find the show and helps us to become more visible and the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by Dr. Jill Creighton. That's me, produced and audio engineered by Dr. Chris Lewis. Special thanks to the University of Michigan Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.