I Am Still Learning (Thank God)

Flickr CC BY Anne Davis

I just returned from a meeting with my Student Affairs Assessment Committee. We attended a webinar where Campus Labs demonstrated some of their products. Afterwards, the attendees voiced their thoughts about the products, as well as assessment in general. I left the meeting with two equally strong impressions:

1. Our committee has some highly intelligent and dedicated individuals who are doing everything they can to help their departments produce quality assessments. They see assessment as an integral part of not only their jobs, but of the entire division – a necessary step we need for continuous improvement and to show that what we do provides value to our stakeholders.

2. I am just a dumb jock.

Through most of the 1.5 hour web presentation, and the hour-long discussion afterwards, I had little clue about what any of it meant. Even something as basic (I assume) as SPSS was foreign to me. But then you toss in buzz words like “ key performance indicators” and “regression analysis,”  large data sets, and names of educational theorists I’d never heard of (OK, I’d at least heard of Kuh), and my head starts to hurt. I feel like I am in a foreign land and everyone around me is talking like I understand what they’re saying, but in truth I don’t speak one word of the language. I want to stand up and scream, “I don’t understand any of this,” but I am too embarrassed. After serving on the Assessment Committee for the past four years, I have never felt so unqualified to be in the room.

I don’t really think I’m dumb. I’ve just never taken a modern statistics course. There have been many changes in Student Affairs within the past 10 years that I’ve had to learn on my own. Technology, sustainability, assessment, they all come with their own requirements and even their own language. I’ve had to learn about these things either on my own or at conferences, while still performing the daily tasks that my “regular” job requires. Some would argue that these things ARE my regular job, and I would agree, but the level of learning that is required has kept me late at the office many, many times. And just when I thought I was getting a handle on current trends, I realize that I know almost NOTHING about statistics. And I really, really need to know statistics. I WANT to know statistics. But today, at this moment, that task just seems so daunting. I will be starting from chi-square one while the rest of my committee will be moving on to more advanced statistics, and I fear I’ll never be on their same page. I thought about that “I Love Lucy” episode where the assembly line goes faster and faster, and Lucy can’t keep up. And just like Lucy, I can’t keep up with my Assessment Committee colleagues. I briefly fantasized about quitting. It was all too much.

But the thing is, there will always be something new to learn. Students graduating today with their master’s degree in Higher Education will, ten years from now, find themselves scrambling to keep up with new skills, ideas, and technologies. They will have to learn on the fly, just like me. I don’t want to adopt the attitude of an employee I knew who, when asked to learn how to organize a spreadsheet in MS Excel, replied, “I will be retiring in a few years. I don’t want to learn anything new.”

So bring it on. Whatever I need to learn to help me stay current in my job, then by god, I’m going to learn it. And, thank god, I WANT to learn it. For me, the worst thing would be to tire of learning. So in the words of Bob Dylan:

Come gather 'round people 
Wherever you roam 
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you 
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Surprise! Now Save My Life

During the summer of 2005, six of us drove from Lexington, KY to the tiny town of Mexican Hat, Utah (pop. 88) to begin a self-supported, multi-day river trip down the San Juan River. We drove through the night and arrived at our outfitter’s store at 4pm the following day. The thermometer on the store’s front porch read 110 degrees.

We walked into the store, passing an elderly couple who had just finished eating a late lunch at the small diner inside. As the couple drove away in their van, we secured our river permit and discussed driving to see the rock formations that are common in the area. As we stepped outside, the same van that had just left pulled back in front of the store. The man hopped out and told us that he needed help, that his wife had passed out.

We carried the woman inside and laid her on the floor. She was not breathing and had no pulse. An ambulance was called and I began CPR. About 20 minutes later, the ambulance arrived with an AED. They shocked her a few times and then loaded her into the ambulance for the 20 minute drive to the hospital. I knew that her survival was unlikely, and later found out from the outfitter that she had died. Though the ending wasn’t what we wanted, I was glad that we were able to provide the best care possible under the circumstances, especially for her husband’s sake.

At the time of this incident I had been a CPR instructor for almost 20 years. During part of this time I managed a city pool where I was responsible for lifeguard training. I made my lifeguards practice their CPR skills every day. Additionally, we ran “surprise” drills five times per week where the guards had to activate the emergency action plan, clear the pool, and perform a backboarding or near drowning scenario. I critiqued CPR skills hundreds of times each summer, and could recite the steps and perform the skills myself perfectly, every time.

That is why I was so surprised when I missed the most important step with the lady at Mexican Hat. I forgot to check for signs of life. I had assumed that she had passed out from the heat, and went to ask the outfitter for some damp towels. Luckily, one of my companions (who had taken one of my CPR classes) thought to check for breathing, and found there were no signs of life. There was really no break in appropriate care for the woman, but I should have known better. 

With all of my perfect CPR practice, I had never actually participated in a “surprise” drill where my brain had to go from “What rock formations should we see?” to “You have an unconscious victim. Go!” All of my practice was planned. That is why, to this day, I continue to have my student recreation center staff participate in surprise drills. Nothing prepares you for the real thing like the next best thing to the real thing. There is no warning, no pre-practice, no hint that something is going to happen. The surprise scenario begins and the staff members involved have to rely on their previous training to respond correctly.

Overall, staff members react very well to surprise drills. Sometimes we discover large-scale training deficiencies that we are able to correct. For example, when we practice skills during our monthly skills checks, the employee is in a controlled environment where they have the manikin, CPR mask, and AED readily available. When employees are stationed out in the facility, they carry first aid supplies, including their CPR mask, in a shoulder pouch. The CPR mask fits better in the pouch if the mask is compressed. During one of our surprise drills, a number of our staff did not realize that they needed to pop the mask out before using it. Now, when we do our monthly skills checks, we always give the employees a compressed mask so they can practice popping it out before performing CPR.

Here are the things we’ve found that help to make surprise drills more effective for our staff:

1. Always have the staff practice their skills in a controlled environment before running any surprise drills. It’s better to correct basic errors before expecting the staff to perform well in an unexpected setting. Staff should be able to perform CPR/AED skills flawlessly in a controlled setting. Be sure that you maintain high expectations and don’t be satisfied with “only a few mistakes.” Mistakes will be magnified many times over during a real emergency.
2. Recreate as many steps as possible during controlled practice. If employees are expected to communicate emergencies using a radio, have them practice using a radio during skills practice. Make sure they speak clearly and provide all important details, such as location of the emergency, condition of the victim, and as much additional information as possible that would help staff and paramedics better deal with the situation. Have them locate the needed equipment in their shoulder pouch or fanny pack if that is where their equipment is usually stored when they’re on duty. Have them put on protective gloves before practicing their skills. Set the stage as best you can to recreate a real situation.
3. We use manikins for our surprise drills, placing them in various areas around the facility. You can put an old lost-and-found t-shirt on the manikin so that employees can practice cutting away clothing in order to place the AED pads on the chest correctly.
4. Try your best to surprise the employees, but make sure they know it’s a drill BEFORE they actually call EMS. On the initial radio call, the person who is caring for the victim will preface their emergency communication by repeating: “This is a drill. This is a drill.”
5. We formed a Risk Management Team, composed of student supervisors who were interested in helping to train our staff. The team helps during surprise drills by watching different areas of the facility and reporting how employees perform during the drills.
6. Always provide immediate feedback, and take the time to correct any significant errors after the drill concludes. Record the results of the drill, including who participated, effectiveness of communication and skills, and any other pertinent information. We created a Google Doc to capture this information. This way you won’t always be “surprising” the same employees over and over.

Giving employees the opportunity to react in situations that closely resemble the “real thing” gives them confidence and increases the chance that they will act appropriately in a true emergency. 

How do you prepare your staff to handle emergencies?

Can't Get No Satisfaction Assessment

With the publication of Learning Reconsidered I & II, there has been a critical push for co-curricular departments within Student Affairs to develop and assess student learning outcomes. As a Campus Recreation professional, I support this completely. For years, those in my profession have "known" that programs we offer provide learning opportunities for students. Now, because of the culture change towards intentional assessment, we have learned how to conduct assessment to show that learning takes place. 

But though I am pleased with the number of programs offered through my department that assess student learning outcomes, most of what we do in campus recreation is "operational" in nature. We want to provide the best facilities and services possible so that students can participate in the physical activity of their choice. We strive to create a recreational environment where students feel welcome, where they can exercise without barriers, where they have opportunities during various times of the day to come and relieve stress and play with their friends. When they walk through our doors, we want students to be glad that they chose to attend our university because we have such a wonderful recreational center that meets their needs. We want them to exercise and leave happier, less stressed, and more prepared to face their academic pursuits than when they entered the facility.

How do we assess these operational outcomes? Mainly through satisfaction surveys.

The survey we use is sent via an emailed link to 2500 randomly selected students. Most questions ask students to select their level of satisfaction with a variety of items related to our programs and services. Included are questions pertaining to hours of operation, cleanliness of the facility, availability of equipment, customer service, number and type of group fitness classes offered, number and type of intramural contests offered, etc. Through the survey results, we have received invaluable information and have made improvements to our facilities and services that have increased student satisfaction in subsequent surveys.

So imagine my confusion (and frustration) when I recently read the following tweet from a Student Affairs professional:

"Satisfaction surveys is not assessment work... stop it, NOW!"

After further investigation, I found that the tweet was sent during a chat session with the authors of Learning is Not a Sprint: Assessing and Documenting Student Leader Learning in a Co-curricular Environment. I assume that what the author of the tweet meant was "using satisfaction surveys to assess learning is not assessment work..." And I would wholeheartedly agree with that statement: satisfaction surveys do not show that learning has occurred.

In general, though, this is what I find confusing (and frustrating) with Student Affairs assessment: it seems that when “assessment” is discussed, the focus is almost exclusively on student learning outcomes, and very little mention is made of what is perhaps our most important work: delivering quality services to our students. The reason for this focus could be that, before a few years ago, we didn’t understand the need for a co-curricular unit to develop and assess student learning outcomes. Over-emphasizing the need for student learning outcomes assessment created an awareness of this concept, so that now, most Student Affairs units are doing this type of assessment.

But shouldn’t it be time to again start including operational outcomes in the conversation? I love to talk about assessments we’ve conducted showing that our 200 student employees have learned transferable skills; that our 75 weight loss program participants have learned how to design their own weight training program; that our 80 club sports officers have learned how to develop a risk management plan that is customized for the unique needs of their sport. But for me, an even more important assessment question is this: 

Are we meeting the recreational needs of the 3,000 students per day who use our programs and services?

Proud to See Blue

Last night I attended the University of Kentucky Honors and Recognition Awards Program. A colleague was receiving an award and I was there to celebrate his achievement. The event ended up being over three hours long. Three hours! Anyone who has ever attended an awards ceremony would cringe at the thought. If I had been told beforehand that I would be sitting in my folding chair for three hours, I might have reconsidered going. But I would have missed an amazing evening. 

The emcee for the night (a student) was composed and gracious. That in itself made me proud. Several administrators who presented awards were not as fluent and engaging as our emcee. But the true stars of the evening were the student award recipients. I do not understand how students can receive degrees (sometimes two or three degrees) in difficult majors, participate in a bazillion extracurricular and philanthropic activities, and still find time to sleep. One professor made a simple, but eloquent statement. He wrote, “[The student] is an extraordinary individual,” and then listed the student’s honors and achievements. He ended by stating, “One might ask, ‘How does one person successfully accomplish all of this?’ That’s what makes him extraordinary.”

Many of the honorees had been involved with Dance Blue, a student-initiated, student-run fundraiser to benefit the UK Children’s Hospital. This year that event raised over 1.1 million dollars. One young woman was recognized, in part, for spearheading a group that raised over $27,000, the largest donation made to this event by a single organization.

At times the presenter would read a quote attributed to the award recipient. Some excerpts from those quotes include: “I have found that the best way to learn about myself is by serving others” and “It’s amazing what a group can accomplish when nobody in the group cares who gets the credit.” With these philosophies, how can we not have hope for the future?

The University of Kentucky has several great, nationally ranked academic programs, but is not known nationally as an academic powerhouse. In fact, I’ve heard murmurings from colleagues that other schools consider Kentucky students a bunch of country hicks. It doesn’t matter, because I know the truth. We have amazing students. We have extraordinary students. I couldn’t be prouder to be associated with them and the University of Kentucky.

Presenting...A Better Presentation

In a recent blog post, Eric Stoller reflected on his experiences attending the 2013 NASPA and ACPA conferences. He wrote the following concerning educational sessions:

"In terms of regular sessions … we have to stop being so bad at this. Seriously. Powerpoint isn't the problem. We need to be better storytellers and utilize high quality visual communications." 

He then cited an earlier blog he wrote, properly entitled Conference Sessions Do Not Have To Suck.

I feel your pain, Eric. Most of us feel your pain. In fact, I probably have contributed to the pain. And I agree: our presentations, particularly at professional conferences, have got to improve, if for no other reason than to set an example for our future leaders. And the improvement needs to start with me.

At my university, I am responsible for supervising four graduate assistants within the Campus Recreation Department. One of their responsibilities is to conduct staff training and development. Up until now, I have assumed that these graduate assistants were decent presenters. They had all made good grades in their undergraduate careers, which included giving class presentations, and they had all been leaders in their Campus Recreation Departments, which meant that they had participated in staff training. But time after time their staff training presentations at my facility ended up being boring Powerpoint slides that were visually unappealing, with the graduate assistant rushing through each slide, reading verbatim from their notes. There was no storytelling—only regurgitated information that could have been communicated via an email attachment.

This year, after talking with my students, I finally understood why these smart, talented graduate assistants gave such poor presentations. They had all been told in their undergraduate school that their presentations were good. And they commented that they had never seen presentations done any other way, even in their university classes.

At conferences, in university classes, watching their instructors and peers: they had never seen presentations done any other way. Whoa.

My university is undergoing a SACS review, and as part of this review, they have chosen to institute a Quality Enhancement Plan entitled “Presentation U.” It “represents new opportunities students will soon have to improve their presentation skills across various platforms.” I am encouraged, and look forward to seeing the initiatives that my university takes to improve our students’ presentation skills. However, our students continue to see poor presentations year after year from some professors who haven’t changed their class information and teaching style in years. For real change to occur, our faculty will need to set good examples. I hope they are up for the challenge.

Good examples also need to be set at our regional and national conferences. I’m not saying that every presentation is terrible; in fact, I attended more great presentations this year at the NIRSA conference than I’ve ever seen before. But it seems there are more bad presentations than good. Why? Is it because seasoned professionals never receive honest feedback? And could it be that younger presenters have never seen it done any other way?

In order to stop this cycle of poor presentations, we need to teach the next generation how to do it better. And that is my responsibility. Starting this fall I will provide my graduate assistants with intentional instruction on how to give a good presentation. And though it seems odd to me that I would need to teach presentation skills, I welcome the chance to be part of the change that we all desire. Because who wants to sit through another boring presentation? We can do better.

How do you train your student staff to give great presentations?

Just Say "Bugs"

cc licensed by Flickr, shared by GogDog

In the movie “Big”, Tom Hanks stars as Josh, a 13-year old boy who makes a wish that he was “big”, and overnight grows into an adult. The problem, of course, is that he is a regular 13-year old inside an adult body. He gets a job with a toy development company while he tries to figure out how to reverse his wish. Josh attends a toy development meeting, and Paul, a veteran team member, pitches the idea of creating a transformer toy: a building that turns into a robot. Josh challenges that idea, and instead suggests that they make a robot that turns into a bug. That suggestion ignites the imagination of the group, and Paul watches helplessly as his building idea fizzles, saying, “This doesn’t happen. You don’t just come to a meeting and say “bugs.”

Today we held our first Student Affairs Technology Committee meeting, of which I am the chair. My qualifications for holding this position are twofold:

1. I have an interest in expanding technology use within the division.

2. Nobody else would do it.

My technology skills are average at best. I don’t really know how to “talk tech.” I have tweeted a total of 134 times since 2008. Yet I was responsible for running a tech meeting, with people far more tech-savvy than myself.

I was stressing.

I arrived at the meeting and soon all committee members were there. I started by bringing up a recent tech survey that we had conducted, and said, “What do you think about [here you can insert any tech topic that is at the forefront of your division—personnel, social media use, tech support, etc.]”

The room exploded with energy. The discussion was lively, relevant, and productive. And the best part? All I had to do was start the discussion. Sometimes you don’t really need to be an expert. Sometimes all you need to say is “bugs.”

The Value of Second Impressions

My first trip to Vegas was a one-night stopover on my way to a backpacking trip in Zion NP. Walking through a hotel casino at 8am the next day, an older lady in front of me vomited on the floor and then passed out. That was my first impression of Vegas and I've hated the city ever since.
 

Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled to hear that the NIRSA conference this year was in Vegas. I didn't want to go. But since I've had the chance to spend a few days here, I have found that Vegas isn't all "Sin City"; in fact, it's pretty cool. The hotels are wonders to behold with their themes from around the world. My room on the 11th floor of the Paris Las Vegas has a view of the Eiffel Tower. And the water show at the Bellagio, choreographed to an operatic aria, was so beautiful it made me want to cry. 

Twitter reminds me of Vegas. 

When I joined Twitter back in 2008, I found I didn't like it at all, thinking it was nothing more than mindless social media drivel that could at times include some pretty raunchy stuff. People I didn't know we're asking to "follow" me, and their profile photos showed provocatively dressed women who looked like they came straight off a Vegas street hustler's card. But when I gave Twitter another chance in 2012, I found the good in it. I found a community of smart, thoughtful professionals who were willing to share their expertise in higher education and revel in successes of others. It is such a godsend to have found a community like this who I can turn to on a daily basis for professional development. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. 

So I'll come away from Vegas with kinder thoughts of the city. I see it differently now, and will look forward to visiting again sometime. And for my colleagues who cannot see the value in using Twitter, I will gently encourage them (and show them how) to give it a second look. Because sometimes that second look can make all the difference.