Taking Care to the Next Level
There are many ways that student affairs professionals can take an active role in addressing student homelessness, food insecurity, and housing insecurity on their campuses.
Residence Life
Effecting Change on Issues of Race, Power, and Privilege in Student Residence
Three realities alive on campuses today limit our ability to act meaningfully. First, the topic of race/racism is often superficially engaged with, and sometimes avoided altogether. Second, very few institutions gather meaningful data about the lived experiences of their racialized students, staff, and faculty. Third, experiences of racism are often recorded as isolated anecdotes or incidents, with little to no formal structures to investigate if/how these experiences permeate the culture of the institution. How can we disrupt the status quo?
2020 Summer Reading List
This year, we’ve decided to dedicate our annual summer reading list to rise up the voices that need to be heard. Most of the books on the list below are written by Black people or Indigenous peoples to support the current conversations happening in the United States and Canada at this moment in time.
Remote Supervision
Supervision is been a constant source of stress. How can you successfully supervise staff in their reformed roles in a virtual world? Four themes emerged as methods for success in remote supervision.
Online Room Selection
How meaningful would it be to have a sense of control when it comes to residence room selection? It can be overwhelming or intimidating to consider a move to online room selection. We can appreciate that you may see the value of online room selection, but you need to convince stakeholders of the value.
Working Remotely
For those of you who are able to work from home, you’ve likely found out that it’s not as glamorous as it sounds. There are distractions present, assumptions about what it will be like and how much you can get done, and guilt about what you should be doing and how you are privileged to have this opportunity. Our Client Success team thought it may be helpful to share some of our tips for working from home when you’re used to a fast-paced, highly interactive environment.
Roommate Selection and Assignment
It’s not always intuitive for students to think about what characteristics are important when living with someone. Popular media has suggested that you need to be best friends with your freshman roommate, and if you’re not, it’s a failed relationship. There is value in creating learning opportunities for your students to understand the criteria for matching roommates. You can take it one step further by letting your students select their own roommates.
Let’s Connect
From many of you, I hear that you feel alone and that all of the work falls on your shoulders. You are dealing with real lives, and your decisions have real implications for the students that you work with. It’s a lot of pressure, and it’s difficult when you feel alone.
If you’re feeling alone, looking for support, wanting access to resources, or even looking for ideas, please reach out. We’d love to help you connect and strengthen our community.