What should my priorities be?

The new year has started and with it our professional staff training. The last few days have been filled with intense, heated debates. I like to challenge things and I like debates, but I often feel like we talk in circles and we get stuck on issues that are outside of our control. And that's gotten me thinking about what my priorities should be - what should be the things I'm going to fight for and I'm going to try to influence/change.

I want them to be things that I will actually be able to influence - and that should be within my control. I don't kid myself by thinking that I will change our Community Standards process, for example - I don't work in that office and while I am involved in this process and get to fill out lots of lovely paperwork for it, there are other professionals in that office who take care of all this and I trust that they know what they're doing...probably a lot better than me because I'm not a Community Standards person. ;)

I think I want to make Learning Communities one of the areas I focus on. I've kind of been thrown into Learning Communities anyway since one of the two in my building doesn't have a faculty director; I've had to help out with it more than what the involvement of a Hall Director would usually be and that's helped me get a pretty good understanding of Learning Communities here. I think we have some great things: more faculty involvement and leadership than I've seen at some other programs, an office that works with first-year programs and learning communities. But I think we're also lacking some important things: clear delineation of who is responsible for what in the Learning Community, a lot of confusion on staff's side (Hall Directors and RAs) about how they could support their Learning Community. And that's where I'd like to come in. I think we can improve the relationships that exist between the different players in the Learning Communities. I think we need to focus on planning things earlier and in more detail; then we could be more intentional and we could split up the work more effectively between the different players. I also think we can increase the student leadership within the communities. Some of the communities (my two included) have returning students that live in the community. We hope that these students will take on a leadership role in the community and help to carry on traditions. This happens sometimes, but at least in my communities I've seen more of my first-year students involved and the returners are just "there" - or they support programs and initiatives but not many are really spearheading anything. And I'm not blaming the students; I think we haven't set up systems and processes that allow them to take on leadership roles. Very few student leaders (especially at a sophomore level) will feel comfortable to take the initiative and just make things happen. But if we give them a title and some additional training, they'll be there and they'll make great things happen.

I've also been thinking about my involvement in student leadership, specifically the Residence Hall Association. This is the first year since I've started college that I haven't been either involved with RHA or NRHH. And I miss it. I haven't necessarily missed it as much as I thought; I've been too busy for that. And my learning community and other student organizations have taken up a lot of that time and provided me with that student leader contact; but when I think about it, I do really miss it. I'd love to be a little more involved next year. In the Fall, I've made a point of going to RHA meetings, partially to make sure I know what's going on and how things are done now (lots has changed from the days when I was the RHA advisor here), partially just to get to know the RHA executive board and start building relationships with them.

I'm still stuck on our programming model and how I think it could be improved. I just struggle with the fact that, if you asked me right now, I couldn't tell what we, as a department, want our students to learn from living in the residence halls. Yes, we want them to build relationships and learn how to build relationships and that's great and really important - but there should be more.... So yeah, haven't given up on that one yet.


****

I'm also, once again, going to try to make having a personal life a priority. It seems like every Spring semester, I try to do that. In the Fall, I just get too busy. And with having moved the past two years, there was too much to do with settling in and adjusting. I keep telling myself that once I stay in one area for longer, I'll manage to have a personal life even in the Fall. Wishful thinking? Ha. Maybe.

Anyway, I'm definitely planning a few weekend trips to visit friends. I just wish they lived a little closer. Buying all these plane tickets is going to get freakin' expensive. Not that I don't make enough money; but I have this thing for saving money. For what, I'm not sure. Lately I've been telling myself it's for my daughters' college fund. LoL. Just need to have those daughters first. And I know it'll be girls because I wouldn't know what to do if I had a son. He'd have to become a professional dancer, because if he starts talking about football and baseball I'll be lost. Haha.

Alright, it's time to crawl into bed, read for a little while and then call it a night. More training tomorrow.