There's only three more days of classes left, then finals, then closing and then we're DONE. The end is so close...but yet still so far away. Closing meetings are happening right now; I need to make closing bulletin boards that will go up on the floors - there are end of the semester celebrations for staff and students and all the closing tasks.
My office has turned into a storage room lately. It started with the Invisible Children Challenge, more specifically the books for the bookdrive. I finally got the boxes, so I can start packing those up and mail them to Better World Books. But yes, right now there are 500 books sitting in my office. In front of that are the boxes with t-shirts. We have this tradition here that each Spring each Area Council makes t-shirts for the area. Fortunately, they started handing those out today, so those boxes should be disappearing soon. And then there are the Finals Snacks - leftovers from our April program that had low attendance due to the freezing cold weather. So yeah, it's kind of hard to walk in my office right now and I feel embarassed whenever someone comes by for a meeting. I finally at least cleaned off my desk today - I was avoiding doing RA Evaluations, which means I now need to do those tomorrow morning. I was also going to get some kind of gift / token of appreciation for our Global Council members. Their end of the year celebration is tonight at 10 pm in my apartment and I don't have snacks nor gifts and I barely managed to get around to cleaning my place, so there's enough space for everyone to sit and a somewhat clean carpets. On a side note, carpet floors are seriously a pain to clean. I mean, maybe I just have a crappy vaccuum but neither mine nor the one from the RA office can really get the hair and other little things out of the carpet. One day, when I'll have my own place, I won't nice wooden floors - and yes, I'll maybe put a rug on it but I won't have the entire floor carpeted.
Anyway, .... What was I talking about?
It's been a long semester - in some ways - and in others it's flown by and hasn't been long enough. I feel like I haven't had the chance to take a breath since January. It's also been quite the challenging semester. I'm used to doing things on my own, "me against the world" style, but somehow this semester it really got to me and I started feeling pretty lonely. It just felt like I was always fighting alone. The Invisible Children Challenge went alright, but the whole time I felt like I was just struggling myself to keep above water. I longingely remembered last time when two of my RAs stepped up and helped out, even though they weren't even required to help with the program - they had my back and I knew I didn't have to do it alone. This time, it felt like whenever things weren't going the way I wanted them to, I was in it alone without even someone to vent to. Last year, Service Splash caused quite a lot of drama but I knew I could rely on my best friend and fellow co-worker to be there in it with me and when I was ready to freak out, he was there to make sure things were taken care of or to help me just talk through and figure out things.
I think that's been the toughest thing this year - not having someone to talk to. I vented a couple times to a friend, who is not in Student Affairs; but I feel like she started getting annoyed and questioning if this was the right job for me and at times I felt like she was trying to convince me to change my career. But that's just stupid; I mean, yes, there are days when I get frustrated and I need to vent / there are days when I'm just exhausted and draines, but seriously, I couldn't see myself doing anything else and there are more days I love love love my job than days when I'm frustrated. And even when I'm frustrated, I still - in the end - love my job. I just sometimes need to get some of that frustration out and I think she got a bit more of that than she could handle because she was the only one around. To make a long story short, I stopped venting to her. But there also isn't anyone I talk to regularly enough on the phone that I could use them as my support system. And writing e-mails? It's just not the same. And so I've just kind of been dealing with all myself and it's made me feel pretty damn lonely.
I also think this Spring it really hit me what it means to live so far away from your family. I always thought that if something happened and my family needed help - or I needed them - I would be able to be there. I thought by now I'd have all the immigration issues figured out. Instead, I'm still living in this weird state of not knowing what will happen after my visa expires - not being able to go home whenever I want - not knowing what to do. I love my job and I've created a life for me here; I don't want to give that up. But I may not have a choice.
The other day I was thinnking that I'd love to be a regional advisor for our region of NACURH (the National Association of College and University Residence Halls). But that's a three-year commitment. I don't know if I have three years left here.
I want to plan things for my future, but I'm not sure I have a future here. I always feel like everything is just so temporary... And I think that's sometimes why I close myself off from everyone; I mean what's the point when I know that in the end I may have to leave anyway.
Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe in a few weeks the world will look a little brighter again. Less than two weeks left....
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Students First
In every student leadership position, we tell our students, "you are a student first" and "academics come first." But what doe sthat really mean?
I think many of us (supervisors, administrators) mean that we will support your studies and try to be flexible to work around those. We'll talk with you about your academics and help you figure out a plan to manage your time or refer you to appropriate resoruces. If you have a very stressful week and you ask for an extension on a deadline, we'll try to grant it (if possible) or we may even jump in and help with something (e.g. I usually cover one or two duty nights during Finals Week because I know that's a busy time for my staff).
But I think "being students first" means something different to some of our students. I sometimes get the impression that they expect that the excuse "I need to study" will get them out of any job duty. And I'm sorry but I just don't think that's realistic. Yes, you are a student first, but you also signed up for that job and having a job means that you need to get the job done. Will I try to be flexible? Of course! Am I willing to help out once in a while? Sure. But in the end, the job needs to get done and maybe being a student first means that if you can't manage both, you need to give up the job or leadership role.
I think many of us (supervisors, administrators) mean that we will support your studies and try to be flexible to work around those. We'll talk with you about your academics and help you figure out a plan to manage your time or refer you to appropriate resoruces. If you have a very stressful week and you ask for an extension on a deadline, we'll try to grant it (if possible) or we may even jump in and help with something (e.g. I usually cover one or two duty nights during Finals Week because I know that's a busy time for my staff).
But I think "being students first" means something different to some of our students. I sometimes get the impression that they expect that the excuse "I need to study" will get them out of any job duty. And I'm sorry but I just don't think that's realistic. Yes, you are a student first, but you also signed up for that job and having a job means that you need to get the job done. Will I try to be flexible? Of course! Am I willing to help out once in a while? Sure. But in the end, the job needs to get done and maybe being a student first means that if you can't manage both, you need to give up the job or leadership role.
April is being...well, April
It's 1 am and I'm still in the office. Yup, my life is pathetic. But it was just one of those days. It started off with a "thrilling" session of state mandated sexual harassment training - oh those "fun" things we get to do our first year. I really think ResLife should be exempt from some of those trainings - I mean, we had to do a diversity one that was basically a simplified version of what we train our RAs on. But hey, it's state mandated, so what can you do...
The day continued with a "lovely" but oh-so-pointless meeting with one of my learning community partners, who is leaving by the end of the year - so why are we still meeting to talk about things that we both know we'll never agree on. Today's topic was our learning communities lounge. Our students ahve been arguing about whether it's a quiet study lounge or a lounge for socializing. They asked me to make a decision. I told them I wouldn't but we could have a meeting to talk about it. Yeah, it would have been easier to just send out an e-mail and say, "This is the rule" but let's be honest, how developmental would that be? And the truth is, there is no rule. The lounge "used" be more of a social space. We do a decent number of programs in there. But when there aren't programs, I really don't have a preference what the lounge is used for - that's up to the students, so they need to come up with a decision.
The underlying tension is that there's one learning community that used to have the lounge to itself for the past few years. This year, they have to share with another learning community, one that's a lot smaller. I've been fighting the students' sense of entitlement - and honestly, it actually hasn't been too difficult and many of them have agreed that they should be sharing that lounge - but some of our learning community partners are worse than the students when it comes to their sense of entitlement. So once today the response I got was that I should be telling those other learning community students that this isn't a quiet study lounge and that they can't change the purpose of the lounge. Sigh.
After that, I had several student meetings, back to back. "Fortunately" I got stood up by two students, who had a conduct meeting with me (who also told me last week that they would do "anything" if I just dropped the case...hmmm, not showing up to your meeting isn't exactly doing "anything") - but that at least gave me the time to get ready for my evening of meetings. That evening started with a get-together with the staff for next year, which was really fun. We only got through about half of my agenda, but they had some good questions and we had a good conversation. That was followed by a student organization meeting and then the "epic" lounge meeting - where only representatives from one side showed up, so it was a pretty basic discussion. But it was still 10:30 pm by the time I made it back to the office, which was really the first time during the day I had to read and respond to e-mails, get some things organized and attempt to figure out how I will make it through tomorrow (particularly tomorrow from 7:30-8 pm because I'm supposed to be at three places at once for that half hour).
But hey, we're more than half-way through April and May...well, May will be a different story. ;)
The day continued with a "lovely" but oh-so-pointless meeting with one of my learning community partners, who is leaving by the end of the year - so why are we still meeting to talk about things that we both know we'll never agree on. Today's topic was our learning communities lounge. Our students ahve been arguing about whether it's a quiet study lounge or a lounge for socializing. They asked me to make a decision. I told them I wouldn't but we could have a meeting to talk about it. Yeah, it would have been easier to just send out an e-mail and say, "This is the rule" but let's be honest, how developmental would that be? And the truth is, there is no rule. The lounge "used" be more of a social space. We do a decent number of programs in there. But when there aren't programs, I really don't have a preference what the lounge is used for - that's up to the students, so they need to come up with a decision.
The underlying tension is that there's one learning community that used to have the lounge to itself for the past few years. This year, they have to share with another learning community, one that's a lot smaller. I've been fighting the students' sense of entitlement - and honestly, it actually hasn't been too difficult and many of them have agreed that they should be sharing that lounge - but some of our learning community partners are worse than the students when it comes to their sense of entitlement. So once today the response I got was that I should be telling those other learning community students that this isn't a quiet study lounge and that they can't change the purpose of the lounge. Sigh.
After that, I had several student meetings, back to back. "Fortunately" I got stood up by two students, who had a conduct meeting with me (who also told me last week that they would do "anything" if I just dropped the case...hmmm, not showing up to your meeting isn't exactly doing "anything") - but that at least gave me the time to get ready for my evening of meetings. That evening started with a get-together with the staff for next year, which was really fun. We only got through about half of my agenda, but they had some good questions and we had a good conversation. That was followed by a student organization meeting and then the "epic" lounge meeting - where only representatives from one side showed up, so it was a pretty basic discussion. But it was still 10:30 pm by the time I made it back to the office, which was really the first time during the day I had to read and respond to e-mails, get some things organized and attempt to figure out how I will make it through tomorrow (particularly tomorrow from 7:30-8 pm because I'm supposed to be at three places at once for that half hour).
But hey, we're more than half-way through April and May...well, May will be a different story. ;)
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Policy Enforcement
Students' logic amazes me sometimes. If I find you passed out in a lounge, you don't respond when I try to wake you and the next day you don't remember what happened, how can you tell me that you are okay and it wasn't a big deal? What it someone else had found you? What if nobody had found you? What if you had passed out somewhere else?
I've had quite a few meetings with students regarding policy violations lately and of course, the common response is, "I didn't know." My grad suggested starting off next year with all the bulletin boards having information about policies and possible consequences, but I don't really like that idea - it'd create such a negative atmosphere right from the start - as if we were out to get students. There has to be a better way to educate residents about policies. And let's be honest - the students, who come to those meetings because they have violated policies, are rarely the ones that read our bulletin boards or attend floor meetings. And I think it's a good lesson for a student to learn - not knowing the policy doesn't let you get away with things. In the "real world," you can't kill someone and then say, "Oh sorry, didn't realize it was against the law." Okay, extreme example, but you get my point....
In the end, I think the best we can do is make the information available to students, remind them occasionally through e-mails or a bulletin board (one, not all) about certain policies, and create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable coming to you with questions. And then we need to make sure our staff knows the policies and enforces them consistently, so that - if a student violates a policy - we can at least have that educational conversation (and yes, there will most likely be some consequences).
But yeah, staff knowing those policies!?! - that can be a tough one in itself. I've had a few situations this year where my own RAs violated policy and then used the "Oh-I-didn't-know" excuse. YOU ARE AN RA!!! I realize students don't read our policies, but I would expect that you did...or at least paid attention when we talked about the main ones during training and/or staff meetings.
And let's not even talk about consistent enforcement....
But hey, only four more weeks left. It'll be a busy four weeks and I'm sure our policy enforcement skills will be put to the test, but in the end we'll make it through and hopefully we, as well as our students, will learn something from this whole experience.
I've had quite a few meetings with students regarding policy violations lately and of course, the common response is, "I didn't know." My grad suggested starting off next year with all the bulletin boards having information about policies and possible consequences, but I don't really like that idea - it'd create such a negative atmosphere right from the start - as if we were out to get students. There has to be a better way to educate residents about policies. And let's be honest - the students, who come to those meetings because they have violated policies, are rarely the ones that read our bulletin boards or attend floor meetings. And I think it's a good lesson for a student to learn - not knowing the policy doesn't let you get away with things. In the "real world," you can't kill someone and then say, "Oh sorry, didn't realize it was against the law." Okay, extreme example, but you get my point....
In the end, I think the best we can do is make the information available to students, remind them occasionally through e-mails or a bulletin board (one, not all) about certain policies, and create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable coming to you with questions. And then we need to make sure our staff knows the policies and enforces them consistently, so that - if a student violates a policy - we can at least have that educational conversation (and yes, there will most likely be some consequences).
But yeah, staff knowing those policies!?! - that can be a tough one in itself. I've had a few situations this year where my own RAs violated policy and then used the "Oh-I-didn't-know" excuse. YOU ARE AN RA!!! I realize students don't read our policies, but I would expect that you did...or at least paid attention when we talked about the main ones during training and/or staff meetings.
And let's not even talk about consistent enforcement....
But hey, only four more weeks left. It'll be a busy four weeks and I'm sure our policy enforcement skills will be put to the test, but in the end we'll make it through and hopefully we, as well as our students, will learn something from this whole experience.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Welcome to April!
When I was a kid, I used to love April. My birthday is in April. The weather is usually getting a little bit better and it's getting warmer - you can feel the excitement and energy of Spring in April. In Austria, the Easter Holidays are usually in April, which meant a week + of vacation, traveling and quality time with my family. April was simply AWESOME!!!
But these days, April is NOT my favorite month. By April, I'm usually just ready for the semester to be over. All those little issues with your staff that have been annoying you all year long suddenly are very tough to handle. Everything that didn't work out the way you wanted to that year is building up and you're just ready for a fresh start with a new group of students, a new group of staff members and new energy and enthusiasm. The staff is also tired and stressed, busy with getting ready for finals and planning last events for their student organizations. Students have set routines and are stressed as well and therefore unlikely to come to events and programs. April is the month of banquets (which sounds fun but after a while is just a lot of extra time); April is the month of weekends where you have to work; April is the month where you are so close to the end of the acadmeic year but there's still so much left to do.
If the rest of the month will be similar to April 1, it's going to be a tough month. I came back from ACPA Wednesday, March 30th, in the evening and went straight to the office and then a student organization meeting. Thursday, March 31, I tried to catch up on work but wasn't very successful as I was constantly being interrupted. In the evening, I was supposed to pick up a friend/the headliner for our Invisible Children Benefit Concert on April 1 - the drive was about an hour. I was going to leave around 9 pm, but then things happened and I ended up talking to a student and finally it was ridiculously late. It was also snowing like crazy outside; I could barely see where I was driving. And I didn't get there until about midnight and that's when April 1, a day that could give me nightmares, started. I didn't get back home until about 2 am, then still needed to take care of a few things for work and then finally crashed. I woke up early to get to the office, started off with some important phone calls and then settled down to do the things that should have been done the day before. Meetings with students in between, trying to catch up on the most important e-mails (at one point, my inbox was at 150 e-mails...yikes!!!) and the day was flying by. I still had to create sign-sheets and other materials for the concert, figure out what I was going to say and which videos to show and and and. But every time I settled down to do that, a student stopped by or my phone rang. Then, at 4 pm, as I'm finally trying to put the last finishing touches on my concert prep, I get a phone call about a roommate conflict in an area I'm covering (because the Hall Director is out of town). So I met with the two students, trying to figure out what had been happening in this roommate conflict that has been going on for weeks and that another staff member had been dealing with. Finally I thought I had a solution for the weekend, so I sent the students on their way. One of them was still super upset, so I gave her my cell so she could call in case of an emergency this weekend. I know, not a smart choice, but I didn't know what else to do and needed to get her to stop crying so I could get off the phone and focus on all the other things I needed to do.
At 7:15 pm, I was throwing the last things in the bag I was taking with me and was about to head up to my apartment to get our headliner and drive over to the concert venue - when, of course, my phone rang. It was the father of the students involved in the roommate conflict and there were new issues. I told my Assistant Hall Director to get the musicans over to the venue and start setting up and then I ran out the door to deal with this situation. About 20 minutes later, everything was settled and I ran over to the venue myself. While running I called several people to catch them up on the situation. I showed up at the venue, breathless, exhausted and stressed. We set up and got ready. At first things seemed to be working out. But then the tech guys were having issues getting the sound for the videos to work. They also didn't know much about the soundboard they were supposed to be working with, which frustrated our musicians. To make a long story short, we started not the 15-minutes late that I had planned in (to allow for people to get there) but 35-minutes late. And because the computer couldn't play sound, I couldn't even play some music while people were sitting there waiting. I was so frustrated. We also didn't have the turnout I was hoping for. We had about 50 people; not bad but just not what I was hoping for and in a venue set up for 180 people, it looked a bit miserable. And I mean, my last Invisible Children Challenge, I had over 100 people at the event and that was at a smaller school. But we had more teams back then and more excited staff members working on the event. I don't think I did a good job at getting our staff involved and excited this year. I struggled with recruiting teams and then we just didn't get a chance to advertise as much for the event than I did last time around. It's also harder here to advertise because regulations about what you can do on campus are strict - so no poster-trees or Africa-shaped banners. :( We had also planned on tabling outside the Student Union the last two days before the concert but then the weather messed with those plans. Sigh. Oh well, next year, we'll be back - bigger and better! :) Some of my students, who were there, told me that they really enjoyed the event - which I guess is what's most important. And now we've done it here once and we know what some of the problems are that we need to work around next time. But yes, April 1 was definitely not my day. Let's hope the rest of the month goes better (even though I'm not feeling too confident right now).
But these days, April is NOT my favorite month. By April, I'm usually just ready for the semester to be over. All those little issues with your staff that have been annoying you all year long suddenly are very tough to handle. Everything that didn't work out the way you wanted to that year is building up and you're just ready for a fresh start with a new group of students, a new group of staff members and new energy and enthusiasm. The staff is also tired and stressed, busy with getting ready for finals and planning last events for their student organizations. Students have set routines and are stressed as well and therefore unlikely to come to events and programs. April is the month of banquets (which sounds fun but after a while is just a lot of extra time); April is the month of weekends where you have to work; April is the month where you are so close to the end of the acadmeic year but there's still so much left to do.
If the rest of the month will be similar to April 1, it's going to be a tough month. I came back from ACPA Wednesday, March 30th, in the evening and went straight to the office and then a student organization meeting. Thursday, March 31, I tried to catch up on work but wasn't very successful as I was constantly being interrupted. In the evening, I was supposed to pick up a friend/the headliner for our Invisible Children Benefit Concert on April 1 - the drive was about an hour. I was going to leave around 9 pm, but then things happened and I ended up talking to a student and finally it was ridiculously late. It was also snowing like crazy outside; I could barely see where I was driving. And I didn't get there until about midnight and that's when April 1, a day that could give me nightmares, started. I didn't get back home until about 2 am, then still needed to take care of a few things for work and then finally crashed. I woke up early to get to the office, started off with some important phone calls and then settled down to do the things that should have been done the day before. Meetings with students in between, trying to catch up on the most important e-mails (at one point, my inbox was at 150 e-mails...yikes!!!) and the day was flying by. I still had to create sign-sheets and other materials for the concert, figure out what I was going to say and which videos to show and and and. But every time I settled down to do that, a student stopped by or my phone rang. Then, at 4 pm, as I'm finally trying to put the last finishing touches on my concert prep, I get a phone call about a roommate conflict in an area I'm covering (because the Hall Director is out of town). So I met with the two students, trying to figure out what had been happening in this roommate conflict that has been going on for weeks and that another staff member had been dealing with. Finally I thought I had a solution for the weekend, so I sent the students on their way. One of them was still super upset, so I gave her my cell so she could call in case of an emergency this weekend. I know, not a smart choice, but I didn't know what else to do and needed to get her to stop crying so I could get off the phone and focus on all the other things I needed to do.
At 7:15 pm, I was throwing the last things in the bag I was taking with me and was about to head up to my apartment to get our headliner and drive over to the concert venue - when, of course, my phone rang. It was the father of the students involved in the roommate conflict and there were new issues. I told my Assistant Hall Director to get the musicans over to the venue and start setting up and then I ran out the door to deal with this situation. About 20 minutes later, everything was settled and I ran over to the venue myself. While running I called several people to catch them up on the situation. I showed up at the venue, breathless, exhausted and stressed. We set up and got ready. At first things seemed to be working out. But then the tech guys were having issues getting the sound for the videos to work. They also didn't know much about the soundboard they were supposed to be working with, which frustrated our musicians. To make a long story short, we started not the 15-minutes late that I had planned in (to allow for people to get there) but 35-minutes late. And because the computer couldn't play sound, I couldn't even play some music while people were sitting there waiting. I was so frustrated. We also didn't have the turnout I was hoping for. We had about 50 people; not bad but just not what I was hoping for and in a venue set up for 180 people, it looked a bit miserable. And I mean, my last Invisible Children Challenge, I had over 100 people at the event and that was at a smaller school. But we had more teams back then and more excited staff members working on the event. I don't think I did a good job at getting our staff involved and excited this year. I struggled with recruiting teams and then we just didn't get a chance to advertise as much for the event than I did last time around. It's also harder here to advertise because regulations about what you can do on campus are strict - so no poster-trees or Africa-shaped banners. :( We had also planned on tabling outside the Student Union the last two days before the concert but then the weather messed with those plans. Sigh. Oh well, next year, we'll be back - bigger and better! :) Some of my students, who were there, told me that they really enjoyed the event - which I guess is what's most important. And now we've done it here once and we know what some of the problems are that we need to work around next time. But yes, April 1 was definitely not my day. Let's hope the rest of the month goes better (even though I'm not feeling too confident right now).
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