New Semester, New Goals

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - Francis of Assisi

Happy New Year, Everyone!  The blog is back!

I realized rather slowly last semester that I was in over my head in this endeavor.  I barely had time to tell my wife about my day, much reflect on it with you all.  So now, after being rejuvenated by a relaxing winter break with my family, I am setting out to do one post per week on Mondays.  As always, thank you for understanding and reading!

I believe a good way to start the new semester would be to set some professional goals for now through May.  I have had the chance to think back on last semester and want to reach for developing in the following ten areas.    Hopefully some may be general enough that other new professionals can relate, or at least consider where they can be analogous to their own positions:

1. Ask for more feedback - I have yet to figure out why, but I find myself consistently wondering if I am doing things well or doing enough in my position.  I think some of the time I spend wondering would be better spent this semester by actually asking someone who will have an answer.
2. Plan and implement a campus-wide program with the Hall staff - We have started to think about it and are excited to make it happen.  This will be a grand test in the action of following-through!
3. Assess some initiatives within the hall - There is a lot that we do that we assume is working.  It is about time that I actually talk to some residents about what they think works and doesn't work.
4. Create more space for academic success - I discovered at the end of last semester that many more residents than we thought were struggling with academics.  We can always do more, so it is time to rethink how we incorporate our Faculty Fellow, intentionally discuss classes, and create a space for students to be first and foremost academically successful.
5. Be a more approachable and intentional supervisor - Again, there is always more to be done, and facilitating the professional development of RAs to me is one of the most important areas of my position.
6. Reflect more on how students manage conflict and how to facilitate this - I plan to discuss this in depth with the RAs I supervise during our winter training; it is an area in which I have become very interested, and I believe helping students manage conflict became a much larger role last semester than I had expected.
7. Gain a sense of my professional network / reconnect - I did not realize how quickly a professional network grows in this field, and before I even thought of how to best network I had more connections than I could track in my head.  I need to at least start a list before it grows beyond my reach.
8. Be more present with advising - I have had the chance to reflect with some mentors on advising and realize that my approach could be less hands-off.  Redefining my role with Hall Council is one of my primary goals this semester.
9. Give more time to one-on-one conversations - Within a conversation with a student I (ideally) have a captive audience.  I need to appreciate this more, capitalize on these moments, and have the conversations I can have with those students.
10. Continue to bring theory into practice - My cohort is finally studying student development theory this semester, and I am excited to apply this to my work.

There you go!  What do you think of these goals?  What do you plan to work on this semester?

Quote Citation:

Francis of Assisi. (n.d.). BrainyQuote. Retrieved from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/francisofa121023.html 

Photo By: Me :)

A Day in the Life...Now a MWF Blog!

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." - Henry David Thoreau

     Yesterday was my first Tuesday of the semester, and it was eye-opening in some ways. A quick disclaimer: this will sound like complaining, but I enjoyed almost every minute of yesterday. Here is the schedule of yesterday's events:

• 5:30AM-6:00AM: Wake-Up; make breakfast for my wife, Jenn; and get ready for my run
• 6:00AM-6:45AM: Jenn leaves for work, and I go on my run
• 6:45AM-8:00AM: Stretch, shower, dress, eat breakfast, do the morning's dishes, and quickly check e-mail and schedule for the day
• 8:00AM-10:00AM: Get coffee, prepare for morning staff meeting, prepare materials for area-wide program later in the day, and answer e-mails
• 10:00AM-12:00PM: Area Hall Director Meeting
• 12:00PM-1:00PM: Lunch
• 1:00PM-3:45PM: Respond to multiple calls (all from different offices), show a campus partner a public space for a future event, assist a resident with multiple cable issues, call Tech Services to report that issue, prepare more for program later, prepare a form for my staff to do roster verifications, and prepare for class
• 3:45PM-4:15PM: Change for class and later program, carry items for program over to other hall (including a large cutout of the school mascot - it looked hilarious I bet)
• 4:15PM-6:15PM: Statistics Class (got out early!!)
• 6:15PM-7:15PM: Assist with final parts and clean-up of area-wide program
• 7:15PM-8:00PM: Dinner with Jenn
• 8:00PM-10:00PM: Hall RA Staff Meeting
• 10:20PM - Bed time!

     I hesitated in posting this, since it could look as though I am trying to scare future professionals away. That is not the intention at all - I have always disliked any program, be it undergraduate, graduate, or professional, that attempts to weed-out or scare its students. I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday and appreciated the reality-check of how the next two years will look every now and then. The only item yesterday that will not always occur is the area-wide program (which went really well!) - other than that, this is how Tuesday will look weekly for me. I am fine with it. I am both a student and a graduate assistant, and I want to be a student affairs professional, so this is what I signed-up for!

     Given all of that, I have decided to change this blog to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday blog. As you can see, Tuesday is slightly cramped, and my class with the heaviest reading occurs on Thursday, so I will rarely be able to prioritize posting if I have not already prepared something the day before. I promise the content will stay the same, if not improve! Thank you for staying with me as I continue this experiment in reflection. :)

Quote Citation: Thoreau, H. D. (n.d.). The quotations page. Retrieved from: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26843.html 

Don't reinvent the wheel, unless you want the challenge...

"Don't reinvent the wheel, just realign it." - Anthony J. D'Angelo

      During my training, many of my colleagues provided "Don't reinvent the wheel" and similar sentiments when discussing the myriad materials and sessions I had/have/will have to prepare for my position. In the past I have seen this as great advice - if a tool comes pre-made and does the job you are looking to fill, why make a new tool? Using the "wheel" already has many pros, including saving you both time and energy - resources that can be put towards the next task, for which you may have to invent a ball because a wheel won't work.

     However, as D'Angelo points out, there are cases in which a "realignment" is warranted (and I promise this is as far as I will take the metaphor). On one end of the spectrum, a training session may need to be tweaked due to the original facilitator having a much larger staff with which to work. On the other end, sheet for RAs to fill-out while on rounds may need to be almost rewritten due to the original institution having different policies and procedures (something I did yesterday). But even on that end I was able to keep the original formatting, which would have taken me another hour to recreate. In fact, I have spent most of the past few days retrofitting my old resources and realigning others' for this new position, saving minutes and hours everywhere.

    While realigning and not reinventing are both great time- and energy-savers, I could see why a professional would still want to start something from scratch: the challenge. For an example, I will turn to my programming model for the RAs I am supervising. I made it from the bare bones, which were my supervisor's programming expectations for our area on campus, and then built it into a year-long programming plan for my residence hall. Yes, I took some advice here and there, but in the end I typed the entire plan and the ideas and intentions were mine. My supervisor telling me that he believed it was a good plan felt like the biggest praise ever, all because I had taken-on the challenge and met it.

   The purpose of that example is not to put me on a pedestal (I'm afraid of heights anyway), but instead to show the importance for a young, sub-entry level professional of creating your own ideas and materials every once in awhile. Starting-off fresh has been very stressful at points, but I feel that the longer you wait to truly challenge yourself to utilize the skills you are building, the longer you wait to grow in your position. So, realign when you do not have the time, but when you do have the time, take it to at least consider the challenge of reinventing. Who knows - your wheel may roll you further.

Quote Citation: D'Angelo, Anthony J. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/anthonyjd377829.html

Photo by: me