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015 - Reflections on the New Professional Experience | Nancy Chadwick-Murphy [Past President]
4 Plays3 years ago
On this episode we talk to Past President Nancy Murphy-Chadwick. We start with Nancy's hobby of making stained glass windows and applicable lessons to the workplace and how Nancy originally wanted to be a high school band director, but was steered away because those jobs were for men. Nancy talks about her thirty years as the SHO at TWU, a job she apparently enjoyed enough to come out of retirement to serve in an interim role during a supervisory transition. We talk about how to best share award recognition during job interviews and how determine departmental culture during a job interview, and many others. Nancy has several "firsts" throughout her career that she shares. Throughout this episode, Nancy imparts plenty of practical advice for new professionals, a population she dedicated her career to helping.
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Recommended![025 - Fun Topics from the ACUHO-I Community Forum | Joel Gatti [Feature Topic] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
Transcript
Introduction and Career Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm JC Stoner, and this is the Swakuho Podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
Today we are joined by another Swakuho past president, Nancy Murphy Chadwick.
00:00:08
Speaker
We first covered Nancy's time as director of university housing at Texas Women's University, an experience she apparently enjoyed enough for 30 years to come out of retirement to serve again in on an interim basis during a supervisory transition period.
00:00:29
Speaker
We then spend some time discussing longevity and positions and feelings of positional stagnation.
Reflections on Longevity and Contributions
00:00:34
Speaker
Nancy tells us about her SWACUHO service, specifically focusing on her tenure as president and the development of the Supervisory Skills Workshop.
00:00:42
Speaker
Before concluding, we focus on the experience of young professionals.
00:00:46
Speaker
We, of course, round out the episode with a couple of fun Nancy stories I've been able to collect through my extensive background research.
00:00:54
Speaker
Nancy began her 40-year career in student affairs at Miami University, moving on to the University of Georgia, followed by East Texas State University, which is now known as Texas A&M Commerce.
00:01:06
Speaker
She concluded her career at Texas Women's University, where she served primarily as a senior housing officer for more than three decades.
00:01:14
Speaker
Throughout her career, Nancy served in a number of leadership roles within Akuhoi, ACPA, and Swakuho.
00:01:22
Speaker
In SWACUHO, she was the chair for several committees and served on the executive board as secretary, SHO liaison, and president.
00:01:30
Speaker
She was instrumental in the establishment of the annual SHO workshop and supervisory skills workshop, now known as SWACUHO U.
00:01:40
Speaker
In recognition of her significant contributions to the housing profession, Nancy was awarded Swakuho's Jim Gibson Exceptional Service Award, the Akuho-Ai Presidential Service Award, and the Akuho-Ai Parthenon Award.
Career Advice and Hobbies
00:01:53
Speaker
Throughout her career, Nancy has been committed to the development of young professionals and is the namesake of Swakuho's New Professional of Distinction Award.
00:02:02
Speaker
So expect plenty of practical advice for young professionals through and throughout this episode.
00:02:07
Speaker
Nancy, welcome to the show.
00:02:10
Speaker
Well, hi, JC.
00:02:11
Speaker
I'm glad to be here today.
00:02:13
Speaker
We're really glad to have you.
00:02:14
Speaker
It's been a long time coming, right?
00:02:17
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:02:17
Speaker
We've had several boarded meetings on this.
00:02:22
Speaker
You and Kid Sampson have really tested me.
00:02:25
Speaker
If you live out in the country, you don't get much internet.
00:02:29
Speaker
I've lost some of my education over the time.
00:02:31
Speaker
But I bet you get a lot of peace and quiet.
00:02:34
Speaker
At times, yes.
00:02:35
Speaker
Good.
00:02:37
Speaker
Less duty calls, I'm sure.
00:02:38
Speaker
That is for sure.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:40
Speaker
Well, Nancy, I have to say that's quite the bio, but first things first, what I'm really interested in is the fact that you make stained glass windows.
00:02:49
Speaker
Talk about a unique hobby.
00:02:50
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:52
Speaker
I actually started that when I was working before my daughter was born and then took a little hiatus until she grew up because you just don't want to have glass around, but
00:03:06
Speaker
You know, I've made a number of different projects throughout the years.
00:03:10
Speaker
It was kind of a hobby that gave me a little change from what I do on a day-to-day basis, too, in being able to create some sometimes beautiful items and sometimes some that you wouldn't want to look at at all.
00:03:27
Speaker
But I think it started my daughter on her art career, which is what she's done lately.
00:03:32
Speaker
Wow.
00:03:33
Speaker
Any takeaways from this craft that you applied back to your job?
00:03:38
Speaker
Patience.
00:03:39
Speaker
You have to have patience and you have to be really focused on detail.
00:03:45
Speaker
Because if you don't, you're going to break the glass.
00:03:48
Speaker
If you don't cut it, if you put too much pressure in an area, things just don't work out well.
Career Path and Transitions
00:03:54
Speaker
Well, there we go.
00:03:56
Speaker
So, Nancy, a vast majority of your career was spent as the Director of University Housing at Texas Women's University.
00:04:03
Speaker
Prior to starting in that role, was there ever a moment in your career where you decided you wanted to serve as a director level position or did it just sort of happen?
00:04:13
Speaker
Well, it kind of happened both ways in a way.
00:04:16
Speaker
I started to really think about possibly wanting to be a director when I was at the University of Georgia.
00:04:22
Speaker
But if I could take one step back, I had not planned anything.
00:04:26
Speaker
originally when I went to school to go into student affairs or housing, I was a music major.
00:04:31
Speaker
I, uh, I loved the residence hall, had fun sometimes, uh, to the detriment of my RA, but, but did have good experiences and relationships with both the grad advisors and my, uh,
00:04:50
Speaker
RAs throughout the year there.
00:04:52
Speaker
However, as a music major, I wanted to be a high school band director.
00:04:59
Speaker
And back in the early 70s, when I graduated, it was a very male-dominated field, actually.
00:05:06
Speaker
And so when I interviewed, I would be directed towards
00:05:12
Speaker
this nice elementary school music program or high school choir program, but very rarely to a band where there was marching band, jazz groups, and concert band, which is what I really wanted to do.
00:05:31
Speaker
So I was getting a little frustrated.
00:05:33
Speaker
That was the first time I felt discriminated against as a woman.
00:05:36
Speaker
So I had...
00:05:38
Speaker
a friend who I had grown pretty close to who was the grad director in the residence hall that I was in my senior year.
00:05:48
Speaker
And she was a music major.
00:05:50
Speaker
And she said, you know, you might want to, these are great assistantships.
00:05:57
Speaker
You might want to see if you'd like to apply for it and maybe go on.
00:06:00
Speaker
Because I started thinking about just let me get my master's degree and I'll work
Early Career Development
00:06:05
Speaker
on.
00:06:05
Speaker
And so I did apply.
00:06:07
Speaker
and was hired as an assistant freshman advisor in a women's residence hall.
00:06:13
Speaker
And I loved it so much, I got my degree in music.
00:06:17
Speaker
I taught wind instrument music and instrumental music at the university a little bit while I was working on that master's.
00:06:25
Speaker
But then I started thinking, you know, I'm really having fun doing this.
00:06:29
Speaker
I loved working with the students.
00:06:31
Speaker
I loved to be able, I was an academic advisor for part of, for part of my residence hall, uh, students, but I've worked with student leadership.
00:06:39
Speaker
And so, uh, I started asking the questions about, okay, I have my master's degree, but what's going to help me the most?
00:06:47
Speaker
And it basically was directed, look, if you want to stay here, you can, and we would love to mentor you.
00:06:54
Speaker
And, and, uh,
00:06:56
Speaker
and move over into the higher ed, uh, student personnel program, which is what I did.
00:07:02
Speaker
And I found that I had some courses that overlap between my two masters.
00:07:05
Speaker
So, wow, that's hard to believe music.
00:07:08
Speaker
I know.
00:07:09
Speaker
Well, see, I had a little focus on, uh, music therapy and music therapy gave me some counseling, general counseling program, which, uh, was interesting at the time that it would tie in that way.
00:07:23
Speaker
So, uh,
00:07:24
Speaker
So I was accepted into that master's degree program, went on.
00:07:30
Speaker
At that point, I was working full-time because I had the one master's.
00:07:33
Speaker
They promoted me to a full-time freshman advisor, and I had a residence hall with 200 students that I was their academic advisor along with the normal hall duties there.
00:07:47
Speaker
And that was a unique program at Miami of Ohio at that point.
00:07:51
Speaker
But anyways, I went on to complete my second master's degree and stayed on for another year or two because during that program, my husband-to-be I met there because he came up from SMU and started his program in student affairs and working on a similar degree.
00:08:12
Speaker
But after I had been there for another year or two, I started looking and
00:08:17
Speaker
and actually received a call from the University of Georgia.
00:08:22
Speaker
I lived in a community that had just been newly made a co-ed.
00:08:27
Speaker
It was all male before that.
00:08:29
Speaker
So we had about a 20% female and 80% male.
00:08:34
Speaker
And so I was kind of a new phenomena for the residents, the male residents in that community anyway, and had some challenges, you know,
00:08:44
Speaker
like a fire in the top of the building where my apartment was, and having to meet a streaker rappelling down the side of a building, you know, things like that.
00:08:57
Speaker
You know, we all have some really interesting experiences, and I can tell you a lot of stories.
00:09:03
Speaker
When I came in, I only spent one year in the area, and then I was promoted into the central area.
00:09:09
Speaker
office there as the, at that time, the title was assistant to the director and student development specialist.
00:09:17
Speaker
I was the res life person basically for the campus.
00:09:22
Speaker
And I had the opportunity my second year to be able to hire, be part of the team
00:09:28
Speaker
that interviewed and made the recommendations to hire Dr. Dan Helmbeck, who is my friend and mentor there for the next couple of years and a really good experience there at the University of Georgia.
00:09:43
Speaker
There I also met some of Dan's good friends when I was in, and typically through ACPA where I met them.
00:09:53
Speaker
but later through other organizations, one being Ken Stoner, another Kent Sampson.
00:10:00
Speaker
Both past guests on this show.
00:10:02
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:10:03
Speaker
We've been, you know, there were a lot of connections there anyways.
00:10:07
Speaker
And I was able to learn a lot about budgeting and
00:10:12
Speaker
assignments and all the operations end as well.
00:10:16
Speaker
So that was a good experience at Georgia.
00:10:19
Speaker
We wound up back at what was East Texas State at that time.
00:10:23
Speaker
Planned a wedding, got married within a month's period so that we could make the trip.
00:10:29
Speaker
We got married in Georgia.
00:10:31
Speaker
We had all of our friends.
00:10:33
Speaker
current friends there and our families came in.
00:10:36
Speaker
And my honeymoon was in Meridian, Mississippi, as we were traveling across to go to Commerce, Texas.
00:10:42
Speaker
So anyway, when we got there, I started looking around to see what might be available.
00:10:51
Speaker
And the director of housing there at East Texas, Dr. Joe Weber, who came from Tennessee, we have a lot of Georgia, Tennessee connections.
00:11:01
Speaker
And
00:11:02
Speaker
in my life through here as far as people I know and who have influenced me.
00:11:07
Speaker
He said, you know, I have a position, but right now the state has frozen all of our positions, but I have an assistant director for Res Life.
00:11:14
Speaker
You've already done this.
00:11:16
Speaker
I could offer you something to come in half time until the state opens up the positions again.
00:11:23
Speaker
And I thought, okay, 70 miles to any other position I could work at university.
00:11:30
Speaker
I took the position.
00:11:32
Speaker
and actually kept my maiden name because I took a hyphenated name after we got married anyways, but we decided since Doug and I were office next to one another, it might be just easier and less confusing for students if there was a Chadwick and a Murphy there yet.
00:11:48
Speaker
And so that's the way, at least we opened it up for students.
00:11:55
Speaker
We didn't
00:11:56
Speaker
at that point in time.
00:11:57
Speaker
But by the end of the fall semester, I became full-time, even though I was working full-time for a part-time salary, but I finally got paid for what I was doing.
00:12:07
Speaker
And we were only there for about two years.
00:12:11
Speaker
And actually at the end of the second year, we had just bought a house.
00:12:14
Speaker
We moved in.
00:12:16
Speaker
I had, I had been, uh,
00:12:20
Speaker
asked to consider if I would like to look at a director of student activity position there rather as a way to move up.
00:12:28
Speaker
And
Texas Women's University Experience
00:12:29
Speaker
I think also our vice president thought, I don't know whether I want a married couple in the office, even though it doesn't break any laws there.
00:12:37
Speaker
And I could have stayed in housing there too.
00:12:41
Speaker
And at the same time, I got a call
00:12:44
Speaker
from the Vice President for Student Affairs at Texas Women's University saying my name had been nominated for a position she had open, which was at that point an Assistant Dean of Students for ResLife.
00:12:58
Speaker
So I decided, well, I'm going to go and interview there because I really liked housing.
00:13:03
Speaker
I loved housing.
00:13:04
Speaker
I was developing relationships and networking within the field.
00:13:09
Speaker
I had a wonderful interview there was she was looking for somebody who had housing background who could actually bring not only have the educational background for it, but experiential background to pull together a full university housing department.
00:13:28
Speaker
So when I came in, my first goal was to pull the housing operations and facilities and business all together into one department.
00:13:37
Speaker
And so,
00:13:38
Speaker
We worked on that within the first four months.
00:13:42
Speaker
We were able to change the title for the department.
00:13:46
Speaker
And then my position title became director of university housing.
00:13:51
Speaker
Four months.
00:13:51
Speaker
That's like no time at all.
00:13:53
Speaker
It's in the grand scheme of things.
00:13:55
Speaker
No, no, it's not.
00:13:56
Speaker
But it was it was just an interesting startup.
00:14:00
Speaker
But that's how I got to TWU.
00:14:04
Speaker
A little side note, and I know it may come up later.
00:14:08
Speaker
One thing that I, when I came, I interviewed with people in housing and I interviewed with my vice president and the other vice presidents.
00:14:18
Speaker
I never met the president.
00:14:21
Speaker
She was out of town at that point.
00:14:25
Speaker
I really had a lot of support by all the vice presidents on campus.
00:14:29
Speaker
I,
00:14:30
Speaker
And I never had, when the president came back, I found out that the president, probably in her selection of her VPs, they clashed because she had young VPs that were forward thinking.
00:14:44
Speaker
And within the first year, the academic VP left because she kind of pushed him out.
00:14:51
Speaker
And my VP, who after about 12 months or so, she saw that this president was trying to force her VPs out.
00:15:01
Speaker
And so she wound up moving to University of Alabama, Huntsville.
00:15:06
Speaker
And she was the major reason I went there.
00:15:10
Speaker
Now, since then, I've learned a lot.
00:15:12
Speaker
But the only footnote I put in there on this is that it would have been important to
00:15:19
Speaker
For me, and I tell all professionals, make sure that you have a good idea of the politics on your campus.
00:15:26
Speaker
And from the top down, what's the philosophy there to make sure it's a good environment?
00:15:32
Speaker
Because we had about a two or three year rocky environment and then things smoothed out.
00:15:38
Speaker
Well, since you brought it up, like how do you fish that out in an interview process?
00:15:43
Speaker
Like know if there's dirty politics going on or.
00:15:47
Speaker
I wish I would have done was it asked.
00:15:49
Speaker
My supervisor, the vice president, since I'm not meeting the president, what is her philosophy for student life and for the campus and student involvement?
00:16:02
Speaker
Those were questions I never asked.
00:16:04
Speaker
I took it on faith that everybody was of the same mind, and that really wasn't the case initially.
Maintaining Engagement and Career Satisfaction
00:16:12
Speaker
Eventually, we were able to influence a little bit on the president because she was around for a while more.
00:16:19
Speaker
And it took some time to change that mindset.
00:16:25
Speaker
But it's good to ask some questions and find out who the hierarchy is in there and what kind of support.
00:16:33
Speaker
And it is hard to know the right questions, but it's always good to ask about their philosophy and support of
00:16:40
Speaker
if it's housing, the housing program on campus.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's even really important in the local setting of a department is how do you understand the internal politics?
00:16:51
Speaker
Exactly.
00:16:52
Speaker
I did a session on departmental capital, and I think when somebody asked, how do you know this in an interview?
00:16:59
Speaker
Because everyone's trying to put on the best face.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:02
Speaker
I said it's sometimes not about the questions you ask, but it's about is there a consistent response?
00:17:07
Speaker
Exactly.
00:17:07
Speaker
Exactly.
00:17:08
Speaker
One of the things I said was ask them like how are committee chairs selected?
00:17:14
Speaker
And you really don't care what the answer is as long as is there a process?
00:17:18
Speaker
Is there something to understand?
00:17:20
Speaker
Whether it's like, oh, the leadership selects it or people are voted or it's a progression.
00:17:25
Speaker
You know, those sorts of things.
00:17:26
Speaker
What's the process to help you glean behind it?
00:17:29
Speaker
Because people are going to be like, oh, well, it's just.
00:17:33
Speaker
The person at the top just makes all the decisions they want and we just deal with it.
00:17:35
Speaker
Like that's never going to come out in an interview.
00:17:37
Speaker
No, it's not.
00:17:38
Speaker
But you're right.
00:17:39
Speaker
You can ask questions about what kind of collaboration is going on on campus.
00:17:46
Speaker
And is there support not only from the person on top, but what does the university community think about housing?
00:17:53
Speaker
What is the philosophy for students, student involvement?
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, you kind of have to read between the lines, but at least in my experience, more dysfunctional environments tend to be easier to read between the lines when people are trying to put on a good face.
00:18:10
Speaker
It should be relatively obvious.
00:18:12
Speaker
Well, and you have to remember that you're interviewing as well as being interviewed.
00:18:16
Speaker
And a lot of times there's a tendency to feel like you need to give out all your information, but if you don't say a few and ask a few key questions,
00:18:27
Speaker
How are you going to know what that environment's like?
00:18:32
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:18:33
Speaker
So you served as director for about 30 years.
00:18:36
Speaker
I did.
00:18:37
Speaker
That's a long time.
00:18:40
Speaker
Did the job ever get stagnant?
00:18:43
Speaker
Not really.
00:18:46
Speaker
I don't think I'd ever use the word stagnant.
00:18:48
Speaker
There were frustrating times during the job.
00:18:51
Speaker
But one of the things that I found is that there were
00:18:56
Speaker
many opportunities to start new programs and look at means to be a change agent.
00:19:05
Speaker
And because of that, and the fact that I'm a relational person, I like to get to know people.
00:19:12
Speaker
And I think it's very important to know your community and know the university community.
00:19:19
Speaker
And so it gave me the opportunity to be involved with the academic sector and not
00:19:26
Speaker
just silo us off.
00:19:28
Speaker
And because of having those opportunities to make change and to also gain support because of those relationships, I was never stagnant on that.
00:19:45
Speaker
Also, I had a great opportunity to be able to hire excellent staff, but also be involved within
00:19:55
Speaker
So outside networking is very, very important to what we all do and to bring in new ideas.
00:20:07
Speaker
Well, then what would you say to 30 years and you didn't feel it was stagnated?
00:20:12
Speaker
What would you say to a new professional who has been in the job for like two years and feels like their job is stagnated?
00:20:19
Speaker
or like wants to move on after two years because they feel like they can't go anywhere else or they're not a change agent, as you called it?
00:20:27
Speaker
Well, I would first, if they really want to move on, you know, I would support them.
00:20:34
Speaker
However, I would say, let's take a look.
00:20:37
Speaker
I would ask the question, what do you want to do?
00:20:40
Speaker
And I think
00:20:43
Speaker
young professionals who don't talk with their immediate supervisor and also take time to talk with, because sometimes they don't have contact on a daily basis with the senior housing supervisor to talk, to make appointments and talk about what they would like to do.
00:21:05
Speaker
But I also feel it was my responsibility to ask some questions out of my staff too, and what would you like to do?
00:21:13
Speaker
And let's see how we can get you involved in some of these areas.
00:21:19
Speaker
But there is initiative on both ends.
00:21:23
Speaker
So I would first tell a new professional, take the initiative and go make those contacts.
00:21:28
Speaker
Networking is so important.
00:21:30
Speaker
First on your campus, then outside.
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
I mean, the key to everything is relationships in some ways.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, it really is.
00:21:39
Speaker
I've always thought that the, especially in your entry level position, actually, I was just talking about this with someone earlier today.
00:21:44
Speaker
It's like your third year is kind of your glory year.
00:21:47
Speaker
It's like the job is almost as an entry level.
00:21:49
Speaker
It's like almost second nature.
00:21:51
Speaker
Like you can run your building without even thinking about it.
00:21:54
Speaker
And it's like, there's your time to either capitalize on totally investing in your staff and their professional development, because that's what you need to do in your next job or finding outside projects and providing service to your department.
00:22:07
Speaker
But,
00:22:08
Speaker
Like that third year, third, fourth year is just like nothing but gravy in my opinion.
00:22:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, because you know what you're doing.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:18
Speaker
And you have to keep that, keep in mind always that to be looking at how you can make a difference.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker
And also to not narrow your vision at all, but to take a look, you know, if you're in that third year or if you're
00:22:36
Speaker
take a look at what are some other avenues on campus that I can pull in or that I can experience, whether I want to bring it back to my position or prepares me for the next step up.
00:22:50
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:22:51
Speaker
So the next logical career step for you would have been either like an AVP or a VP role.
00:22:57
Speaker
Right.
00:22:58
Speaker
Was that ever something you pursued?
00:23:00
Speaker
Right.
00:23:01
Speaker
I thought about it.
00:23:02
Speaker
Actually being a woman in the field, I had been called about different positions and some AVP positions.
00:23:09
Speaker
Number one, the only type of position, because my first love was housing, was that I did not want to look at something that did not have housing as part of the responsibility.
00:23:20
Speaker
And that might have narrowed my score.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's just an area that, yeah, it's loyalty and a calling in some ways.
00:23:31
Speaker
for me on that one.
00:23:33
Speaker
The other was I had a family now and had to consider not only my profession, but also my husband's because he followed me again to, and he went into a field that was not his field when I took the position at TWU and he was finding his way in the community and, and did quite well.
00:23:54
Speaker
And, and we had a young daughter.
00:23:57
Speaker
And so I had to, when,
00:23:59
Speaker
with positions where they were offered.
00:24:01
Speaker
I had to look at location and consider how can we both make that move with dual careers together.
00:24:10
Speaker
And so there were a couple of things that I just turned down altogether.
00:24:16
Speaker
And we had a position at TWU that opened up.
00:24:19
Speaker
It was the first AVP that I, when I was asked, would you apply?
00:24:27
Speaker
it was an AVP for basically dealing with the judicial affairs and only that it was a narrow, narrow job at that point in time.
00:24:39
Speaker
And I said, at this point, you know, I do more in housing than that.
00:24:47
Speaker
And they have that.
00:24:48
Speaker
And so I did not, uh, I did not consider it.
00:24:52
Speaker
I said that, uh, not unless we could move, move auxiliaries there.
00:24:56
Speaker
And, uh,
00:24:57
Speaker
Because at that point, if you're going to look at somebody who has the experience, I felt like, well, I did have more experience than my VP regarding housing at all.
00:25:10
Speaker
And to have that taken away from me, that was a... Wow.
00:25:14
Speaker
But again, that was at that point in time.
00:25:18
Speaker
I've heard people say that it used to be the best route to a VP role was through housing, but now it's through conduct.
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, through conduct or if you are doing orientation, depending on who's doing that.
00:25:32
Speaker
And we had a VP that came in that was his focus.
00:25:37
Speaker
And he wanted people that came up and worked with orientation.
00:25:42
Speaker
And housing was kind of secondary, even though it was the largest department and everything.
00:25:48
Speaker
That later changed.
00:25:49
Speaker
But by that point, I had turned down the initial narrow scope.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
You never know when the next organizational change is going to come in your favor, whether you're there or not.
00:26:02
Speaker
I think it's a good illustration that there's nothing wrong with not being or not desiring to be a VP or an AVP.
00:26:09
Speaker
Personally, I have no dream of ever being a VP.
00:26:12
Speaker
It just sounds like a terrible job.
00:26:16
Speaker
It takes a certain level of people, but I enjoy my time in housing.
00:26:21
Speaker
What I would tell any professional is do what you love.
00:26:26
Speaker
That is the important thing.
00:26:28
Speaker
And what you're good at, and if you enjoy who you're working with, we all are preaching to the choir on some of that, but you need to enjoy where you're working and do what you love.
00:26:42
Speaker
And if you have opportunities and flexibility to try new things, you know, stay with what you're in, you know.
00:26:51
Speaker
That's what I feel like.
00:26:52
Speaker
Every job has an expiration date, whether it's next year or at retirement.
00:26:57
Speaker
And just enjoy the job you're doing.
00:27:00
Speaker
And at some point, you know, you'll be ready for something more or something will come along.
00:27:04
Speaker
But we can't forget to enjoy the job we have.
Financial Management and Leadership Challenges
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:10
Speaker
And, you know, the other thing is I would encourage professionals to do is they get settled in a community to also
00:27:19
Speaker
Look at how you can give back to your community as well as the university community.
00:27:25
Speaker
Sometimes you don't have a whole lot of time to do that, but little ways to be able to get involved there.
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah, the little ways, you never know.
00:27:35
Speaker
You can make a connection that will be a weaker dormant tie for a long time and then become very valuable later on.
00:27:41
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:27:44
Speaker
So earlier you were talking about budgets.
00:27:46
Speaker
In what position did you finally have a, quote, serious budget?
00:27:50
Speaker
Like you sat down at your new desk and you're like, whoa, now this is a budget.
00:27:56
Speaker
Probably, you know, if I would look at serious budget, I think of the whole picture.
00:28:02
Speaker
That would be them getting a director.
00:28:04
Speaker
But when I was at Georgia, I had a
00:28:07
Speaker
serious budget for the area I was in, particularly when I moved into the central office and I was working with Res Life and all the HR for the department that also fell under me.
00:28:22
Speaker
So I had that aspect of the budget.
00:28:28
Speaker
Payroll is a huge part of every budget.
00:28:30
Speaker
Like once you're accounting staff, that's 75% of it.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker
You know, as an area coordinator or assistant area coordinator, of course, we had an area budget too.
00:28:41
Speaker
So you have them along the way.
00:28:43
Speaker
But, I mean, the big whammy was really when I came to CWU.
00:28:46
Speaker
And then it's the whole ball of wax.
00:28:49
Speaker
And you're developing the budget.
00:28:51
Speaker
You're also justifying it on up.
00:28:56
Speaker
And, you know, there are a lot of intricacies of that.
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker
I asked that question because I think it's fun to look at how things scale in a sense of like, oh, as a hall director, I had a budget of $4,000.
00:29:08
Speaker
And then, you know, in your next level, it's like, oh, now I'm in the tens of thousands.
00:29:15
Speaker
And in some level, you're getting $100,000.
00:29:17
Speaker
Then when you hit that million-dollar-plus mark, you're like, oh,
00:29:20
Speaker
Whoa!
00:29:21
Speaker
But it's the same.
00:29:22
Speaker
It should be the same feeling all along the way.
00:29:24
Speaker
Oh, it should.
00:29:26
Speaker
It's just a broader scope, and it becomes more complicated as you go on, more complex.
00:29:32
Speaker
Exactly.
00:29:33
Speaker
I think all those little budgets, learn from them along the way and talk with others that work with bigger budgets too.
00:29:40
Speaker
It helps.
00:29:41
Speaker
How you do anything is how you do everything.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:29:45
Speaker
So five years after you retired, TWU called you and asked you if you would serve as an interim director.
00:29:51
Speaker
That's a pretty unique experience.
00:29:54
Speaker
Can you tell us more about that?
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, that was an interesting time.
00:29:57
Speaker
It was a surprise too.
00:29:58
Speaker
I got a call from our VP at that time and she said,
00:30:02
Speaker
says, we really could use your help.
00:30:06
Speaker
So after my successor left, and it was rather mid-year, and she was looking for somebody to come in while they did a search, but also somebody who knew what was going on, knew the campus, and could build the team back together.
00:30:30
Speaker
Because when I came in, it was rebuilding a departmental team from an excellent staff, but who had become very compartmentalized just because of the situation.
00:30:43
Speaker
And that's not saying anything negative about my predecessor.
00:30:48
Speaker
It's just saying that he did things different than me.
00:30:51
Speaker
And it's very hard to come in after somebody who's been there that long.
00:30:54
Speaker
especially since if people liked you well enough, it's hard for a new person to get accepted in there.
00:31:00
Speaker
But besides that, you know, different operating styles and everybody, they just were not, they were there, they were all doing the job, but they were not working as a full team.
00:31:15
Speaker
And it didn't take very long because they wanted to be a team.
00:31:18
Speaker
They wanted to get back together.
00:31:20
Speaker
They wanted to have, I think they just needed somebody to,
00:31:23
Speaker
be that catalyst there.
00:31:25
Speaker
The other was also doing outreach to area entities on campus.
00:31:29
Speaker
And, you know, I'd been gone a while and there were some new people, but there were a number of people who knew who I was.
00:31:34
Speaker
And so it was easier to, again, work with our physical plant when we needed to and work with other areas on, in student affairs, because there was somehow we got divorced for a little while from, from the overall student affairs.
00:31:52
Speaker
I didn't,
00:31:53
Speaker
Not the individual people, but it just wasn't.
00:31:57
Speaker
It was a different team again.
00:31:59
Speaker
And most of those people knew me from before, too.
00:32:01
Speaker
So, again, I think it was kind of a tough position for my predecessor to come into.
00:32:08
Speaker
But it was a good experience.
00:32:11
Speaker
I enjoyed being there.
00:32:12
Speaker
It was easy for me to slide in.
00:32:16
Speaker
And because it was a good team, it was easy to be able to
00:32:20
Speaker
pull that together and be there with them for a good, for part of the way.
00:32:26
Speaker
I would have stayed longer, but I had a travel commitment in the summer.
00:32:31
Speaker
And so I could only do it through for about a five month period.
00:32:35
Speaker
I think they would have ideally liked to have had somebody who could have stayed through opening.
00:32:42
Speaker
But by that time the team was ready, they could do it.
00:32:45
Speaker
We had a good associate director who was able to do that.
00:32:48
Speaker
Sometimes leaders just got to get out of the way.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:51
Speaker
And they didn't, they didn't need me anymore.
00:32:53
Speaker
It was a matter of just getting, you know, having people feel good about themselves and be able to communicate.
00:32:59
Speaker
And, uh, they did well and we were well into the search process.
00:33:04
Speaker
And, uh, my good friend, Jill Eckerd, who I was excited was like interested in a candidate and was hired there.
00:33:13
Speaker
And, uh,
00:33:14
Speaker
The rest is history now.
00:33:15
Speaker
They don't need me anymore.
00:33:16
Speaker
I just, I just have lunch with them sometimes and come back and see the students sometimes.
00:33:23
Speaker
Definitely.
00:33:24
Speaker
I feel like there's a unique, maybe it exists out there and I'm just not aware of, but like from a consulting business of like people come in and just be the interim, whatever position for a while and,
00:33:34
Speaker
clean house if you need to.
00:33:35
Speaker
So nobody has their hands dirty at the institution or use the experience to build it.
00:33:39
Speaker
But it also keeps like, I always feel bad and strange about like, it's happened to be like, you take on internal roles, like somebody's an interim director in the department and then they apply for the job and don't get it.
00:33:52
Speaker
And you're like, well, I've been doing this for nine months.
00:33:55
Speaker
Like what was I not doing right?
00:33:58
Speaker
I just think that can be,
00:34:00
Speaker
further create some complications.
00:34:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:01
Speaker
In some ways, if you can get somebody who can actually fit into that easily, that has no reason to want to stay in that.
00:34:11
Speaker
I'm not going to be in the candidate pool.
00:34:13
Speaker
I'm just going to keep the ship afloat.
00:34:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker
Basically you're just there and to be able to defer where you can so that, that, that your staff can do the job that they're there to do, which is what,
00:34:26
Speaker
They did an housing for me.
00:34:27
Speaker
All I did is be there to support them, really.
00:34:31
Speaker
Basically, you gave them permission to come back and be a family.
00:34:33
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:34
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:35
Speaker
Well, that's fun.
00:34:36
Speaker
I love hearing all about that.
00:34:40
Speaker
So, Nancy, tell us about a small niche skill you developed that you think had a big long-term impact on your career success.
00:34:47
Speaker
You know, I talk about relationships and communication, and I think that's probably the biggest thing.
00:34:52
Speaker
When I was, um, one of the presidents we had when I was at, uh, TWU is Dr. Shirley Chater, who, uh,
00:35:00
Speaker
went from there to be the director of social security when Bill Clinton was president, by the way.
00:35:08
Speaker
But she, and we've all seen this before, but she really emphasized practicing the four C's, which was communication, collaboration, cooperation, and celebration is what she used.
00:35:25
Speaker
And I love that.
00:35:26
Speaker
And
00:35:28
Speaker
I took that as my mantra, and I'll tell you, every staff workshop we had, we would start that off, and I would just ask, okay, as a team, as a unit, what do we need to practice?
00:35:44
Speaker
The RAs would all be going, the four Cs.
00:35:50
Speaker
And so everybody had that down, the communication, collaboration, cooperation,
00:35:55
Speaker
celebration.
00:35:57
Speaker
And then I added a couple of C's into the mixture of using creativity and critical thinking.
00:36:04
Speaker
I guess that's what they knew me for the most is really trying to build that type of a team and from student staff on up.
Initiatives and Leadership in SWACUHO
00:36:15
Speaker
The other thing that people think of
00:36:19
Speaker
For me, is I usually, when I am doing any kind of presentation or talk with student leaders or staff, I always have to end it with somebody saying or a poem or whatever and that type of thing.
00:36:33
Speaker
And they always know that whether they want it or not.
00:36:37
Speaker
But those are some areas.
00:36:41
Speaker
If you want something more professional, I guess the niche might be I've been a first person.
00:36:45
Speaker
for several things within Swakubo too.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
00:36:50
Speaker
You're on the first from the person who wasn't going to be able to be a man directly because you weren't a man.
00:36:55
Speaker
I know.
00:36:56
Speaker
I know.
00:36:57
Speaker
What can I say?
00:36:58
Speaker
But, you know, I guess I'll start with Supervisory Skills Workshop.
00:37:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
And which I am so proud of because it's still around as Swakuo U now.
00:37:14
Speaker
But this started with a little brainstorm session between myself, Kent Sampson, Jim Peterson, and Bob Cook at ACPA.
00:37:25
Speaker
And we had decided, and this was after I was at TWU, one of the things that we are missing in the region is the
00:37:33
Speaker
Opportunity to be able to provide some type of workshop where young professionals all have the opportunity to attend.
00:37:44
Speaker
Maybe not all in one year, but they do.
00:37:47
Speaker
That is affordable.
00:37:49
Speaker
That provides them with basic skills for supervising their staffs.
00:37:56
Speaker
and working within a departmental unit and also gives them the opportunity to network and to network and have contact with other senior housing officers and senior staff.
00:38:11
Speaker
And so out of that, we started Super Skills and...
00:38:18
Speaker
Ideally for me, and ironically in a way, we had been overbuilt at TWU, so we had extra space with our two towers that we had.
00:38:30
Speaker
And one of them, the 22-story one, I actually converted until we wound up with full occupancy again.
00:38:41
Speaker
Or for the first time, because...
00:38:43
Speaker
and into some guest housing.
00:38:46
Speaker
And we were able to, for the first few years of soup skills is to house them on campus fairly inexpensively.
00:38:55
Speaker
And we would have the first year we had 150 participants.
00:38:59
Speaker
Wow.
00:39:00
Speaker
And, and for most years we could do that.
00:39:03
Speaker
And we would have directors bringing in their whole staff just about, and I'd have to leave somebody behind, but it was for, you know, two days and,
00:39:13
Speaker
They're back.
00:39:14
Speaker
But it was a reasonable price because that was our goal.
00:39:18
Speaker
And they had the opportunity to also have one, you know, besides the presentations that they lived together.
00:39:26
Speaker
The presenters were right there.
00:39:30
Speaker
They had that opportunity to have that contact with senior housing officers.
00:39:36
Speaker
And as we, you know, as we got into, because after that Swakuro
00:39:41
Speaker
We needed it to have an umbrella in the region, and that's what we wanted.
00:39:45
Speaker
We had taken that over, and we added mentors, which was a nice addition because then it gave more contact because the whole goal was developing skills and networking at a reasonable price.
00:40:02
Speaker
Yeah, I was, and that's the mentorship, the coaches that are now called.
00:40:06
Speaker
It's like, that's always well in the feedback is like this.
00:40:10
Speaker
And actually, I did it last year where I was a coach and I had one of my core members just reach out to me a few days ago to be like, hey, I want to throw some ideas down.
00:40:19
Speaker
And I just think like, you get an opportunity to build relationships and some of them is going to be dormant for a while, but yeah, take advantage of it.
00:40:26
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:40:28
Speaker
I had so much fun interacting with the cohort members at the annual conference when we were in the first time because ours was virtual last year.
00:40:36
Speaker
But it was, I mean, it's such a neat thing.
00:40:40
Speaker
A debt of gratitude on behalf of the entire region.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:40:45
Speaker
That's for sure.
00:40:46
Speaker
Now, a couple other firsts for me was, well, you mentioned them already.
00:40:50
Speaker
I mean, I wasn't the first woman president here.
00:40:53
Speaker
I was the second for Swakuo, but...
00:40:56
Speaker
But I was the first CHL liaison.
00:41:00
Speaker
And when I was on KUOI as their secretary, I was on the team that developed the foundation.
00:41:07
Speaker
So I was the first secretary and one of the trustees for the foundation also at KUOI.
00:41:13
Speaker
And
00:41:14
Speaker
I was on the planning team for the first CHO workshop for both Akuhoi and for Suakuho, you know, and some of those things, which were fun at that point.
00:41:27
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:41:29
Speaker
And really, when I got into the field, being a senior housing officer was, even on a single-sex women's campus, sometimes was still very male-dominated.
00:41:41
Speaker
And so...
00:41:43
Speaker
That, of course, now has changed tremendously and changed during the years, but it provided opportunities and also sometimes frustrations for.
00:41:53
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure.
00:41:55
Speaker
I could only imagine.
00:41:57
Speaker
So what is the most ridiculous meeting you've ever sat in?
00:42:01
Speaker
Probably when I first came to TWU.
00:42:05
Speaker
When I first came, we basically, half of our residence halls had house mothers type.
00:42:13
Speaker
And we were reading, we were solely as they retired, hiring in professional, young professionals for the hall director positions.
00:42:23
Speaker
And the assistant to the president called me up to her office because at that time, most of my new hires had been young, dynamic black women.
00:42:36
Speaker
And I
00:42:39
Speaker
I guess it was not so much a ridiculous meeting.
00:42:42
Speaker
Well, it was a ridiculous meeting, but also just the question.
00:42:45
Speaker
She wanted to know why I was surrounding myself with all these black women, when we weren't looking for more mature other types of women.
00:42:57
Speaker
And so to me, you know, I wasn't hired in to do that, nor would I. That was not the philosophy.
00:43:03
Speaker
And I had to explain, it didn't matter whether they were black
00:43:08
Speaker
white, brown, I was looking for the best candidates.
00:43:13
Speaker
And these young women are the best candidates suited for those positions.
00:43:19
Speaker
And so, you know, again, it was a time back in, and that was late 70s, and it took some changes.
00:43:26
Speaker
And thankfully, TWU is so very different now.
00:43:31
Speaker
The student population reflected the staff that I had.
00:43:38
Speaker
But some of the old guard upper administration didn't.
00:43:42
Speaker
So, I mean, that's the first thing that came to mind.
00:43:44
Speaker
I mean, I could probably come up with some other ridiculous things.
00:43:48
Speaker
I just think it's so disappointing that your story is like that.
00:43:52
Speaker
It is.
00:43:52
Speaker
It is.
00:43:54
Speaker
knowing that there's thousands more just like it.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:57
Speaker
Well, the concern is that I hear things like that nowadays too.
00:44:01
Speaker
And you think this, this full circle thing that happens sometimes with people coming around and it's, it's concerning to me.
00:44:11
Speaker
And I hope our university campuses can maintain that some, because some of our outer communities are not.
00:44:19
Speaker
Doing that.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah, isn't that the truth?
00:44:21
Speaker
I won't get into political style.
00:44:23
Speaker
That's what I could.
00:44:25
Speaker
All politics are local.
00:44:26
Speaker
Yeah, they are.
00:44:27
Speaker
They are.
00:44:29
Speaker
Looking back at your entire career, what's an opportunity you said yes to that afterwards you wished you would have said no to?
00:44:36
Speaker
It was presenting a program for the ACAP workshop.
00:44:42
Speaker
They wanted housing folks to come in and do a program on residential life program innovations,
00:44:48
Speaker
renovation, construction, and design.
00:44:51
Speaker
Well, what we found out after, and there were about four of us in there, and I was supposed to do the programming part, you know, student development programming.
00:45:00
Speaker
And I was speaking to a group of physical plant, some were directors, some were contractors, some were architects, some were tradesmen, about student development programming.
00:45:14
Speaker
And there were glassy eyes out there.
00:45:17
Speaker
And I'm going to
00:45:18
Speaker
This is not the program.
00:45:19
Speaker
I've done this program at ACUHO.
00:45:21
Speaker
I've done this at ACPA or at SWACUHO.
00:45:25
Speaker
This is not the group.
00:45:26
Speaker
And I mean, I did the whole thing, but it would have been better if we had not done that program at all.
00:45:32
Speaker
The program eval is not going to be positive from that group?
00:45:34
Speaker
Nothing at all.
00:45:35
Speaker
You know, because the other parts of it were, you know, on construction and meeting the needs of those types of programs.
00:45:45
Speaker
But they didn't want to hear about those types of programs.
00:45:50
Speaker
So I'd say that, you know, afterwards I thought, oh, golly.
00:45:55
Speaker
We've talked a little bit about Tokuho with Supervisory Skills Workshop, but you were president in 1984, 85.
00:46:01
Speaker
And I love looking at the various pathways to leadership.
00:46:07
Speaker
What was like, what made the timing and the conditions right for you to be president in that year?
00:46:14
Speaker
Well, I kind of came up through the ranks because when I got here, a couple of years after that, I was program chair.
00:46:23
Speaker
And then I was elected to be secretary.
00:46:27
Speaker
And we did soup skills that started up.
00:46:32
Speaker
And so it almost was a progression into the next thing would be president.
00:46:40
Speaker
And so that kind of progressed in.
00:46:44
Speaker
from going up as a committee chair and presenting programs and being involved and also being secretary before gave me a good idea of it.
00:46:57
Speaker
Did you run against somebody?
00:47:00
Speaker
You know, I don't even remember now.
00:47:01
Speaker
I did, but I'm sorry.
00:47:05
Speaker
I can't tell you who at that point.
00:47:07
Speaker
That's all right.
00:47:09
Speaker
But I was...
00:47:12
Speaker
I know that I can tell you that Don Wistuff was the president before me.
00:47:19
Speaker
Then before that, I think, was Kent Sampson and then Jim Peterson, I believe, is the way it came up.
00:47:27
Speaker
But also, it was a year that we were dealing with a need to unify a little bit more our region again.
00:47:36
Speaker
Two years prior to that, we lost Louisiana schools that had been part
00:47:43
Speaker
And part of that was because Louisiana had always been split, and half of them went to Siho, and half went to Suakuo, and probably Siho, too.
00:47:52
Speaker
And then as a state, they decided that they needed to, they wanted to unify.
00:47:59
Speaker
And so Siho, they decided all to go to Siho, which was a loss for us to have that happen.
00:48:07
Speaker
But it also made Arkansas feel a little uncomfortable.
00:48:12
Speaker
because now they were the border territory.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:17
Speaker
And also there, there was a definite feeling that Texas dominated.
00:48:22
Speaker
Well, there is a hard, it's very hard not to show Texas dominating because of the size of the state and the number of schools there and trying to do something to show and to make sure that people are involved and professionals from
00:48:39
Speaker
all of the states and not just Texas.
00:48:41
Speaker
And, you know, we had about, and I was the next one.
00:48:45
Speaker
Kent was the only one in between.
00:48:46
Speaker
We had, you know, a succession of Texas presidents too.
00:48:52
Speaker
And so my colleagues, some of my colleagues in Arkansas were going, well, you know, we really want to make sure that we feel included.
00:49:03
Speaker
And so we really pushed for unity.
00:49:05
Speaker
And that was kind of a theme that year.
00:49:08
Speaker
and encouraging a means for people to meet back together and to do whatever we could to not make it appear that anybody's being heavy handed because they're from Texas at all.
00:49:26
Speaker
And so probably it was good because I like to build relationships.
00:49:29
Speaker
It was a good year for me to go in there and work with that.
00:49:35
Speaker
And no, we didn't lose any Arkansas schools.
00:49:38
Speaker
for one thing.
00:49:39
Speaker
There we go.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:40
Speaker
And also to try to concert it, the executive committee and all the leadership wanted to make a concerted effort to make sure that everybody felt welcome.
00:49:55
Speaker
We also went back to, that's when we started the database too, a formal database.
00:50:02
Speaker
And of course that's in the history there.
00:50:04
Speaker
And
00:50:05
Speaker
started out at Texas A&M.
00:50:08
Speaker
And people were fine with the Texas school doing that because, you know, that was going to be a lot of work.
00:50:15
Speaker
But anyways, it was a good year.
00:50:19
Speaker
And it was a year, though I thought of still healing from when Louisiana had left.
00:50:25
Speaker
We made the choice that year to go back to just a regular rotation of hosting rather than
00:50:35
Speaker
Two years, Texas and one year, and then Arkansas and Oklahoma.
00:50:41
Speaker
Of course, that lasted only a short period of time because Arkansas and Oklahoma decided we don't have enough people.
00:50:47
Speaker
We need to go back.
00:50:48
Speaker
But, you know, so we were trying different things just to try to make it work.
00:50:54
Speaker
We even talked about at one time brainstorming.
00:50:57
Speaker
Maybe we divide Texas into a couple of segments.
00:51:00
Speaker
You know, that's just a challenge Swakua has always had with Happy.
00:51:05
Speaker
I mean, that narrative still exists to this day.
00:51:07
Speaker
It does.
00:51:08
Speaker
You know, how do you get this?
00:51:09
Speaker
I mean, we're going to have two years of Texas hosting in the same area.
00:51:16
Speaker
It's an easy area to get into, though.
00:51:18
Speaker
It's, you know, it still was.
00:51:20
Speaker
We also need people to step up.
00:51:23
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:51:24
Speaker
It's better to have a conference somewhere than nowhere at all.
00:51:28
Speaker
Adonis talked about that because he was president of Arkansas.
00:51:32
Speaker
He actually felt that way of like, I got to represent Arkansas and show people that they can do this.
00:51:37
Speaker
Right, exactly.
00:51:38
Speaker
But it is.
00:51:39
Speaker
It is a big job.
00:51:40
Speaker
So the easier we could make that hosting position, the better off we are.
Recognition and Career Strategies
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah, some things never change.
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah, they don't.
00:51:51
Speaker
So, Nancy, you are the namesake of Swakuo's new Professional of Distinction Award.
00:51:57
Speaker
I'd say that's a pretty big deal.
00:51:59
Speaker
Why do you think you were bestowed this honor?
00:52:03
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:52:04
Speaker
People like me know.
00:52:09
Speaker
I'm thinking because that's been my push all along, what we can do for new professionals.
00:52:15
Speaker
I mean, that's part of the reason we started Supervisory Skills Workshop and encouraging people to get involved and networking.
00:52:26
Speaker
And I hope it's because I made a difference to some of the,
00:52:32
Speaker
our new professionals and two others in the profession.
00:52:35
Speaker
Taking your name out of consideration, who would you have named the award after if it was up to you?
00:52:42
Speaker
Oh, there are lots of people that are in the profession and you're probably doing namesakes after they're gone.
00:52:52
Speaker
Kent Sampson comes to mind.
00:52:55
Speaker
Somebody else that I think probably has not
00:53:00
Speaker
because he focused so much on his staff and on his campus, was Ron Sass.
00:53:05
Speaker
I think he was a good person.
00:53:09
Speaker
And now I would say Sean Dugan would be a good one.
00:53:14
Speaker
So we have a lot of people that could be named out there.
00:53:19
Speaker
Many, many more.
00:53:21
Speaker
Maybe some of those were because of your tutelage you gave them.
00:53:25
Speaker
Possibly.
00:53:26
Speaker
I don't know.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:30
Speaker
So let's give a tangible piece of advice to our new professional listeners out there who have been recognized with an award.
00:53:36
Speaker
During a job interview, what is the most impactful way to talk about an award they have received?
00:53:42
Speaker
I think what I would first do, rather than just say, well, nobody wants to say, hey, I received this award, but to share some of the skills that they have and the qualities that they bring to a position.
00:53:57
Speaker
And if you can lead into...
00:53:59
Speaker
These are some of my quality qualities.
00:54:02
Speaker
And, and I was so pleased to be honored by having those recognized at SWACUO this past year.
00:54:11
Speaker
But, but I would never just come out and say, I got this award, but that these are, these are qualities that I present.
00:54:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:19
Speaker
I love that.
00:54:20
Speaker
Like, well,
00:54:22
Speaker
Oh, I did this, this, this.
00:54:24
Speaker
Oh, and by the way, because of all that, I just happened to have gotten this.
00:54:29
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:54:30
Speaker
I mean, you really need to do it that way.
00:54:33
Speaker
I mean, it's real easy to sound like you're just bragging.
00:54:36
Speaker
If you just start listing, I did this, this, and this.
00:54:39
Speaker
And I've gotten this award and this award rather than this is why I got the award.
00:54:46
Speaker
And that's what you need to talk about.
00:54:48
Speaker
I often hear new professionals who have been in their first full-time job for two years.
00:54:54
Speaker
They will say, I'm thinking about doing a lateral move to another school to, quote, get a different experience.
00:55:01
Speaker
Is making a lateral move a good career decision for a young professional?
00:55:05
Speaker
It can be.
00:55:07
Speaker
And I say it that way because a lateral move does not necessarily, is not off-putting by a supervisor or another school looking at the person.
00:55:20
Speaker
Sometimes you want to make a lateral move because you can gain new experiences in that move.
00:55:25
Speaker
It might be that it's a larger institution, it's a private versus public.
00:55:30
Speaker
And so making those lateral moves, you also have a new experience with
00:55:35
Speaker
with the staff that you'd be working with there and supervisors.
00:55:39
Speaker
So there is nothing wrong with that.
00:55:42
Speaker
If you don't feel like you have something to contribute anymore where you're at, you've done everything you can, and there is not a position out there right now that you want to look at that is the next move up, possibly a lateral can be a good move for you.
00:56:01
Speaker
What are the pitfalls or the challenges that
00:56:04
Speaker
when they would make a lateral move into like a very similar position.
00:56:08
Speaker
Sometimes you have to explain why you're doing that.
00:56:13
Speaker
But I think the bigger thing is you have to know in your own mind why you're going to do it and not move into a position and feel, well, I just needed to take this position because I needed another experience or they will only allow me to be here at two years at this school and then I have to move.
00:56:31
Speaker
And if you go in with the wrong attitudes,
00:56:34
Speaker
you're not going to do well in that position.
00:56:37
Speaker
I think that's the obvious thing that people take for me all the time.
00:56:41
Speaker
It's like, I can spot a mile away someone with a bad attitude who doesn't like school in an interview.
00:56:48
Speaker
It is just, this is out.
00:56:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:51
Speaker
And that's the death knell for you if you're doing that at all.
00:56:56
Speaker
And it's like, I think it's also, you started to go there, it's like, are you running from something or are you running to something?
00:57:03
Speaker
And there's a big difference there.
00:57:05
Speaker
Exactly.
00:57:06
Speaker
I think about also, it's like, we talked earlier about that third year kind of being crazy.
00:57:10
Speaker
Like, you've already got it.
00:57:11
Speaker
You can really capitalize on relationships.
00:57:14
Speaker
And I know that doesn't always exist in every place, but that's something I always look at.
00:57:18
Speaker
It's like, gosh, your third year, you're going to be starting from scratch in a new environment and rebuild.
00:57:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:57:24
Speaker
You have like zero capital in the same job.
00:57:29
Speaker
Those are the things I talk to people about.
00:57:32
Speaker
Yeah, you really have to think through all of that.
00:57:34
Speaker
I mean, sometimes it's really a good value to move, particularly if it's a very different kind of institution, as long as it's going to be a good environment to work into.
00:57:44
Speaker
Right.
00:57:45
Speaker
Or you don't have the, on the last episode, you talked about work for someone you like or that someone you respect is like, you don't have that.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:54
Speaker
Sometimes it's time to move.
00:57:56
Speaker
Don't stay around negative people and negative situations.
00:58:01
Speaker
It'll, it'll do you in the long run.
Networking and Community Involvement
00:58:03
Speaker
What would you tell a new professional looking to take on more responsibilities in their department?
00:58:08
Speaker
Like how should they approach that conversation with their boss or their departmental leadership?
00:58:13
Speaker
Well, first I'd say make an appointment, go see your boss, tell them what you would like to do.
00:58:19
Speaker
And, uh,
00:58:21
Speaker
that you'd like to gain some new experiences.
00:58:25
Speaker
And your immediate supervisor may be able to work with you right there.
00:58:29
Speaker
Or if they say, well, let's go meet with, if it's not the senior housing officer, let's meet with this person too.
00:58:37
Speaker
I know as the department head, when I'd have a young professional come in and talk with me and say, you know, I really would like to have some experience in, let's say, making assignments.
00:58:50
Speaker
And I've not had that chance out in the residence hall to really do that.
00:58:54
Speaker
How can I get involved with that?
00:58:57
Speaker
You know, I really like to take them by the hand and I will help them to give them some type of experience.
00:59:03
Speaker
They may not be able to do the whole thing, but they can partner with people.
00:59:08
Speaker
And as a supervisor, I look for professionals and young professionals that take the initiative and want to experience new programs.
00:59:19
Speaker
And I will encourage any staff member that if you want to be a director of housing, if you want to be an associate director, you want to be a vice president, be around the people that you want to emulate.
00:59:35
Speaker
And that means setting up appointments, visiting with them, interviewing them on what they do.
00:59:46
Speaker
And let them know this is where, this is my ultimate goal or this is my next step goal.
00:59:53
Speaker
How can, what can I do to work towards that?
00:59:57
Speaker
You know, and those are just important things, but that is something that I think any professional, particularly new professionals should be thinking about.
01:00:11
Speaker
And again, I,
01:00:12
Speaker
Networking is important on your campus, in your department.
01:00:16
Speaker
You learn from everybody you work with, even your students that you're working with.
01:00:21
Speaker
In fact, maybe mostly from the students you work with.
01:00:25
Speaker
That's right.
01:00:27
Speaker
Well, what you said about like, if you want to get more into assignments, it's like, even within the areas of housing, it's like, it's all the same stuff.
01:00:36
Speaker
Like assignments, operations, ResLife, business services, it's like all the same skills.
01:00:41
Speaker
It's just like, but the exposure, the flow of it, it's like, you know, when I moved into operations, it's all like systems.
01:00:48
Speaker
And it's like, oh, we had systems in ResLife, but it was more individualized.
01:00:52
Speaker
It's like...
01:00:53
Speaker
still doing the same administrative stuff, just in a different way.
01:00:56
Speaker
And it's like that exposure, I think, helps you have an appreciation for the other areas.
01:01:01
Speaker
Exactly.
01:01:02
Speaker
And, you know, education that we have, when we get our master's degrees, if we're going through higher ed or student personnel, some of those areas, they do not teach.
01:01:13
Speaker
They're not going to teach you how to run a spreadsheet for your budget or how to work with facilities and, uh,
01:01:23
Speaker
develop specifications, working with an architect and, you know, whatever it is that you're doing that is different from just student development.
01:01:32
Speaker
And I mean, those are things that you have to learn on the job.
Anecdotes and Conclusion
01:01:35
Speaker
I know there's so much that we will learn on the job.
01:01:37
Speaker
Sometimes I wonder why we even went to grad school in some cases.
01:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:01:44
Speaker
All right, in episode one, Kent Sampson shared a story where at the Skills Workshop in Texas, he got left behind at an Italian restaurant with four carloads of his esteemed colleagues and so-called dear friends.
01:01:59
Speaker
In attempts to keep our guests honest, he did some basic fact-checking, and it was suggested to me that, Nancy, you may not only have been present, but also perhaps one of the ringleaders of his abandonment.
01:02:14
Speaker
Do you have anything to say to this accusation?
01:02:17
Speaker
Oh, I don't know.
01:02:17
Speaker
It might incriminate me more.
01:02:20
Speaker
Well, you know, Kent never talks much, you know, and he is such a person who will stand around talking.
01:02:31
Speaker
And we decided we needed to.
01:02:33
Speaker
We kept waiting for him to come and come.
01:02:35
Speaker
And he was still in there talking.
01:02:37
Speaker
We said, it's time for us to leave.
01:02:39
Speaker
We only went around the block.
01:02:40
Speaker
I neglected to mention that part.
01:02:44
Speaker
Finally went back to find them.
01:02:48
Speaker
Well, Nancy, anything else you'd like to share with the Swakuho region?
01:02:52
Speaker
Only that I have had such wonderful experiences here, and I certainly hope that you all have had and continue to have the type of quality experiences that Swakuho is known for.
01:03:09
Speaker
But the only way to have those experiences is for you all to get involved.
01:03:13
Speaker
and to be part of this very active, dynamic community.
01:03:20
Speaker
So I'm hoping that everybody who listens to this is involved, or if they're not, gets involved in a committee or presents a program.
01:03:29
Speaker
That's even better.
01:03:30
Speaker
Even small ways.
01:03:33
Speaker
All types of small ways.
01:03:34
Speaker
Build a habit of giving back or volunteering.
01:03:38
Speaker
Volunteering is a biggie.
01:03:40
Speaker
And
01:03:41
Speaker
It's a great way to network.
01:03:43
Speaker
And as you continue to develop in your careers, you're going to value the relationships that you've built through SWACUHO and other professional organizations.
01:03:56
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:03:58
Speaker
Well, that concludes this one's episode.
01:04:00
Speaker
Thank you yet again to past president, Nancy Murphy-Chadwick, for coming on the show.
01:04:05
Speaker
I'm confident Nancy's stories and shared experience has been valuable to the SWACUHO listeners.
01:04:11
Speaker
especially for a lot of our younger professionals.
01:04:14
Speaker
If you got something from this episode or any episode, please email me at swakuhopodcast.gmail.com and let me know how it goes.
01:04:22
Speaker
I'll feature you on an upcoming episode.
01:04:24
Speaker
Be sure to include the episode you listened to, what you did, and what the outcome was.
01:04:28
Speaker
If you don't want your name shared, that's fine too.
01:04:30
Speaker
Just let me know.
01:04:32
Speaker
And don't forget, if you need some professional advice from outside your direct echo chamber, please use the form linked in the show notes to anonymously ask for advice.
01:04:41
Speaker
Please also consider downloading the reflection guide for this episode for prompts to critically think about some of the key takeaways from this episode.
01:04:49
Speaker
I am working on getting all past episodes up to date with both transcripts and reflection guides for the benefit of our membership.
01:04:56
Speaker
And with that, I say to you, good day.