Transcript
Speaker: I'm JC Stoner, and this is the Swakuho Podcast.
Speaker: Today we are joined by another Swakuho past president, Nancy Murphy Chadwick.
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.
Speaker: We then spend some time discussing longevity and positions and feelings of positional stagnation.
Speaker: Nancy tells us about her SWACUHO service, specifically focusing on her tenure as president and the development of the Supervisory Skills Workshop.
Speaker: Before concluding, we focus on the experience of young professionals.
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.
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.
Speaker: She concluded her career at Texas Women's University, where she served primarily as a senior housing officer for more than three decades.
Speaker: Throughout her career, Nancy served in a number of leadership roles within Akuhoi, ACPA, and Swakuho.
Speaker: In SWACUHO, she was the chair for several committees and served on the executive board as secretary, SHO liaison, and president.
Speaker: She was instrumental in the establishment of the annual SHO workshop and supervisory skills workshop, now known as SWACUHO U.
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.
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.
Speaker: So expect plenty of practical advice for young professionals through and throughout this episode.
Speaker: Nancy, welcome to the show.
Speaker: Well, hi, JC.
Speaker: I'm glad to be here today.
Speaker: We're really glad to have you.
Speaker: It's been a long time coming, right?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: We've had several boarded meetings on this.
Speaker: You and Kid Sampson have really tested me.
Speaker: If you live out in the country, you don't get much internet.
Speaker: I've lost some of my education over the time.
Speaker: But I bet you get a lot of peace and quiet.
Speaker: At times, yes.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Less duty calls, I'm sure.
Speaker: That is for sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Talk about a unique hobby.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: Yes.
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
Speaker: You know, I've made a number of different projects throughout the years.
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.
Speaker: But I think it started my daughter on her art career, which is what she's done lately.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Any takeaways from this craft that you applied back to your job?
Speaker: Patience.
Speaker: You have to have patience and you have to be really focused on detail.
Speaker: Because if you don't, you're going to break the glass.
Speaker: If you don't cut it, if you put too much pressure in an area, things just don't work out well.
Speaker: Well, there we go.
Speaker: So, Nancy, a vast majority of your career was spent as the Director of University Housing at Texas Women's University.
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?
Speaker: Well, it kind of happened both ways in a way.
Speaker: I started to really think about possibly wanting to be a director when I was at the University of Georgia.
Speaker: But if I could take one step back, I had not planned anything.
Speaker: originally when I went to school to go into student affairs or housing, I was a music major.
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,
Speaker: RAs throughout the year there.
Speaker: However, as a music major, I wanted to be a high school band director.
Speaker: And back in the early 70s, when I graduated, it was a very male-dominated field, actually.
Speaker: And so when I interviewed, I would be directed towards
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.
Speaker: So I was getting a little frustrated.
Speaker: That was the first time I felt discriminated against as a woman.
Speaker: So I had...
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.
Speaker: And she was a music major.
Speaker: And she said, you know, you might want to, these are great assistantships.
Speaker: You might want to see if you'd like to apply for it and maybe go on.
Speaker: Because I started thinking about just let me get my master's degree and I'll work on.
Speaker: And so I did apply.
Speaker: and was hired as an assistant freshman advisor in a women's residence hall.
Speaker: And I loved it so much, I got my degree in music.
Speaker: I taught wind instrument music and instrumental music at the university a little bit while I was working on that master's.
Speaker: But then I started thinking, you know, I'm really having fun doing this.
Speaker: I loved working with the students.
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.
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?
Speaker: And it basically was directed, look, if you want to stay here, you can, and we would love to mentor you.
Speaker: And, and, uh,
Speaker: and move over into the higher ed, uh, student personnel program, which is what I did.
Speaker: And I found that I had some courses that overlap between my two masters.
Speaker: So, wow, that's hard to believe music.
Speaker: I know.
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.
Speaker: So, uh,
Speaker: So I was accepted into that master's degree program, went on.
Speaker: At that point, I was working full-time because I had the one master's.
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.
Speaker: And that was a unique program at Miami of Ohio at that point.
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.
Speaker: But after I had been there for another year or two, I started looking and
Speaker: and actually received a call from the University of Georgia.
Speaker: I lived in a community that had just been newly made a co-ed.
Speaker: It was all male before that.
Speaker: So we had about a 20% female and 80% male.
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,
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.
Speaker: You know, we all have some really interesting experiences, and I can tell you a lot of stories.
Speaker: When I came in, I only spent one year in the area, and then I was promoted into the central area.
Speaker: office there as the, at that time, the title was assistant to the director and student development specialist.
Speaker: I was the res life person basically for the campus.
Speaker: And I had the opportunity my second year to be able to hire, be part of the team
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.
Speaker: There I also met some of Dan's good friends when I was in, and typically through ACPA where I met them.
Speaker: but later through other organizations, one being Ken Stoner, another Kent Sampson.
Speaker: Both past guests on this show.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: We've been, you know, there were a lot of connections there anyways.
Speaker: And I was able to learn a lot about budgeting and
Speaker: assignments and all the operations end as well.
Speaker: So that was a good experience at Georgia.
Speaker: We wound up back at what was East Texas State at that time.
Speaker: Planned a wedding, got married within a month's period so that we could make the trip.
Speaker: We got married in Georgia.
Speaker: We had all of our friends.
Speaker: current friends there and our families came in.
Speaker: And my honeymoon was in Meridian, Mississippi, as we were traveling across to go to Commerce, Texas.
Speaker: So anyway, when we got there, I started looking around to see what might be available.
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.
Speaker: And
Speaker: in my life through here as far as people I know and who have influenced me.
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.
Speaker: You've already done this.
Speaker: I could offer you something to come in half time until the state opens up the positions again.
Speaker: And I thought, okay, 70 miles to any other position I could work at university.
Speaker: I took the position.
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.
Speaker: And so that's the way, at least we opened it up for students.
Speaker: We didn't
Speaker: at that point in time.
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.
Speaker: And we were only there for about two years.
Speaker: And actually at the end of the second year, we had just bought a house.
Speaker: We moved in.
Speaker: I had, I had been, uh,
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.
Speaker: And 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.
Speaker: And I could have stayed in housing there too.
Speaker: And at the same time, I got a call
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.
Speaker: So I decided, well, I'm going to go and interview there because I really liked housing.
Speaker: I loved housing.
Speaker: I was developing relationships and networking within the field.
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.
Speaker: So when I came in, my first goal was to pull the housing operations and facilities and business all together into one department.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: We worked on that within the first four months.
Speaker: We were able to change the title for the department.
Speaker: And then my position title became director of university housing.
Speaker: Four months.
Speaker: That's like no time at all.
Speaker: It's in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker: No, no, it's not.
Speaker: But it was it was just an interesting startup.
Speaker: But that's how I got to TWU.
Speaker: A little side note, and I know it may come up later.
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.
Speaker: I never met the president.
Speaker: She was out of town at that point.
Speaker: I really had a lot of support by all the vice presidents on campus.
Speaker: I,
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.
Speaker: And within the first year, the academic VP left because she kind of pushed him out.
Speaker: And my VP, who after about 12 months or so, she saw that this president was trying to force her VPs out.
Speaker: And so she wound up moving to University of Alabama, Huntsville.
Speaker: And she was the major reason I went there.
Speaker: Now, since then, I've learned a lot.
Speaker: But the only footnote I put in there on this is that it would have been important to
Speaker: For me, and I tell all professionals, make sure that you have a good idea of the politics on your campus.
Speaker: And from the top down, what's the philosophy there to make sure it's a good environment?
Speaker: Because we had about a two or three year rocky environment and then things smoothed out.
Speaker: Well, since you brought it up, like how do you fish that out in an interview process?
Speaker: Like know if there's dirty politics going on or.
Speaker: I wish I would have done was it asked.
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?
Speaker: Those were questions I never asked.
Speaker: I took it on faith that everybody was of the same mind, and that really wasn't the case initially.
Speaker: Eventually, we were able to influence a little bit on the president because she was around for a while more.
Speaker: And it took some time to change that mindset.
Speaker: But it's good to ask some questions and find out who the hierarchy is in there and what kind of support.
Speaker: And it is hard to know the right questions, but it's always good to ask about their philosophy and support of
Speaker: if it's housing, the housing program on campus.
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?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I did a session on departmental capital, and I think when somebody asked, how do you know this in an interview?
Speaker: Because everyone's trying to put on the best face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I said it's sometimes not about the questions you ask, but it's about is there a consistent response?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: One of the things I said was ask them like how are committee chairs selected?
Speaker: And you really don't care what the answer is as long as is there a process?
Speaker: Is there something to understand?
Speaker: Whether it's like, oh, the leadership selects it or people are voted or it's a progression.
Speaker: You know, those sorts of things.
Speaker: What's the process to help you glean behind it?
Speaker: Because people are going to be like, oh, well, it's just.
Speaker: The person at the top just makes all the decisions they want and we just deal with it.
Speaker: Like that's never going to come out in an interview.
Speaker: No, it's not.
Speaker: But you're right.
Speaker: You can ask questions about what kind of collaboration is going on on campus.
Speaker: And is there support not only from the person on top, but what does the university community think about housing?
Speaker: What is the philosophy for students, student involvement?
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.
Speaker: It should be relatively obvious.
Speaker: Well, and you have to remember that you're interviewing as well as being interviewed.
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,
Speaker: How are you going to know what that environment's like?
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: So you served as director for about 30 years.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: That's a long time.
Speaker: Did the job ever get stagnant?
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: I don't think I'd ever use the word stagnant.
Speaker: There were frustrating times during the job.
Speaker: But one of the things that I found is that there were
Speaker: many opportunities to start new programs and look at means to be a change agent.
Speaker: And because of that, and the fact that I'm a relational person, I like to get to know people.
Speaker: And I think it's very important to know your community and know the university community.
Speaker: And so it gave me the opportunity to be involved with the academic sector and not
Speaker: just silo us off.
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.
Speaker: Also, I had a great opportunity to be able to hire excellent staff, but also be involved within
Speaker: So outside networking is very, very important to what we all do and to bring in new ideas.
Speaker: Well, then what would you say to 30 years and you didn't feel it was stagnated?
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?
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?
Speaker: Well, I would first, if they really want to move on, you know, I would support them.
Speaker: However, I would say, let's take a look.
Speaker: I would ask the question, what do you want to do?
Speaker: And I think
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.
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?
Speaker: And let's see how we can get you involved in some of these areas.
Speaker: But there is initiative on both ends.
Speaker: So I would first tell a new professional, take the initiative and go make those contacts.
Speaker: Networking is so important.
Speaker: First on your campus, then outside.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, the key to everything is relationships in some ways.
Speaker: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker: I've always thought that the, especially in your entry level position, actually, I was just talking about this with someone earlier today.
Speaker: It's like your third year is kind of your glory year.
Speaker: It's like the job is almost as an entry level.
Speaker: It's like almost second nature.
Speaker: Like you can run your building without even thinking about it.
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.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: Like that third year, third, fourth year is just like nothing but gravy in my opinion.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because you know what you're doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you have to keep that, keep in mind always that to be looking at how you can make a difference.
Speaker: Yeah.
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
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.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So the next logical career step for you would have been either like an AVP or a VP role.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Was that ever something you pursued?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I thought about it.
Speaker: Actually being a woman in the field, I had been called about different positions and some AVP positions.
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.
Speaker: And that might have narrowed my score.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just an area that, yeah, it's loyalty and a calling in some ways.
Speaker: for me on that one.
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.
Speaker: And, and we had a young daughter.
Speaker: And so I had to, when,
Speaker: with positions where they were offered.
Speaker: I had to look at location and consider how can we both make that move with dual careers together.
Speaker: And so there were a couple of things that I just turned down altogether.
Speaker: And we had a position at TWU that opened up.
Speaker: It was the first AVP that I, when I was asked, would you apply?
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.
Speaker: And I said, at this point, you know, I do more in housing than that.
Speaker: And they have that.
Speaker: And so I did not, uh, I did not consider it.
Speaker: I said that, uh, not unless we could move, move auxiliaries there.
Speaker: And, uh,
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.
Speaker: And to have that taken away from me, that was a... Wow.
Speaker: But again, that was at that point in time.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, through conduct or if you are doing orientation, depending on who's doing that.
Speaker: And we had a VP that came in that was his focus.
Speaker: And he wanted people that came up and worked with orientation.
Speaker: And housing was kind of secondary, even though it was the largest department and everything.
Speaker: That later changed.
Speaker: But by that point, I had turned down the initial narrow scope.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You never know when the next organizational change is going to come in your favor, whether you're there or not.
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.
Speaker: Personally, I have no dream of ever being a VP.
Speaker: It just sounds like a terrible job.
Speaker: It takes a certain level of people, but I enjoy my time in housing.
Speaker: What I would tell any professional is do what you love.
Speaker: That is the important thing.
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.
Speaker: And if you have opportunities and flexibility to try new things, you know, stay with what you're in, you know.
Speaker: That's what I feel like.
Speaker: Every job has an expiration date, whether it's next year or at retirement.
Speaker: And just enjoy the job you're doing.
Speaker: And at some point, you know, you'll be ready for something more or something will come along.
Speaker: But we can't forget to enjoy the job we have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And, you know, the other thing is I would encourage professionals to do is they get settled in a community to also
Speaker: Look at how you can give back to your community as well as the university community.
Speaker: Sometimes you don't have a whole lot of time to do that, but little ways to be able to get involved there.
Speaker: Yeah, the little ways, you never know.
Speaker: You can make a connection that will be a weaker dormant tie for a long time and then become very valuable later on.
Speaker: Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker: So earlier you were talking about budgets.
Speaker: In what position did you finally have a, quote, serious budget?
Speaker: Like you sat down at your new desk and you're like, whoa, now this is a budget.
Speaker: Probably, you know, if I would look at serious budget, I think of the whole picture.
Speaker: That would be them getting a director.
Speaker: But when I was at Georgia, I had a
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.
Speaker: So I had that aspect of the budget.
Speaker: Payroll is a huge part of every budget.
Speaker: Like once you're accounting staff, that's 75% of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, as an area coordinator or assistant area coordinator, of course, we had an area budget too.
Speaker: So you have them along the way.
Speaker: But, I mean, the big whammy was really when I came to CWU.
Speaker: And then it's the whole ball of wax.
Speaker: And you're developing the budget.
Speaker: You're also justifying it on up.
Speaker: And, you know, there are a lot of intricacies of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: And then, you know, in your next level, it's like, oh, now I'm in the tens of thousands.
Speaker: And in some level, you're getting $100,000.
Speaker: Then when you hit that million-dollar-plus mark, you're like, oh,
Speaker: Whoa!
Speaker: But it's the same.
Speaker: It should be the same feeling all along the way.
Speaker: Oh, it should.
Speaker: It's just a broader scope, and it becomes more complicated as you go on, more complex.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I think all those little budgets, learn from them along the way and talk with others that work with bigger budgets too.
Speaker: It helps.
Speaker: How you do anything is how you do everything.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So five years after you retired, TWU called you and asked you if you would serve as an interim director.
Speaker: That's a pretty unique experience.
Speaker: Can you tell us more about that?
Speaker: Yeah, that was an interesting time.
Speaker: It was a surprise too.
Speaker: I got a call from our VP at that time and she said,
Speaker: says, we really could use your help.
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.
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.
Speaker: And that's not saying anything negative about my predecessor.
Speaker: It's just saying that he did things different than me.
Speaker: And it's very hard to come in after somebody who's been there that long.
Speaker: especially since if people liked you well enough, it's hard for a new person to get accepted in there.
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.
Speaker: And it didn't take very long because they wanted to be a team.
Speaker: They wanted to get back together.
Speaker: They wanted to have, I think they just needed somebody to,
Speaker: be that catalyst there.
Speaker: The other was also doing outreach to area entities on campus.
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.
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.
Speaker: I didn't,
Speaker: Not the individual people, but it just wasn't.
Speaker: It was a different team again.
Speaker: And most of those people knew me from before, too.
Speaker: So, again, I think it was kind of a tough position for my predecessor to come into.
Speaker: But it was a good experience.
Speaker: I enjoyed being there.
Speaker: It was easy for me to slide in.
Speaker: And because it was a good team, it was easy to be able to
Speaker: pull that together and be there with them for a good, for part of the way.
Speaker: I would have stayed longer, but I had a travel commitment in the summer.
Speaker: And so I could only do it through for about a five month period.
Speaker: I think they would have ideally liked to have had somebody who could have stayed through opening.
Speaker: But by that time the team was ready, they could do it.
Speaker: We had a good associate director who was able to do that.
Speaker: Sometimes leaders just got to get out of the way.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And they didn't, they didn't need me anymore.
Speaker: It was a matter of just getting, you know, having people feel good about themselves and be able to communicate.
Speaker: And, uh, they did well and we were well into the search process.
Speaker: And, uh, my good friend, Jill Eckerd, who I was excited was like interested in a candidate and was hired there.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: The rest is history now.
Speaker: They don't need me anymore.
Speaker: I just, I just have lunch with them sometimes and come back and see the students sometimes.
Speaker: Definitely.
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,
Speaker: clean house if you need to.
Speaker: So nobody has their hands dirty at the institution or use the experience to build it.
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.
Speaker: And you're like, well, I've been doing this for nine months.
Speaker: Like what was I not doing right?
Speaker: I just think that can be,
Speaker: further create some complications.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: I'm not going to be in the candidate pool.
Speaker: I'm just going to keep the ship afloat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
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,
Speaker: They did an housing for me.
Speaker: All I did is be there to support them, really.
Speaker: Basically, you gave them permission to come back and be a family.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, that's fun.
Speaker: I love hearing all about that.
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.
Speaker: You know, I talk about relationships and communication, and I think that's probably the biggest thing.
Speaker: When I was, um, one of the presidents we had when I was at, uh, TWU is Dr. Shirley Chater, who, uh,
Speaker: went from there to be the director of social security when Bill Clinton was president, by the way.
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.
Speaker: And I love that.
Speaker: And
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?
Speaker: The RAs would all be going, the four Cs.
Speaker: And so everybody had that down, the communication, collaboration, cooperation,
Speaker: celebration.
Speaker: And then I added a couple of C's into the mixture of using creativity and critical thinking.
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.
Speaker: The other thing that people think of
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.
Speaker: And they always know that whether they want it or not.
Speaker: But those are some areas.
Speaker: If you want something more professional, I guess the niche might be I've been a first person.
Speaker: for several things within Swakubo too.
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead.
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.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: What can I say?
Speaker: But, you know, I guess I'll start with Supervisory Skills Workshop.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And which I am so proud of because it's still around as Swakuo U now.
Speaker: But this started with a little brainstorm session between myself, Kent Sampson, Jim Peterson, and Bob Cook at ACPA.
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
Speaker: Opportunity to be able to provide some type of workshop where young professionals all have the opportunity to attend.
Speaker: Maybe not all in one year, but they do.
Speaker: That is affordable.
Speaker: That provides them with basic skills for supervising their staffs.
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.
Speaker: And so out of that, we started Super Skills and...
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.
Speaker: And one of them, the 22-story one, I actually converted until we wound up with full occupancy again.
Speaker: Or for the first time, because...
Speaker: and into some guest housing.
Speaker: And we were able to, for the first few years of soup skills is to house them on campus fairly inexpensively.
Speaker: And we would have the first year we had 150 participants.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And, and for most years we could do that.
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,
Speaker: They're back.
Speaker: But it was a reasonable price because that was our goal.
Speaker: And they had the opportunity to also have one, you know, besides the presentations that they lived together.
Speaker: The presenters were right there.
Speaker: They had that opportunity to have that contact with senior housing officers.
Speaker: And as we, you know, as we got into, because after that Swakuro
Speaker: We needed it to have an umbrella in the region, and that's what we wanted.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, I was, and that's the mentorship, the coaches that are now called.
Speaker: It's like, that's always well in the feedback is like this.
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.
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.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
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.
Speaker: But it was, I mean, it's such a neat thing.
Speaker: A debt of gratitude on behalf of the entire region.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: That's for sure.
Speaker: Now, a couple other firsts for me was, well, you mentioned them already.
Speaker: I mean, I wasn't the first woman president here.
Speaker: I was the second for Swakuo, but...
Speaker: But I was the first CHL liaison.
Speaker: And when I was on KUOI as their secretary, I was on the team that developed the foundation.
Speaker: So I was the first secretary and one of the trustees for the foundation also at KUOI.
Speaker: And
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.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
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.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: That, of course, now has changed tremendously and changed during the years, but it provided opportunities and also sometimes frustrations for.
Speaker: Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker: I could only imagine.
Speaker: So what is the most ridiculous meeting you've ever sat in?
Speaker: Probably when I first came to TWU.
Speaker: When I first came, we basically, half of our residence halls had house mothers type.
Speaker: And we were reading, we were solely as they retired, hiring in professional, young professionals for the hall director positions.
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.
Speaker: And I
Speaker: I guess it was not so much a ridiculous meeting.
Speaker: Well, it was a ridiculous meeting, but also just the question.
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.
Speaker: And so to me, you know, I wasn't hired in to do that, nor would I. That was not the philosophy.
Speaker: And I had to explain, it didn't matter whether they were black
Speaker: white, brown, I was looking for the best candidates.
Speaker: And these young women are the best candidates suited for those positions.
Speaker: And so, you know, again, it was a time back in, and that was late 70s, and it took some changes.
Speaker: And thankfully, TWU is so very different now.
Speaker: The student population reflected the staff that I had.
Speaker: But some of the old guard upper administration didn't.
Speaker: So, I mean, that's the first thing that came to mind.
Speaker: I mean, I could probably come up with some other ridiculous things.
Speaker: I just think it's so disappointing that your story is like that.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: knowing that there's thousands more just like it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, the concern is that I hear things like that nowadays too.
Speaker: And you think this, this full circle thing that happens sometimes with people coming around and it's, it's concerning to me.
Speaker: And I hope our university campuses can maintain that some, because some of our outer communities are not.
Speaker: Doing that.
Speaker: Yeah, isn't that the truth?
Speaker: I won't get into political style.
Speaker: That's what I could.
Speaker: All politics are local.
Speaker: Yeah, they are.
Speaker: They are.
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?
Speaker: It was presenting a program for the ACAP workshop.
Speaker: They wanted housing folks to come in and do a program on residential life program innovations,
Speaker: renovation, construction, and design.
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.
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.
Speaker: And there were glassy eyes out there.
Speaker: And I'm going to
Speaker: This is not the program.
Speaker: I've done this program at ACUHO.
Speaker: I've done this at ACPA or at SWACUHO.
Speaker: This is not the group.
Speaker: And I mean, I did the whole thing, but it would have been better if we had not done that program at all.
Speaker: The program eval is not going to be positive from that group?
Speaker: Nothing at all.
Speaker: You know, because the other parts of it were, you know, on construction and meeting the needs of those types of programs.
Speaker: But they didn't want to hear about those types of programs.
Speaker: So I'd say that, you know, afterwards I thought, oh, golly.
Speaker: We've talked a little bit about Tokuho with Supervisory Skills Workshop, but you were president in 1984, 85.
Speaker: And I love looking at the various pathways to leadership.
Speaker: What was like, what made the timing and the conditions right for you to be president in that year?
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.
Speaker: And then I was elected to be secretary.
Speaker: And we did soup skills that started up.
Speaker: And so it almost was a progression into the next thing would be president.
Speaker: And so that kind of progressed in.
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.
Speaker: Did you run against somebody?
Speaker: You know, I don't even remember now.
Speaker: I did, but I'm sorry.
Speaker: I can't tell you who at that point.
Speaker: That's all right.
Speaker: But I was...
Speaker: I know that I can tell you that Don Wistuff was the president before me.
Speaker: Then before that, I think, was Kent Sampson and then Jim Peterson, I believe, is the way it came up.
Speaker: But also, it was a year that we were dealing with a need to unify a little bit more our region again.
Speaker: Two years prior to that, we lost Louisiana schools that had been part
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.
Speaker: And then as a state, they decided that they needed to, they wanted to unify.
Speaker: And so Siho, they decided all to go to Siho, which was a loss for us to have that happen.
Speaker: But it also made Arkansas feel a little uncomfortable.
Speaker: because now they were the border territory.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And also there, there was a definite feeling that Texas dominated.
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
Speaker: all of the states and not just Texas.
Speaker: And, you know, we had about, and I was the next one.
Speaker: Kent was the only one in between.
Speaker: We had, you know, a succession of Texas presidents too.
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.
Speaker: And so we really pushed for unity.
Speaker: And that was kind of a theme that year.
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.
Speaker: And so probably it was good because I like to build relationships.
Speaker: It was a good year for me to go in there and work with that.
Speaker: And no, we didn't lose any Arkansas schools.
Speaker: for one thing.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: We also went back to, that's when we started the database too, a formal database.
Speaker: And of course that's in the history there.
Speaker: And
Speaker: started out at Texas A&M.
Speaker: And people were fine with the Texas school doing that because, you know, that was going to be a lot of work.
Speaker: But anyways, it was a good year.
Speaker: And it was a year, though I thought of still healing from when Louisiana had left.
Speaker: We made the choice that year to go back to just a regular rotation of hosting rather than
Speaker: Two years, Texas and one year, and then Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Speaker: Of course, that lasted only a short period of time because Arkansas and Oklahoma decided we don't have enough people.
Speaker: We need to go back.
Speaker: But, you know, so we were trying different things just to try to make it work.
Speaker: We even talked about at one time brainstorming.
Speaker: Maybe we divide Texas into a couple of segments.
Speaker: You know, that's just a challenge Swakua has always had with Happy.
Speaker: I mean, that narrative still exists to this day.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: You know, how do you get this?
Speaker: I mean, we're going to have two years of Texas hosting in the same area.
Speaker: It's an easy area to get into, though.
Speaker: It's, you know, it still was.
Speaker: We also need people to step up.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's better to have a conference somewhere than nowhere at all.
Speaker: Adonis talked about that because he was president of Arkansas.
Speaker: He actually felt that way of like, I got to represent Arkansas and show people that they can do this.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: But it is.
Speaker: It is a big job.
Speaker: So the easier we could make that hosting position, the better off we are.
Speaker: Yeah, some things never change.
Speaker: Yeah, they don't.
Speaker: So, Nancy, you are the namesake of Swakuo's new Professional of Distinction Award.
Speaker: I'd say that's a pretty big deal.
Speaker: Why do you think you were bestowed this honor?
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: People like me know.
Speaker: I'm thinking because that's been my push all along, what we can do for new professionals.
Speaker: I mean, that's part of the reason we started Supervisory Skills Workshop and encouraging people to get involved and networking.
Speaker: And I hope it's because I made a difference to some of the,
Speaker: our new professionals and two others in the profession.
Speaker: Taking your name out of consideration, who would you have named the award after if it was up to you?
Speaker: Oh, there are lots of people that are in the profession and you're probably doing namesakes after they're gone.
Speaker: Kent Sampson comes to mind.
Speaker: Somebody else that I think probably has not
Speaker: because he focused so much on his staff and on his campus, was Ron Sass.
Speaker: I think he was a good person.
Speaker: And now I would say Sean Dugan would be a good one.
Speaker: So we have a lot of people that could be named out there.
Speaker: Many, many more.
Speaker: Maybe some of those were because of your tutelage you gave them.
Speaker: Possibly.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So let's give a tangible piece of advice to our new professional listeners out there who have been recognized with an award.
Speaker: During a job interview, what is the most impactful way to talk about an award they have received?
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.
Speaker: And if you can lead into...
Speaker: These are some of my quality qualities.
Speaker: And, and I was so pleased to be honored by having those recognized at SWACUO this past year.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Like, well,
Speaker: Oh, I did this, this, this.
Speaker: Oh, and by the way, because of all that, I just happened to have gotten this.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I mean, you really need to do it that way.
Speaker: I mean, it's real easy to sound like you're just bragging.
Speaker: If you just start listing, I did this, this, and this.
Speaker: And I've gotten this award and this award rather than this is why I got the award.
Speaker: And that's what you need to talk about.
Speaker: I often hear new professionals who have been in their first full-time job for two years.
Speaker: They will say, I'm thinking about doing a lateral move to another school to, quote, get a different experience.
Speaker: Is making a lateral move a good career decision for a young professional?
Speaker: It can be.
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.
Speaker: Sometimes you want to make a lateral move because you can gain new experiences in that move.
Speaker: It might be that it's a larger institution, it's a private versus public.
Speaker: And so making those lateral moves, you also have a new experience with
Speaker: with the staff that you'd be working with there and supervisors.
Speaker: So there is nothing wrong with that.
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.
Speaker: What are the pitfalls or the challenges that
Speaker: when they would make a lateral move into like a very similar position.
Speaker: Sometimes you have to explain why you're doing that.
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.
Speaker: And if you go in with the wrong attitudes,
Speaker: you're not going to do well in that position.
Speaker: I think that's the obvious thing that people take for me all the time.
Speaker: It's like, I can spot a mile away someone with a bad attitude who doesn't like school in an interview.
Speaker: It is just, this is out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the death knell for you if you're doing that at all.
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?
Speaker: And there's a big difference there.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I think about also, it's like, we talked earlier about that third year kind of being crazy.
Speaker: Like, you've already got it.
Speaker: You can really capitalize on relationships.
Speaker: And I know that doesn't always exist in every place, but that's something I always look at.
Speaker: It's like, gosh, your third year, you're going to be starting from scratch in a new environment and rebuild.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: You have like zero capital in the same job.
Speaker: Those are the things I talk to people about.
Speaker: Yeah, you really have to think through all of that.
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.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sometimes it's time to move.
Speaker: Don't stay around negative people and negative situations.
Speaker: It'll, it'll do you in the long run.
Speaker: What would you tell a new professional looking to take on more responsibilities in their department?
Speaker: Like how should they approach that conversation with their boss or their departmental leadership?
Speaker: Well, first I'd say make an appointment, go see your boss, tell them what you would like to do.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: that you'd like to gain some new experiences.
Speaker: And your immediate supervisor may be able to work with you right there.
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.
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.
Speaker: And I've not had that chance out in the residence hall to really do that.
Speaker: How can I get involved with that?
Speaker: You know, I really like to take them by the hand and I will help them to give them some type of experience.
Speaker: They may not be able to do the whole thing, but they can partner with people.
Speaker: And as a supervisor, I look for professionals and young professionals that take the initiative and want to experience new programs.
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.
Speaker: And that means setting up appointments, visiting with them, interviewing them on what they do.
Speaker: And let them know this is where, this is my ultimate goal or this is my next step goal.
Speaker: How can, what can I do to work towards that?
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.
Speaker: And again, I,
Speaker: Networking is important on your campus, in your department.
Speaker: You learn from everybody you work with, even your students that you're working with.
Speaker: In fact, maybe mostly from the students you work with.
Speaker: That's right.
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.
Speaker: Like assignments, operations, ResLife, business services, it's like all the same skills.
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.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, we had systems in ResLife, but it was more individualized.
Speaker: It's like...
Speaker: still doing the same administrative stuff, just in a different way.
Speaker: And it's like that exposure, I think, helps you have an appreciation for the other areas.
Speaker: Exactly.
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.
Speaker: They're not going to teach you how to run a spreadsheet for your budget or how to work with facilities and, uh,
Speaker: develop specifications, working with an architect and, you know, whatever it is that you're doing that is different from just student development.
Speaker: And I mean, those are things that you have to learn on the job.
Speaker: I know there's so much that we will learn on the job.
Speaker: Sometimes I wonder why we even went to grad school in some cases.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
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.
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.
Speaker: Do you have anything to say to this accusation?
Speaker: Oh, I don't know.
Speaker: It might incriminate me more.
Speaker: Well, you know, Kent never talks much, you know, and he is such a person who will stand around talking.
Speaker: And we decided we needed to.
Speaker: We kept waiting for him to come and come.
Speaker: And he was still in there talking.
Speaker: We said, it's time for us to leave.
Speaker: We only went around the block.
Speaker: I neglected to mention that part.
Speaker: Finally went back to find them.
Speaker: Well, Nancy, anything else you'd like to share with the Swakuho region?
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.
Speaker: But the only way to have those experiences is for you all to get involved.
Speaker: and to be part of this very active, dynamic community.
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.
Speaker: That's even better.
Speaker: Even small ways.
Speaker: All types of small ways.
Speaker: Build a habit of giving back or volunteering.
Speaker: Volunteering is a biggie.
Speaker: And
Speaker: It's a great way to network.
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.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, that concludes this one's episode.
Speaker: Thank you yet again to past president, Nancy Murphy-Chadwick, for coming on the show.
Speaker: I'm confident Nancy's stories and shared experience has been valuable to the SWACUHO listeners.
Speaker: especially for a lot of our younger professionals.
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.
Speaker: I'll feature you on an upcoming episode.
Speaker: Be sure to include the episode you listened to, what you did, and what the outcome was.
Speaker: If you don't want your name shared, that's fine too.
Speaker: Just let me know.
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.
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.
Speaker: I am working on getting all past episodes up to date with both transcripts and reflection guides for the benefit of our membership.
Speaker: And with that, I say to you, good day.
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