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Leadership Educators: a CoP Spotlight
53 Plays11 months ago
This episode our on-air host Adam Kuhn is joined by Shannon Thibodeau, Amanda Sartori, Paula Jean Broderick, and Jenny Daines as we explore the topic of Leadership Educators: a CoP Spotlight. We hope that you enjoy and choose to follow along as we release a number of episodes geared towards celebrating our past, present, and future as an organization.
About:
The CACUSS 50 Oral History Project is an initiative of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services in recognition of our organization's 50 years of engaging student affairs professionals in Canada.
The series of podcasts is recorded and produced by: Sean Fast, Adam Kuhn, Nicholas Fast, Rachel Barreca, Stephanie Muehlethaler, Noah Arney, Sally Chen, Estefania Toledo, Paula Broderick, Jennifer Brown, Margaret de Leon, and Becca Gray. This podcast is recorded, produced, and published on the traditional territories of hundreds of Indigenous nations from across the northern half of Turtle Island, also known by its settler-colonial name, Canada. We are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and learn on this land. For more information on the territories you may reside on, visit: https://native-land.ca/
Credits:
Music: Expanding the Limits | Performed by Audiorezout & Written by Oleksii Striapchyi | Stock Media provided by Audiorezout / Pond5
Podcast Cover Art by: Ravi Gabble (UTM)
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Transcript
Introduction to LACOP and Guests
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Caucus 50 Oral History Project. This episode is all about the leadership educators community of practice, past, present, future. And I'm so excited to jump into the conversation with the four amazing guests that we have here today. And I'm just going to kind of do some quick intros and we'll jump right into our interview, our panel, our discussion. So first of all, Shannon Thibodeau. So Shannon currently serves
00:00:47
Speaker
at the University of Guelph as Manager, Student Engagement and Leadership. Is that accurate? Okay, I pulled all of this from LinkedIn, so I assume all of our LinkedIn's are accurate. Totally accurate. Amanda Sartori currently serves as an Organizational Development and Learning Strategist at York University in Toronto, and is a past LACOP co-chair. Paula PJ Broderick currently serves as Manager, Student Engagement and Leadership at Quantlin Polytechnic University in Surrey, BC, and is also a past LACOP co-chair.
00:01:17
Speaker
And Jenny Danes is currently Coordinator of Student Transitions and Engagement at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, and is also a past LACOP co-chair. Welcome! Shannon, did I miss? I know that you've been involved with LACOP, but I don't know that you've ever had a quote-unquote positional role officially. Or am I forgetting something?
00:01:37
Speaker
No, you're not forgetting that. I was around during the infancy of things, but never actually chose to have a titled role. I think at one point the co-chairs just called yourself and myself the Lacop Historians. But that wasn't necessarily a role that got transitioned from person to person.
Role of LACOP in Leadership Education
00:01:58
Speaker
I think that was just a nice way of saying like old people who were hanging around long enough, but also it's also a tribute that you can contribute meaningfully without a position or a title. So actually, why don't we start there, Shannon, about some of the origins of like, what is LACOP full stop? So maybe we'll start, maybe Paula, as a recent co-chair, what is LACOP?
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. Jenny and I, when we were co-chairs, always said that LACOP is kind of an umbrella for any and all sorts of leadership educators. So if you're working in a formal setting with student leaders on your campus, if you're working with transition leaders, if you're working with student governance, you're in sort of an educator, leadership educator's frame of mind, it kind of encompasses all student affairs. And I would argue
00:02:50
Speaker
that it kind of encompasses all of the higher education scope. We're in the development of human beings and leadership education is a big piece of not only our development of students, but our development of ourselves as professionals. And so we welcome any and everyone under the umbrella of LACOP. And we find that, at least during our time, that those diverse voices brought different perspectives that were important to the discussion.
00:03:20
Speaker
Awesome, thanks. Jenny, did you want to add on to that in any way? Yeah, I think similar to what Paula said, I think student affairs, there's key trends and themes in every role, but also our titles are each so different and they vary from institution to different provinces. So it is really interesting space for folks in the COP to join and to learn a bit about similarities that are happening across
00:03:48
Speaker
leadership educators, even though you might not have the official job title of like a leadership educator, which I know a lot of folks don't. So getting those variety of experiences and then getting the chance to connect with folks who do similar work to you is really amazing. So really like Paula said, we just welcome everyone and anyone. That's really great. I remember early days as throwing around like the TED framework, like the training education development. So you might be training,
00:04:15
Speaker
folks for particular roles or positions. You might be educating people about leadership theory and concepts, or you might be developing, you know, helping people find their definition of leadership and their sense of self. And those models, those approaches exist across all, like whether you're supervising a work-study student, or you're engaging with student-athletes, or like there's all these different ways that we're doing leadership education. So it is, it is pretty expansive.
00:04:38
Speaker
Amanda, I'm going to go over to you and I'm so excited to hear your perspective as someone who is doing leadership education and you've shifted from doing student-facing work to now doing staff-facing work.
Defining Leadership Educators
00:04:48
Speaker
So what is a leadership educator and what was your experience with Lakoff? I tried to think about a definition for a leadership educator and it was difficult because I think it could be anyone in any
00:05:03
Speaker
doing anything as Paula and Jenny have alluded to. One thing that kind of was a through line for me was anyone who's engaging in work where there's some sort of development or growth or change or movement. And so really, that is a super broad definition of what a leadership educator is. From the staff perspective or from my work now working with staff, we're thinking a lot about capacity building, resourcefulness,
00:05:32
Speaker
in changing environments, which is not super different from students navigating transitioning into post-secondary or learning new tools to do their education or, you know, progress academically, etc. So I do see a lot of links there, but we're really
00:05:51
Speaker
There's a lot of focus right now in my work on how can we build capacity, kind of guide folks to water and let them continue to drink from it if that is an appropriate little metaphor there.
Building Connections During COVID-19
00:06:05
Speaker
Thanks, Amanda. And as our three folks who are past co-chairs, what would you say is something that folks can expect from LACAP as a community of practice?
00:06:17
Speaker
That's a good question. And I think it shifts throughout the years. I don't think Jenny and I moved away from that TED model. The big thing for us in our years as co-chairs was that connection. So we led during the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:06:36
Speaker
And the big thing that a lot of people were struggling with was, A, exactly as Amanda said, capacity, but also finding connections and building a community of support. And so, as of now, I think that one of the things that LACOP is really good at is building those connections across the country. Yeah. Jenny, anything you wanted to add? Yeah, I think similar to kind of building off what Amanda said and both pull up, this idea of, you know,
00:07:06
Speaker
letting folks define what leadership looks like to them but also kind of providing what we provide for our students in a sense of being a leadership educator is that like we are helping them work through boundaries as educators. We're helping them build up capacity and that's similar to what we've tried to do and we continue to do and look up informing those connections but definitely I think
00:07:31
Speaker
Now that caucus is rotating virtual and in person as well in terms of the conference, it's going to provide some really cool opportunities for connections with folks moving forward. Awesome, and I love that layering, Jenny, of thinking about what we do for students, what LACOP can do for leadership educators, and thinking about that.
00:07:51
Speaker
And also what I've noticed is through your leadership is really expanding in the same way that we're trying to help students expand at their notion of leadership beyond what is typically reflected in kind of dominant discourse. I think LACOP has helped say, you know, there's lots of different ways to be a leadership educator and to do leadership development. And it can be reflective of your institutional context or this particular population or audience. Yeah. So that's been really good. And Paula, did you want to mention something about letting the LACOP membership kind of also inform?
00:08:18
Speaker
the direction of the community of practice? I think that one of the unique things that has kind of grown out of LACOP is really allowing the members to let us know what they want. So it's always a conversation and a discourse between what is the LACOP Council or the LACOP leadership team, and then finding out what is needed. What do they want? What do they want to learn?
00:08:40
Speaker
Where are the things that they're missing or want to connect on or want to have a discussion about? And that's really what drives the community of practice as opposed to coming together as co-chairs deciding this is what we're doing throughout the year. It's really about what is the membership need? Where are they going? What are the struggles and things that they're having difficulty with? But what are the things that we're celebrating and what are the things that they're working in and research and development in new areas of leadership? Awesome. Thank you.
00:09:09
Speaker
Maybe we can get in our time machines and go back a few years and think about like a world pre-Lacop, if there is such a thing. Because I know that in some of our other podcast episodes, we've talked about the shift into the community of practice model. And the leadership educator community is interesting because it's one of the communities that kind of existed in a way, in a few different ways across Canada and with regional networks prior to the community practice model.
Origins and Early Days of LACOP
00:09:35
Speaker
Shannon, I was wondering if I could turn to you as one of our former LACOP historians about what are some of those things that you can remember from those early pre-LACOP days? When I think back to the early days, if I travel back in that time machine, Adam, you're right there with me. And we're actually at the University of South Florida in Tampa at a Leadership Educators Institute.
00:10:01
Speaker
And we're surrounded by colleagues from mostly the US, but several other Canadians, learning about some foundational theories in leadership education, affecting college and university students, and sort of lamenting to ourselves that when we go back to our home campuses, we sometimes feel a little bit alone in having roles at that time that were fairly focused, not entirely, but
00:10:29
Speaker
predominantly focused on leadership education and development for student leaders, for the general like campus population, and that we loved caucus as our professional home, but didn't feel like there was a venue to pull together those folks for whom leadership education was a key component of what they do.
00:10:50
Speaker
Um, and that really started us just saying, well, maybe we could just reach out to other colleagues and get together. Um, which is what we started doing, taking turns hosting meetings. This is very pre-virtual things being easy to do online. Um, because I think we're going back to like, I want to say 2009, 2010, and, uh, waiting for caucus to see where they were going to land with a structure, but knowing that we wanted to exist.
00:11:17
Speaker
in some way as a group of colleagues that felt connected and felt like we had something to share with one another and learn from one another. And so we really just started with these meetings, this connection, this way of feeling like there was support for what we were doing at a time when leadership education seemed to be growing within the Canadian post-secondary context. So we were finding more folks on campuses where this was a particular focus.
00:11:44
Speaker
and finding a way to like share those resources, share that learning was really important. And yeah, and caucus supported that in terms of creating like the birds of a feather concept of like, you know, bringing together people to talk about things that they were interested in, and create some space for us to facilitate our own conversations with our colleagues about that, before the formal look hop community of practice actually got sorted out.
00:12:08
Speaker
Yeah, I just had a flashback to that Leadership Educators Institute. That was great. I'm also reflecting back to some of the efforts. There was also the Leadership Educators Resource Network, LEARN, that it was a virtual space that I think, I remember Ian Simi had a big hand in pulling that together. And I think Lisa was really big at animating that space. It was like a resource sharing,
00:12:36
Speaker
I'm trying to think what did the bulletin board style place where you would have curriculum. And so this was kind of happening almost simultaneously, which was really great in some ways because Canada as a giant country, I mean, our kind of regional meetups were really handy, I think, in Southern Ontario, where we've got a lot of, you know, institutions. But then for the folks, how do we connect folks from across
00:12:57
Speaker
different
Supporting Multi-Role Members
00:12:58
Speaker
types of regions and spaces and institution types. So I feel like this confluence all kind of led to what eventually became the Leadership Educators Community of Practice. Yeah, and I think that LEARN sort of resource network really spoke to what we were hearing from colleagues across Canada
00:13:19
Speaker
which was this desire for actual resources of knowing like, how are you running your leadership trainings? And what are you including? And like, who does what on your campus? And almost like folks trying to get a sense of not only where they fit on their own campus, but how other campuses were structuring those pieces, knowing how unique things can be in the sector, like that every campus has its own sort of culture and flair.
00:13:44
Speaker
And that virtual space had a chat board so you could kind of have discussion posts and things like that. It was sort of like a little classroom off to the side where we could post things and try to create some resources and discussion for folks to connect around. But to your point, Adam, about the density of post-secondary in certain parts of the country,
00:14:08
Speaker
I think got fairly quickly reflected in where the regional pieces were taking off. So like southern Ontario, lower mainland BC, parts of the East Coast where there's a strong network and connection among the post-secondary on the East Coast. And it's the spaces in between that Lakopt has helped sort of fill out a little bit more fully and the technology that has advanced in the last, you know, 15 or so years.
00:14:34
Speaker
Right, right. Also, I think I said Lisa casually as if everyone would know who I was talking about, and most people should, but it was Lisa Endersby who is now at York and was a tremendous part of that evolution, I think, so I just wanted to name that as well.
00:14:51
Speaker
So we've got this origin thinking around, then it became the community practice model. It was kind of a natural fit, but I wanted to maybe poke for a second because there's some connections with the orientation transition and retention community practice and, you know, peer helper. Like these, some folks are wearing multiple hats. They're doing, you know, I'm doing peer helping. I'm doing orientation. I'm doing leadership education.
00:15:15
Speaker
And so, in terms of that connection point around what can folks expect from getting involved with the LACOP, I'm just wondering around what, and Paul, you mentioned around this sense of community, this sense of connection, but I'm also thinking around these worlds where we've got these kind of connecting points across portfolios. How do we support those members that might be wearing multiple hats, I guess is my question.
00:15:38
Speaker
Jenny, did you have any thoughts on that? Yeah. Yeah. One of the, I think the great things about Locop is we draw in folks who also fit in other communities of practice. So in Ottercop or orientation transition and retention, the peer support group as well. So when Paula and I were co-chairs, we really tried to do some collaborations with those folks because we knew a lot of members were the same. So.
00:16:07
Speaker
We were super excited and thrilled to have the in-person kind of OTR meetup at the past caucus event. And I think, you know, seeing those continue is really great because you can also draw on the variety of different perspectives. And, you know, I'm just thinking of folks who, you know, promote leadership education through orientation volunteers and how you have them for a smaller period of time, but you're still trying to instill some similar principles.
00:16:37
Speaker
or maybe folks who are doing leadership advising and you use the same principles but have those conversations over continued periods of time. And I think there's a lot to learn from one another. So it's kind of a bit about how to make those connections. Paula, do you have anything else you want to add?
00:16:56
Speaker
I think the other thing is that leadership education doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's exactly as Adam said, many people wear many different hats and are juggling many different pieces at all times. And so this is not only Jenny and I, but historically the co-chairs who came before us and even the co-chairs who are leading now are looking for opportunities to work with different communities of practice.
Webinars and Interdisciplinary Focus
00:17:22
Speaker
in research, in counseling, in the EDI space, and what does leadership education look like in all of those areas because it doesn't exist by itself. And I think that that's important, especially as we continue going forward with the many challenges that we're seeing across our campuses.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good point. It just gave me a flashback to some early webinars that Lakhaa posted and they're always at the intersection of leadership education and another kind of functional area. So it was like health and wellness for leadership, you know, students involved with leadership and are using a wellness lens to supporting leadership or student leaders.
00:18:03
Speaker
international students and leaders. Like I think that, that intersection of, you know, leadership education and the work that we're doing, it does not exist in a vacuum. Put it perfectly, Paula, around how do we make sure that we're connecting those dots across all our functional areas? Amanda, do you remember when you were kind of leading, co-leading with, with Sarah Mamie, LACOP? I remember that was a very active period of time for LACOP. There was a lot of things that got up and running in that time.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, the one that really is like top of mind for me and as I was reflecting for this conversation was leadership links. It was the kind of mentorship. I put mentorship in virtual quotations here because it was more of a just a peer to peer conversation where we sent out prompts to pairs over a period of time. But I thought that was like a really, I'm super biased here because I helped to coordinate it. But I thought it was a really great opportunity to connect with folks that you
00:18:59
Speaker
quite literally perhaps could never connect with otherwise across the country. Even Paul and Jenny, as you were saying, folks that might be involved in other functional areas in student affairs, but have some sort of through line to leadership education to be able to connect with someone who's maybe has wearing multiple hats or in another
00:19:20
Speaker
predominantly another functional area was really interesting and neat as well. I think about that a lot as certainly a highlight of being involved in Lakoff. It was so much fun. Still a highlight today. Sorry? Still running strong leadership. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's lovely to hear.
00:19:40
Speaker
It really is a great model. And I remember the discussion specifically, because I think we started as a more typical mentorship program where it was like, you know, there was someone maybe who had quote unquote more experience that was mentoring someone who had maybe quote unquote less experience. And then that ran, but I think it was under your leadership, Amanda, that it was like, okay, I think what people are actually looking for are these connections across.
00:20:02
Speaker
the country and they're not necessarily look, they just want pals to talk with and debate, you know, the work that we're doing. And so it was this mutual mentorship program. And that's where it kind of found a really great sweet spot. And it's like one of the more popular things that I think look up does. There's a lot of take up and I think there's other communities of practice that are curious about that model, which is, it's really lovely to be a leader in that respect. Okay.
Current Challenges for Leadership Educators
00:20:25
Speaker
So.
00:20:26
Speaker
We've talked about what Look Up is, its origins. What's going on for folks today in 2023? What are leadership educators worried about, thinking about, spending time, you know, on our campuses contending with? What does that look like? Okay. If we, Shannon, can we start with you? Cause I feel like your role is expansive. And so I feel like you might have a nice bird's eye view about some of the things that leadership educators might be thinking about today.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, Adam. I was just sort of smiling because I thought I was thinking about how as much as things change, they somewhat stay the same. So there's always this balance of trying to create space for what what Paula said earlier about like, you know, we're all human, like making good humans, like this idea of skill building and helping students know how to navigate the world, their ideas, their passions and build some capacity
00:21:27
Speaker
and some relationship skills around how to do that really effectively. So I think there's still a foundation there around those concepts of personal skill building to then be used within group or broader settings that can contribute to community development, community goals, that kind of thing. What I see different now
00:21:47
Speaker
than you might have seen eight years ago is the, and I work at a four-year university. So with predominantly undergrads, although there are some grad students, and I'm definitely seeing in the work that my staff are doing with student leaders that are elected or appointed into roles, or in the work that Jenny and the folks that she's with are doing with incoming students or transfer students,
00:22:15
Speaker
is that some of the skills that we used to consider entry level, like students came with certain skillsets already in place, they don't have those in the same way that they did before. And we might attribute this to differences in how they were learning in high school and what things became accessible to them when they might have been experiencing virtual high school instead of in-person opportunities. They may have had less outside of the classroom opportunities throughout their high school experience.
00:22:45
Speaker
And so where we're starting from is a little bit different in terms of some foundational skill building.
00:22:53
Speaker
But the type of passion idea generating like desire to make change in the world has in no way been tempered because students still have tons of ideas about what they think is like the way forward and but still need some support around building the skills for how to make those ideas heard effectively or how to bring others alongside with them or how to join alongside other people.
00:23:18
Speaker
But the, the skill itself, like it does seem like we're starting at a little bit of a different place. And the other thing I would just add is definitely the relationship building piece. Like this conversation already has talked so much about the value that people find in community, the value people find in being in a Leadership Links program. Like I am still connected to the person in the first year the Leadership Links program ran.
00:23:45
Speaker
and they are now at a very different stage of their career, working at a totally different institution, and we still are connected. The skill around connecting and of that little bit of discomfort when we're meeting somebody for the first time and trying to build relationships, I think it's something where we're definitely seeing a bit of a theme with a lot of students where that's an area of real discomfort around how to do that.
00:24:14
Speaker
And so there is a little bit more focus on the value of that in terms of their own success, their own well-being, and knowing how to build community, how to be part of community, how to develop relationships that are healthy, and working with our campus partners around being able to do that more so than we would have seen even three or four years ago.
00:24:37
Speaker
Very good
Supporting Student Leaders' Well-being
00:24:38
Speaker
point. And I was seeing the folks won't hear this on the podcast, but there was lots of nods as Shannon was speaking from the other panelists. Amanda, Paula, Jenny, any thoughts on what you're spending time thinking about as a leadership educator? Any trends or concerns that you're thinking about? Jenny? I also think about, you know, reflecting on my own time in university
00:25:03
Speaker
all the pressures that are put on student leaders today. And I think, you know, you still got the media saying, you know, that student leader who's involved in everything and doing everything and that kind of glamorizes you, but then they're also getting the, but make sure you're eating and you're taking time for yourself and that, and self-care is important and seeing a lot of students stuck in this, like almost pull between the two, I think is something that we were kind of exploring and I know
00:25:30
Speaker
other folks have been chatting a lot too, because yeah, it can be a lot for student leaders on how to navigate kind of all the different ways that they're pulled into. Well, and before we go to Paula and Amanda, I was just doing some reading about how I think sometimes with folks who are in positional student leadership roles, our RAs, our mentors, our dons, whoever,
00:25:53
Speaker
I think the attitude was that they were somehow like invincible or not also dealing with mental health issues or crises or the pressures of being a student. And then so we would always, and I remember having gone through this experience, we would talk about students in distress if it was never going to be us. Like it was like, oh, this is another person. And it was very, so I think as a trend, I think that we're catching up on ourselves knowing that.
00:26:17
Speaker
the students who are in these roles who are dealing with vicarious trauma, who are dealing with the stress of being a student leader and dealing with all of these things, we also, we can't just assume that they are these invincible student leaders, that we also need to provide supports for them as well, because they are dealing with a lot, right? There's a lot of pressure. All right, Paula.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, my thought is on the same vein as Adam was just talking about, is that I think one of the things that we're focusing on right now is well-being and wellness on campus across the board, whether it be students, staff, faculty, et cetera. And I am very cognizant with where I am located in the country. Cost of living is a big thing. There's lots of other just life basic stresses.
00:27:04
Speaker
How do I build in wellness to these leadership positions and any training whether it's students who are in positional Leadership positions or are just coming in for some training. How do I build in wellness training? How do I ensure that they're? They can help themselves before they help other people and I wonder if there's a way that
00:27:27
Speaker
that can contribute to modeling for like student affairs professionals as well as our student staff. Cause I think that for many of us, we started as student leaders on our campuses and then became and found ourselves in these roles that we absolutely adore. But some of those patterns and behaviors that we learned as student leaders have continued and we're passing on to the next generation. So how do we do that? That's my big question these days.
00:27:55
Speaker
That's a good question. And I think that just flashed in my mind was when we're training folks on like making effective referrals to campus resources and we're like, Oh, if you have a student who needs it, you can refer them, but we never talk about it as if you are also able to access these resources. And in fact, doing it is probably going to make you a better leader in some ways. And so I, again, just kind of how do we normalize those discussions around the wellness and wellbeing of the students and the student leaders? Yeah. Very good point. Thanks Paula. Amanda.
00:28:25
Speaker
One thing that I'm thinking about, and this might be a bit more related to this staff leadership development, but perhaps there's some through lines with students as well, but just navigating constant change, whether within an organization, in your life outside, or just the world in general, and how you can continue to be present in the work that you're doing, while also having it being quite difficult to hold
00:28:51
Speaker
the mental energy to process the world around you, process the organization that you're in, the team that you're in. And so understanding, like there's a bit of a balance or maybe not a balance, but there's sometimes a bit of a tension between how can I be a well human in an organization that maybe expects productivity or has certain expectations of me either as a staff or a student. So I'm thinking about that a lot as well now.
00:29:20
Speaker
really, really excellent points. And I feel like we
Future of Leadership Education
00:29:23
Speaker
could stay in this present day discussion around what leadership educators are thinking about.
00:29:28
Speaker
and troubling. But I'd like to talk about the future of leadership education. But maybe before that, I think I would just offer one thing that I'm noticing in our conversations too is around, I think we've always, we, many folks in LACOP have really troubled this notion of what a leader or what leadership is. I don't think, I think it really has been approaching it from like this socially constructed lens of this is this thing that we, many people buy into, but it doesn't
00:29:55
Speaker
have to be that way if it can be socially constructed it can be deconstructed and reconstructed and i think uh one of the things i'm noticing more is that's more at the forefront of like what what does it mean to you what do you want to do with it it's not about okay here's the 10 ways to be a leader and here's your rubric it's really turning to students about okay what is the way that you want to move the world and how can you move through the world and how can you leverage your gifts and your talents
00:30:19
Speaker
and thinking of appreciative lens around the skills and talents you're bringing to the process of leadership. That seems to be more obviously at the forefront from what I'm noticing around programming across the board. It's not here's the prototype of a student leader or a leader in general and how do you fit into that. It's like really
00:30:38
Speaker
Now we're trying to showcase, no, you don't have to be, you can be shy and introverted and hold like a really important position or lead from within and not have a position at all. And I think those are all really valuable ways to contribute. And I think that's been a through line, but I just see it more dominantly the way people are talking about the work that they're doing on their campuses. And maybe that'll be a through line into the future.
00:31:01
Speaker
around the work that we're doing. But as we're thinking about the future, what are things that you either would want to see or that you predict will happen in terms of the world of leadership education on our campuses? I don't know if anyone wants to go first. Shannon, I feel like you're giving me a raised eyebrow. I don't know that I was. If you could just solve it for everyone, that would be great. It's interesting because I've been thinking about
00:31:30
Speaker
the sector of post-secondary generally and a major aspect of discourse these days is the number of international students that are coming in. And what that adds is this richness and this diversity to the student and campus experience. But it also adds a different set of needs or demands perhaps on our programs and services. And conversations recently with some colleagues at other institutions where we were talking about
00:31:58
Speaker
how, you know, we're seeing more international students wanting to hold positional roles, even though our programming may be shifting to what you were just sort of chatting about, Adam, that idea of, you know, creating space for skill development, relationship building skills, critical thinking skills that we want students to be able to develop and then use as they see fit, right, to like, where do they see themselves in the world?
00:32:22
Speaker
that we are seeing an increase in some populations wanting a positional title and wanting to hold a role that feels really valuable to them in terms of perhaps the skills they could learn or what they could contribute. So I feel like that might be a trend that we continue to see as the demographics on our campuses change. In terms of something
00:32:45
Speaker
that I'm really hoping might continue to be a developed part of the leadership education and development conversation moving forward, not only for our students, but for ourselves. Beyond the wellness pieces that folks have been talking about, it's the reflection and critical thinking components for ourselves around our learning and our place and what we're doing, but also what we're absorbing.
00:33:14
Speaker
So how we're taking in the information that comes at us and how we're making decisions about what we do with that in some way. And I think the critical thinking pieces are often really challenging to teach, to learn, and to practice. And so creating some spaces for
00:33:38
Speaker
students and in my case now it's much more I think about staff that report to me for them to be thinking critically about choice and consequence about what is happening around them.
00:33:53
Speaker
feels like it will continue to be part of the dialogue because the amount of information that is coming at people, and to Jenny's point earlier, the expectations that folks have weighing on them that at a certain stage of development feel like will inform your life forever if you get it wrong, feels very heavy. And so that reflection skills, those critical thinking skills that might help folks navigate their choice making feel like, I hope,
00:34:22
Speaker
will be something that continues throughout their life. Like if that's what we could leave them with, that they could take to make their decisions and be well in the future, that would feel great. Whether that's actually going to be a trend. I don't know, I'm going to try for it. We're in my little sphere of influence, but I don't necessarily know where the uptake will land. Thanks, Shannon. Paula, did you have anything in terms of
00:34:51
Speaker
what the future might look like for leadership educators? Shannon kind of stole my two thoughts. I don't know. We're definitely on different sides of the country. But yeah, I was thinking a lot about not only international students, but as our campuses become
00:35:07
Speaker
different and the demographics are shifting, what does leadership education look like, this new generation of students? There's a lot of conversations with at least our student leaders about, well, do you need to have a role? Do you need to have a title to do good work in the world? And so that's a really interesting conversation. And then that kind of juxtaposition with a lot of cultures and places having the importance of a role and a titled role. And so that
00:35:37
Speaker
that that conversation is a really interesting one that's just kind of percolating on our campuses. I think the other thing is helping students articulate what they're learning, who they are, what they're exploring in this ever-changing world. There's a lot of stuff happening in the world and having students be able to talk about things, what they believe, who they are, that's a key component of leadership education and
00:36:04
Speaker
especially in those positional areas, how they articulate those things, I think about a lot. And then the kind of vice versa side of things or shifting things is that so many of our colleagues who are in the leadership educators community practice are doing graduate studies of whether it's masters or PhD level studies.
00:36:27
Speaker
There's a lot of really cool research and literature coming out of Canada now. We've a law for a long time dependent on leadership education in the States, but there's a lot of really cool work happening in Canada, and I cannot wait to see what happens with that. Awesome. Thanks, Paula. Amanda, how about you? Oh, maybe just repeat everything Shannon and Paula said, and I'm sure you'll have to answer it as well. They all are brilliant.
00:36:56
Speaker
Some things that have been percolating for me and more from an observer perspective to leadership education for students at the moment, but some things around making intentional choices with our time. And I love what you said there about that critical reflection as well, Shannon. Of course, I think from what I've observed in close contacts of mine and who are in
00:37:23
Speaker
post-secondary right now as students, but advocacy for themselves, for others, for communities that are close to themselves for, you know, against injustices, et cetera, I think is going to be a huge, it will continue to be so important and really relevant as in the world goes forward. So those are the things that are really, that I'm seeing as an observer and
Innovations in Tools and Technologies
00:37:49
Speaker
feel really,
00:37:51
Speaker
really excited about leadership education to be involved in those things. Yeah. Thanks, Amanda. Jenny. Can I just say ditto? No. Absolutely. Yeah. Beyond all these wonderful thoughts. I'm also really excited to see the way that leadership education is going to happen in terms of like the tools that we're using. I think with the pandemic and, you know, being forced to adopt certain
00:38:21
Speaker
you know, virtual platforms, but now we're seeing hybrid meetings and making things more accessible. I'm really excited to see how leadership educators kind of utilize those tools and make, you know, trainings or even hiring practices, like group interviews more kind of accessible to folks, whether that be using technologies or looking at it from a different perspective as well. Awesome. Thanks all. I think,
00:38:51
Speaker
I could sit here and talk with you all day. You're four brilliant humans and I'm so lucky to call you colleagues. And I think knowing the challenges that are happening in the world and they manifest on our campuses in particular ways just highlights for me the importance of having, you know,
Conclusion and Appreciation
00:39:07
Speaker
thoughtful, equity-centered leadership educators. And that to me is a big part of my draw to LACOP is the chance to talk and learn from folks who are doing the important work of
00:39:17
Speaker
you know, training, developing, educating, supporting, leaders, positional, non-positional, in lots of different shapes and forms, and so I just wanted to conclude by saying thank you to all of you. There's a few folks who wanted to be here but couldn't, and so thank you to all our, you know, present and past co-chairs of LACOP, members who've contributed on the council, members who have
00:39:39
Speaker
contributed on panels and projects and as leadership linked mutual mentors. So it really is a very cool community and I feel lucky to call myself part of it. So thank you for devoting the time today to just get together and gab a bit about leadership education. Thank you so much.
00:40:17
Speaker
The Caucus 50 Oral History Project is an initiative of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services in recognition of our organization's 50 years of engaging student affairs professionals in Canada. The series of podcasts is recorded and produced by Sean Fast, Adam Kuehn, Nicholas Fast, Rachel Barreca, Stephanie Mulettoller, Noah Arney, Sally Chen, Estefania Toledo, Paula Jean Broderick, Jennifer Brown, Margaret de Leon,
00:40:47
Speaker
and Becca Gray. Intro and outro music is courtesy of Alexei Stryapji. This podcast is recorded, produced, and published on the traditional territories of hundreds of Indigenous nations from across the northern half of Turtle Island, also known by its settler colonial name, Canada. We are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and learn on this land. Miigwetch.