Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
![013 - Reflections on Coming Full Circle | Ken Stoner [Past President] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=54,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
013 - Reflections on Coming Full Circle | Ken Stoner [Past President]
12 Plays3 years ago
This month we have a very special guest who was never employed at a SWACUHO-affiliated school but certainly orbited SWACUHO throughout his long career in student housing. Several of our guests talked about SWACUHO being a family, so in my best judgement between him attending a couple SWACUHO conferences, keynoting at SWACUHO events, and consulting at SWACUHO schools, it's almost as if our guest is already family.
On this episode, Dr. Ken Stoner (hailing from the UMR and SEAHO regions) reflects on how it seems everything in campus housing comes full circle. Examples include residence hall designs from the 30s having quarantine rooms (which we recently needed but no longer had), adding phone lines to every room and then removing them, and the absorption and eventual jettison of maintenance, housekeeping, and dining services from housing programs. Along the way we talk about niche roles, fully appreciating the job you currently have, the difference between five years of experience and one year of experience five years in a row. We also get lessons in housing budgets, the value of knowing the gatekeepers at your school, and even a "crash course" in aeronautics.
Episode 013 Reflection Guide - If you put anything into action from the Podcast, please consider sharing it via swacuhopodcast@gmail.com and you may get featured on an upcoming episode.
Seeking professional advice? Fill out this anonymous form and a panel of housing staff will give you their take on your situation on an upcoming podcast.
Past Episodes Mentioned:
Episode 001 - Reflections From a Single Institution Career | Kent Sampson [Past President]
Recommended![025 - Fun Topics from the ACUHO-I Community Forum | Joel Gatti [Feature Topic] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
Transcript
Introduction to Swakuho Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
I'm JC Stoner, and this is the Swakuho Podcast.
00:00:07
Speaker
I've got a very special guest today, but you'll have to excuse him because he has never worked at a Swakuho-affiliated school.
Introducing Special Guest: Dr. Ken Stoner
00:00:14
Speaker
Recently, I just so happened to find myself in the same place at the same time with our guest and thought, what the heck?
00:00:21
Speaker
He's retired and probably has nothing better to do with his time, so I may as well take advantage of this window of opportunity.
00:00:28
Speaker
I did promise him that all of our listeners wouldn't hold his lack of Swakuho involvement against him just this once because he did attend the 1989 and 1993 Swakuho conferences.
00:00:41
Speaker
He keynoted for the Swakuho Supervisory Skills Workshop at Texas Women's University in 1988.
00:00:47
Speaker
He consulted on the Texas Tech, UT Austin, and
00:00:52
Speaker
and Texas A&M campuses during the 90s, and even served as an expert witness for a court case at the University of Arkansas in 2004.
00:01:03
Speaker
If what has been mentioned so far hasn't piqued your interest, then keep listening.
00:01:08
Speaker
Our guest today was the Director of Student Housing at the University of Kansas between 1985 and 2006, when he was then appointed as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
00:01:21
Speaker
He agreed to the two-year appointment, but then got suckered into staying for six more years before finally retiring in 2014 as the Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs.
00:01:33
Speaker
Along the way, he was editor of the Journal of College and University Student Housing between 1978 and 1981.
Role of Podcasts in Post-COVID Training
00:01:40
Speaker
was president of Akuhoi for the 1989 and 1990 term, received Akuhoi's Parthenon Award in 2007, and more important than any of that, he is a longtime listener of this very show.
00:01:55
Speaker
For anyone listening who has ever worked with or for our guest today, we are not only covering some of the greatest hits, but also some deep cuts.
00:02:05
Speaker
Dr. Ken Stoner, welcome to the show.
00:02:09
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:02:10
Speaker
Thanks for that kind introduction and pleasure to be here today.
00:02:13
Speaker
I've been listening to all your podcasts and I commend you and Swakuo for developing this innovation.
00:02:22
Speaker
I'm sure it's filled in some of the training gaps that have resulted from the COVID epidemic.
00:02:26
Speaker
So again, thanks again.
00:02:27
Speaker
It's a pleasure to be here.
00:02:29
Speaker
I'd like to hope it fills in some of those gaps.
00:02:31
Speaker
But first things first, including this one, how many podcasts do you listen to?
00:02:37
Speaker
Oh, not a lot.
00:02:39
Speaker
Every now and then I'll pick up on one, but I don't routinely listen to podcasts.
00:02:44
Speaker
Well, you always struck me as preferring quality over quantity, right?
00:02:49
Speaker
Yes, for sure.
00:02:50
Speaker
For sure.
00:02:51
Speaker
So what's been your favorite episode that you've listened to so far?
Historical Connections Between Texas and Tennessee
00:02:55
Speaker
Well, of course, I liked Sampson, your very first one.
00:02:58
Speaker
Kent and I have been friends for 55 years now.
00:03:03
Speaker
I met him at some of the Nakura conferences.
00:03:05
Speaker
Oklahoma was also big.
00:03:07
Speaker
And I give a shout out to them, too, because they hosted a lot of that early Nakura conferences.
00:03:11
Speaker
And I met Kent back in those days.
00:03:13
Speaker
So that was a favorite.
00:03:15
Speaker
But I've enjoyed them all.
00:03:17
Speaker
Good.
00:03:18
Speaker
So part of our region is Texas.
00:03:21
Speaker
And you worked at Tennessee.
00:03:23
Speaker
What's the relationship between these two states?
00:03:26
Speaker
Well, I always kid my Texas colleagues, at least when I was in Tennessee, I did, that they were just cousins, Tennessee cousins.
00:03:35
Speaker
The connection is that Tennessee was always known as the volunteer state, and that harkens back to the War of 1812, but it took on new significance with the conflict with Mexico.
00:03:46
Speaker
The president put out a call for asking for about 2,000 to 3,000 volunteers from Tennessee, and over 30,000 showed up and headed to Texas.
00:03:56
Speaker
And following the conflict, they stayed, and they brought their families, and they brought everything else, too.
00:04:01
Speaker
The constitutions are virtually
Stories from College Days: Phones and Dorm Life
00:04:03
Speaker
identical.
00:04:04
Speaker
Tennessee is the three-star state.
00:04:06
Speaker
Texas is the one-star state.
00:04:08
Speaker
And the only person in the history of the United States to be governor of two different states is Sam Houston.
00:04:13
Speaker
So I always kidded the Texans that they really just transplanted Tennesseans.
00:04:21
Speaker
And I know Texans like to believe we are our own little nation and there's never been anything but Texas.
00:04:27
Speaker
You called them cousins.
00:04:28
Speaker
But is it your professional opinion that all Texans are really just want to be Tennesseans?
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
Careful.
00:04:35
Speaker
You're going to get me in trouble here.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:04:38
Speaker
Let's go with that.
00:04:39
Speaker
That sounds fine.
00:04:40
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:04:42
Speaker
So let's start way back during your formative years of your career.
00:04:46
Speaker
When you were an undergraduate student, you worked the front desk of your residence hall and there was a pay phone at the desk.
00:04:52
Speaker
Tell our listeners the significance of one particular phone call made at that desk.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, you're really taking me back to the dark ages here.
00:05:01
Speaker
Many of your listeners may not even recognize what a payphone is or a phone booth, a payphone booth, but there was one of those that sat fairly close to the main desk.
00:05:11
Speaker
When I first started college, there was actually a switchboard there and there were community phones.
00:05:16
Speaker
You didn't have private phones in the rooms.
00:05:18
Speaker
There was a phone on the floor or the wing.
00:05:22
Speaker
And the switchboard would ring that phone and somebody would answer it and they'd say, oh, we got a phone call for Ken Stoner, go get him.
00:05:28
Speaker
And they'd find him and they'd come to the phone and stuff.
00:05:30
Speaker
So that's the way the phones work.
00:05:32
Speaker
But they weren't private because they were all out.
00:05:35
Speaker
There was these public phones were in the hallway or, of course, the switchboard could always listen in.
00:05:40
Speaker
So they're kind of party lines.
00:05:42
Speaker
So if you wanted a personal phone call, use the pay phone that was there next to the lobby.
00:05:48
Speaker
And for a dime, you could call somebody and
00:05:50
Speaker
Some of the guys would use that to call the other payphone in the women's hall.
00:05:54
Speaker
They talked to their dates that way because they could shut the door on the payphone booth and those were private calls.
00:05:59
Speaker
But at any rate, somebody had the bright idea, a guy in the building that dated another girl over in the women's halls.
00:06:04
Speaker
And so he knew the payphone number.
00:06:06
Speaker
So we got that payphone number from him and somebody had the bright idea to just call it and see if somebody had answered it.
00:06:12
Speaker
Well, a gal did answer the call and they talked a while.
00:06:14
Speaker
Uh, they didn't know each other, but they visited a while.
00:06:17
Speaker
And, and she said, I have to go to class.
00:06:18
Speaker
She said, but here's so-and-so I'll put her on the phone.
00:06:20
Speaker
Well, then the marathon began that gave everybody an idea.
00:06:24
Speaker
So, uh,
00:06:25
Speaker
Before the day was over, there was a sign-up sheet, and you signed up for either 15- or 30-minute slots, and you'd be talking to different people over in the hall.
00:06:33
Speaker
I suppose the modern-day version of this is speed dating.
00:06:35
Speaker
Some of the guys ended up with dates on it and stuff, and the call went on.
00:06:39
Speaker
And before it was all over, it went on for quite some time, and even the phone company got involved in it.
00:06:46
Speaker
Kind of as an advertisement, bringing commercial attention to it.
00:06:48
Speaker
They'd say, can you believe that this phone call so far has lasted 508 hours and 12 minutes and it's still going on all this for a dime, you know?
00:06:57
Speaker
And so it was all good fun.
00:06:59
Speaker
But I think Mr. Brake rolled around and it kind of broke up, but it was kind of a fun thing at the time.
00:07:05
Speaker
The other interesting
Dorm Infrastructure and Historical Context
00:07:06
Speaker
part about this is back then, like you said, the only access to the phone was in the lobbies and you had switchboards.
00:07:12
Speaker
But then at some point, housing went and retrofitted all of our resident rooms on campus to have their own phone lines, like in each individual room.
00:07:21
Speaker
Now many places have removed the phone lines.
00:07:24
Speaker
So does everything truly come full circle in campus housing?
00:07:29
Speaker
Well, certainly a lot of things do.
00:07:31
Speaker
The same thing was true with computers.
00:07:32
Speaker
Now we've got the wireless network and everything.
00:07:35
Speaker
When you mentioned this earlier, I got to thinking about it.
00:07:37
Speaker
And one of the things that surprised me a little bit is that
00:07:41
Speaker
I became aware of these units during some of my consulting times when I was asked to look at buildings and help with redesign and retrofitting of them.
00:07:49
Speaker
But some of the buildings that were built in the late 30s and early 40s actually had quarantine wings on them, which I found was interesting in light of what we're doing with COVID nowadays.
00:08:00
Speaker
In the late 30s, people were still remembering the terrible flu epidemic of the teens, and then polio was starting to hit the country pretty big time in the 30s.
00:08:11
Speaker
And so some of the campuses actually had little quarantine units in their housing units.
00:08:17
Speaker
And of course, now they're all in violation of code and they had to be retrofitted because most of them only had one entrance and exit.
00:08:23
Speaker
And that way they could control, you know, control the population to make sure there's no contamination and stuff.
00:08:28
Speaker
And some of them had nursing quarters built in with them.
00:08:32
Speaker
So, yeah, it's kind of interesting.
00:08:34
Speaker
Some things do go in cycles like that.
00:08:37
Speaker
And now we all couldn't wait to close down all our quarantines fast enough so we could reopen them up for rentable space once again.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
Well, that's what mostly what they was doing, but they had to redesign those to get a second access, you know, access in the stairwells and other things to these various units that were designed to be isolated.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:57
Speaker
So going back to phone lines then, for those out there who do not have facilities backgrounds, do they actually physically remove all the infrastructure of phone lines or did they just cover them up?
00:09:07
Speaker
They just mostly covered them up.
00:09:09
Speaker
They didn't actually remove them.
00:09:12
Speaker
So if the world were coming to an end and we ran out of Wi-Fi and didn't have cell phones for whatever disaster reason, we could theoretically activate all our phones once again and
00:09:24
Speaker
Well, assuming those lines hadn't deteriorated too much or something happened to them in the interim out there.
00:09:30
Speaker
But if they were workable when they were shut off or disconnected, then in theory, they'd be workable now.
00:09:36
Speaker
But I'm sure there might be a few complications with that.
00:09:39
Speaker
But yes, you could do that.
00:09:41
Speaker
We could all go back to Morse code, too.
00:09:42
Speaker
But I mean, how many people might remember that?
00:09:47
Speaker
Our number one takeaway so far is learn Morse code is a good life skill development there.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:54
Speaker
So as an undergraduate student, did you once get kicked out of the dean of students office?
Student Governance and Advocacy
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, you told me he was going to bring this up and I thought about pleading the fifth, but yeah, in a fashion, it's...
00:10:09
Speaker
You have to remember, again, this is one of those things that goes around, comes around.
00:10:14
Speaker
I was going to college in the 60s, and the 60s were...
00:10:19
Speaker
in a way not unlike today.
00:10:20
Speaker
I mean, everybody was worked up and everybody was kind of mad and there was a lot of dissension and things going on.
00:10:25
Speaker
The civil rights movement was gaining ground big time.
00:10:28
Speaker
Vietnam War was going on.
00:10:31
Speaker
The 60s, all the boomers were hitting colleges.
00:10:33
Speaker
So we were too many students.
00:10:35
Speaker
There were lines.
00:10:37
Speaker
It was just tensions.
00:10:38
Speaker
Kennedy was assassinated in 63.
00:10:40
Speaker
And then both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. would be assassinated in
00:10:46
Speaker
So, I mean, it was pretty tense times on campuses.
00:10:50
Speaker
Like I say, not unlike the citizenry today, it was kind of one of those times.
00:10:57
Speaker
But at any rate, I had been elected president of the residence hall I was in, and there's a lot of dissatisfaction.
00:11:03
Speaker
So we had a whole bunch of things.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:06
Speaker
they said, I ought to go see somebody and get all this corrected.
00:11:08
Speaker
And they gave me a list of demands to go over and see somebody.
00:11:11
Speaker
So I didn't know who to see.
00:11:12
Speaker
So I thought I'll start with the Dean of Students.
00:11:15
Speaker
I'll go see that guy.
00:11:16
Speaker
So I looked it up.
00:11:17
Speaker
It was Dr. Chet Peters.
00:11:18
Speaker
And I went over to his office and he saw me and I went in and told him, you know, what was wrong with the world and the university and all the other stuff going on.
00:11:27
Speaker
And he told me essentially, I said, thanks for coming by, but get out of my office or something like that.
00:11:33
Speaker
He said,
00:11:34
Speaker
I don't have time to discuss the problems.
00:11:35
Speaker
I know what they are.
00:11:37
Speaker
He said, if you ever got any solutions or suggestions for improving things, then come back.
00:11:41
Speaker
Until then, thanks for stopping by.
00:11:45
Speaker
So I left.
00:11:47
Speaker
I thought, wow, that was kind of interesting.
00:11:48
Speaker
So I went back to the hall and discussed it with the exec board.
00:11:52
Speaker
And we came up with some ideas and things for making things better and solutions and suggestions.
00:11:56
Speaker
And
00:11:57
Speaker
So when I called back to make an appointment, I made sure I told the secretary, tell him I got some suggestions and some possible solutions to some of the things that might help things out.
00:12:08
Speaker
And so she said, okay.
00:12:10
Speaker
And I, so I had another point with him and he invited me in.
00:12:12
Speaker
It was very cordial.
00:12:14
Speaker
And, uh, we had a very nice visit and he, uh, accepted all my, uh, suggestions and proposals and said, he'd get back with me and thank me for coming by.
00:12:23
Speaker
And, uh,
00:12:24
Speaker
It was kind of interesting.
00:12:25
Speaker
That became the start of an interesting relationship that we had over the course of my whole undergraduate years.
00:12:32
Speaker
I think the world of him today always did, but he was really quite the man.
00:12:41
Speaker
I think a lot of Chet Peters.
00:12:42
Speaker
Did they implement any of your suggestions or solutions?
00:12:46
Speaker
Well, they did.
00:12:46
Speaker
Some of them they did.
00:12:47
Speaker
Actually, one of them had to do with the guys.
00:12:50
Speaker
We had actually taken a vote and did a referendum in the hall before we did, and they agreed to a modest fee increase that would cover some of those services we were talking about.
00:12:59
Speaker
And so that was a pretty novel idea at the time to have a
00:13:04
Speaker
an add-on fee for just one building or for, you know, to do some things like that and have some programming and some increased things, which it was pretty interesting.
00:13:14
Speaker
And he found it interesting.
00:13:16
Speaker
And yeah, we got some things done and it was the start of a neat relationship.
00:13:21
Speaker
Like I say, I'd evolved over the course of my undergraduate years and later on student senate and stuff.
00:13:26
Speaker
And I don't think I would have made it without his blessing, but he was also advisor to Blue Key.
00:13:31
Speaker
And so my
00:13:32
Speaker
senior year, I was inducted to Blue Key there on campus and he was the advisor to that.
00:13:35
Speaker
And we stayed in touch for years after that.
00:13:40
Speaker
He's a good man.
00:13:41
Speaker
I love that example of like,
00:13:44
Speaker
It's so, you know, money's tight for everyone.
00:13:47
Speaker
And it's, it really shows an active role that students can, you know, really harness some power to like advocate for increasing a fee when nobody wants that.
00:13:58
Speaker
And that happened once I was at a ARH when I was an RA and,
00:14:02
Speaker
And I can't remember if it was Dr. Waring or Derek Jackson came out and was like, here's our budget proposal and we're going to we want to increase by 3% or whatever housing rates by 3%.
00:14:13
Speaker
Here's what we're all going to do it.
00:14:14
Speaker
You know, a real opportunity for like shared governance and transparency.
00:14:18
Speaker
And I just sat in the back as an RA was like, there's no way that everyone's gonna be like, no, no, no.
00:14:24
Speaker
And all the ARH sat around and they talked in private and they came back and they said, we do not approve your proposal for 3%.
00:14:33
Speaker
We want a 5%.
00:14:35
Speaker
And here's what we want the extra money to be spent on and have this laundry list of ideas.
00:14:41
Speaker
And I was just like, this was totally unexpected.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah, well, it was.
00:14:45
Speaker
And particularly those times because fees were relatively new.
Career Progression Through Niche Roles
00:14:49
Speaker
I mean, particularly when you isolated into a specific group of people like a living unit like that.
00:14:55
Speaker
that particular hall, you know, and stuff.
00:14:56
Speaker
And so it was a targeted thing for that particular population.
00:15:01
Speaker
But yeah, involving the students in the decision-making process.
00:15:05
Speaker
And Dr. Peters was great in working with us.
00:15:08
Speaker
And like I say, it was a good time.
00:15:11
Speaker
So I've asked each Swakuho past president guest on this show about niche roles.
00:15:18
Speaker
This question is largely inspired by things you've either written or said.
00:15:23
Speaker
Give us a quick rundown on what you mean by niche roles.
00:15:26
Speaker
Well, in my case, as you know, I'd written a chapter about this for Akuho and just about the need to fill niche roles and just a particular thing that needs done at the time that somebody needs to do and you step up to the plate and you
00:15:46
Speaker
you do that.
00:15:47
Speaker
And so I was very fortunate in that I had several of those come my way.
00:15:51
Speaker
And I was aware of that from early on, that that was my kind of role in life or a role I could play.
00:16:00
Speaker
And it helped over the course of my life and career.
00:16:05
Speaker
So when did you first realize the value of niche roles?
00:16:10
Speaker
Well, I actually probably went back to high school
00:16:12
Speaker
I was wanting to play on the high school football team.
00:16:14
Speaker
And, uh, and so they were short blockers and they were short of center.
00:16:18
Speaker
And, uh, I was just amazed because there was a lot of guys that I felt they were faster.
00:16:23
Speaker
They were bigger.
00:16:24
Speaker
They were stronger.
00:16:24
Speaker
They were better athletes than me, but they didn't want to be the center.
00:16:28
Speaker
They didn't want to be a blocker.
00:16:29
Speaker
They had to be the quarterback or the running back or the receiver, somebody with the ball, you know?
00:16:34
Speaker
And, uh, and so, uh,
00:16:37
Speaker
uh, which surprised me.
00:16:37
Speaker
So I, I, I practiced this center, particularly hiking the long ball for the punts, you know, and, uh, and stuff.
00:16:44
Speaker
And so, uh, tried out for it and there weren't that many.
00:16:46
Speaker
And, uh, I made the team and here I was, uh, uh, I made the team, uh, because I'd take a role that a lot of people didn't really want.
00:16:54
Speaker
And I was like, say, I was just amazed that, uh,
00:16:58
Speaker
A number of my friends that I considered better athletes than me weren't on the team because of that.
00:17:03
Speaker
So I kind of paid attention to that.
00:17:05
Speaker
I laughed because as I was thinking about this, I laughed because I remember the local newspaper always covered all the ballgames.
00:17:12
Speaker
Well, we won one ballgame.
00:17:13
Speaker
Well, we won more than one, but this one ball game we won.
00:17:18
Speaker
I was laughing because the paper of the following day carried this little, it had just a little run and said something like, and the go-ahead touchdown was set up following a fine run by the halfback Roger Stoner, the key block being thrown by his brother at the line of scrimmage.
00:17:35
Speaker
Well, I didn't even mention my name or anything like that, but I thought about it.
00:17:38
Speaker
That's what they need.
00:17:39
Speaker
You know, okay, give me, you know, he set up the go-ahead touchdown, but I'm
00:17:43
Speaker
but there was a blocker out there somewhere, I mean, and stuff.
00:17:46
Speaker
And so it was just kind of a fun thing.
00:17:49
Speaker
And I kind of remembered that settled in.
00:17:53
Speaker
So what are some of the niche roles you've played then?
00:17:56
Speaker
Probably the best example I can give and the one that really changed a lot of what I did in my career was when I was at South Florida.
00:18:04
Speaker
I was a resident instructor.
00:18:05
Speaker
That's kind of a hall director, except you had quarter time faculty rank with it.
00:18:09
Speaker
And you taught introductory psych or social every semester.
00:18:12
Speaker
And so
00:18:13
Speaker
At any rate, we were at staff meeting.
00:18:15
Speaker
Ray King, he was the director of housing.
00:18:17
Speaker
He came into one of those meetings.
00:18:19
Speaker
He said, I need somebody to help me out.
00:18:23
Speaker
He said, I'm hosting a meeting here in a couple of weeks.
00:18:26
Speaker
And I need somebody to make the coffee, get the donuts, take minutes, run errands, do whatever I need them to do, but be on standby for several days for this meeting.
00:18:36
Speaker
Who wants to do that?
00:18:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:40
Speaker
Sounds great.
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, sounds great.
00:18:42
Speaker
And everybody kind of looked around the room.
00:18:44
Speaker
We all sat there to kind of quiet.
00:18:45
Speaker
I thought, oh, what the?
00:18:47
Speaker
Hey, he's the boss.
00:18:47
Speaker
You know, I mean, if I can help out some way, I'll do that.
00:18:51
Speaker
So I said, OK, OK, Mr. King, I'll do it.
00:18:53
Speaker
He said, OK, come by my office after the meeting and we'll talk about what you need to do.
00:18:57
Speaker
And I said, OK.
00:18:58
Speaker
So I went by his office.
00:18:59
Speaker
OK, Ken, I'm hosting the Research and Information Committee for a cool.
00:19:04
Speaker
That's the meeting we're going to.
00:19:05
Speaker
And it's in Miami.
00:19:06
Speaker
He said, you'll need to pack your bags.
00:19:08
Speaker
We'll be gone Thursday through Sunday of whatever week it was.
00:19:13
Speaker
And I said, oh, OK.
00:19:15
Speaker
So I did.
00:19:16
Speaker
So I traveled with him to Miami.
00:19:18
Speaker
Well, I did.
00:19:19
Speaker
I got donuts, made coffee every morning, and it took the minutes and ran all the errands and did things for the meeting.
00:19:25
Speaker
And that following Monday, after the meeting was over, we met Thursday to Sunday.
00:19:29
Speaker
I stayed up after we got home, and I...
00:19:32
Speaker
I whacked out the minutes because I knew he was concerned about those.
00:19:35
Speaker
And apparently I did a good job and he put them out.
00:19:38
Speaker
Well, I got all these thank yous.
00:19:39
Speaker
I guess the minutes had never been distributed within a month of the meeting.
00:19:42
Speaker
I mean, because whoever, it was all I do.
00:19:45
Speaker
And so they liked that.
00:19:47
Speaker
And so I was just surprised.
00:19:49
Speaker
He said all about six months later, he said,
00:19:53
Speaker
Hey, Ken, that was a really good job.
00:19:54
Speaker
He said, everybody really appreciated having the minutes out.
00:19:56
Speaker
And he said, you did a thorough job.
00:19:58
Speaker
It was neat and good and everything.
00:20:00
Speaker
He said, we're going to meet again.
00:20:01
Speaker
This time we're meeting up at the University of Florida.
00:20:03
Speaker
He said, Hal Riker's hosting that.
00:20:04
Speaker
He said, you'll be going with me.
00:20:06
Speaker
He didn't ask for volunteers anymore.
00:20:08
Speaker
He said, you'll be going with me.
00:20:10
Speaker
So I went to that meeting and then I went to the next meeting.
00:20:13
Speaker
It was out of state.
00:20:14
Speaker
I think it was up in New York.
00:20:16
Speaker
We flew up there and had the next meeting and
00:20:19
Speaker
And by then, somebody on the committee was kind of embarrassed.
00:20:22
Speaker
They said, you know, Ken's doing all this workforce and stuff, putting out the minutes.
00:20:26
Speaker
Why don't we just make him a member of the committee?
00:20:28
Speaker
Next thing I know, I'm on the research and information of Committee of Okua, which was unheard of.
00:20:33
Speaker
And that involvement in my doing the minutes and editing stuff, when they did the spinoff of the journal, they put me on the journal board.
00:20:42
Speaker
So I was on it for
00:20:44
Speaker
eight years and then the editor for three.
00:20:46
Speaker
And that sort of began my significant involvements with Akuho was that just offering to take minutes and get donuts.
00:20:55
Speaker
I mean, which was probably the, you know, one of the best niche roles I played, you know, you wouldn't think it would lead to that much, but it, it did.
00:21:07
Speaker
I was telling someone the other day, I always remember with great fondness and great memories about, and the benefits they got of like all the staff members I've had who have always said yes when everybody else said no, or when everybody else just stayed quiet.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:24
Speaker
And there's something about stepping up and doing the grunt work that's not glamorous, but
00:21:29
Speaker
Well, yeah, it is.
00:21:30
Speaker
And actually that led to one of my promotions.
00:21:33
Speaker
We had a turnover and we needed somebody to supervise, to step in and fill in for the custodial staff and to work with our housekeeping staff and stuff like that.
00:21:42
Speaker
And same thing.
00:21:44
Speaker
It didn't seem too glamorous to anybody, but I said, I'll do that.
00:21:47
Speaker
That'd be a new and a different thing and a challenge.
00:21:51
Speaker
And I'd like to do that and see how it goes.
00:21:54
Speaker
And it
00:21:54
Speaker
It went well enough.
00:21:55
Speaker
They assigned it to me and promoted me to associate director.
00:21:58
Speaker
So, I mean, it was over the course of the time.
00:22:00
Speaker
So I think sometimes those opportunities may not seem like, but they're worth considering anyway and seeing what they lead to.
00:22:10
Speaker
And a lot of it seems like it's like foundational building blocks for like other skills or other, like, you know, you get really good at, well, picking up donuts, then maybe you'd be really good at like picking up steaks or, you know, you get really good at writing minutes, like writing.
00:22:26
Speaker
Well, for the journal and editing for the journal, because I wrote and edited those minutes and they thought maybe I'd be a good editor, you know, not a good editor, but at least a good person to have on the journal board because I read things thoroughly and could edit and read and write and
00:22:40
Speaker
put out and timeliness was the other thing too, that I think they appreciated on those.
00:22:45
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:22:46
Speaker
Sure.
00:22:47
Speaker
It's like presenting at an RA training is like the building blocks to presenting at a regional conference, which is the building block for a national conference, which is the building block for presenting to a board of trustees at some point in your career, I would imagine.
00:23:00
Speaker
You're absolutely right.
00:23:02
Speaker
I have a lot of colleagues that tell me they're going to write a book someday.
00:23:05
Speaker
And I say, wait, have you written an article for the newsletter?
00:23:07
Speaker
Well, no, not yet.
00:23:08
Speaker
Have you written a chapter for a book?
00:23:09
Speaker
Well, no, not yet.
00:23:10
Speaker
But I'm going to write a book.
00:23:11
Speaker
And I think,
00:23:12
Speaker
Boy, you start out writing for newsletters or you start out writing, you know, articles for the Kuhoi or you write a chapter, you write something else.
00:23:19
Speaker
But, you know, those are the building blocks that you have to put together.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:23:25
Speaker
Did any of your consulting gigs come out of like niche roles?
00:23:31
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah, I became an expert on windows out the windows because many of the accidents associated with residence halls when I got into consulting or particularly expert witness for universities, many of them involved windows, accidents with windows.
00:23:48
Speaker
And a lot of them were associated with, in the Midwest, the windows have, a lot of people call them ledges, but they're not really ledges.
00:23:55
Speaker
They're eyebrows or sunshades for a room below.
00:23:59
Speaker
And so they're like fins on a radiator.
00:24:01
Speaker
So they have these fins, sometimes they're vertical, but mostly they're horizontal, that shade the windows below.
00:24:06
Speaker
And that reduces the air conditioning load.
00:24:09
Speaker
And so, uh, students would crawl out their windows and get out on these ledges.
00:24:12
Speaker
And, uh, of course, half the time they were three sheets to the wind.
00:24:15
Speaker
And so then they'd, uh, there'd be an accident involved and they'd, uh, uh, you know, the families would sue the universities, uh, for the accidents of those.
00:24:24
Speaker
So I, I kind of got into that, uh, uh, as, uh, that particular niche role, uh, uh, and became known for consulting on windows and accidents associated, uh,
00:24:35
Speaker
with windows and how they've put together.
00:24:37
Speaker
I even shot a video, made a DVD on that that was used in several court cases and stuff related to how windows are constructed and then the shading effects of the ledges and the sunscreens that were outside the windows.
00:24:55
Speaker
So yeah, that was kind of an interesting... Is that DVD available on Netflix?
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, no, I haven't.
00:25:02
Speaker
Moving on.
Stress and Self-awareness in Leadership
00:25:04
Speaker
My department recently started asking a variation of this next question to candidates during job interviews.
00:25:09
Speaker
So when you were director of housing, if I were to ask your assistant and associate directors at the time how they knew when you were stressed out at work, what do you think they'd say?
00:25:25
Speaker
They'd probably say I didn't have the time for them.
00:25:27
Speaker
I didn't take time for them or just, you know, wasn't social enough.
00:25:31
Speaker
You know, I just, you know, how you, oh, fine.
00:25:33
Speaker
And I'd be off.
00:25:34
Speaker
You know, I'd just be, my mind would be somewhere else and I'd be focused on another matter.
00:25:38
Speaker
So they'd know when I...
00:25:40
Speaker
my attention was diverted elsewhere because I'd be pretty short with everybody and try to get to whatever was on my mind.
00:25:47
Speaker
I've really liked that question recently about, you know, we asked candidates, if you were stressed out at work, how would we know?
00:25:53
Speaker
Like what would manifest?
00:25:54
Speaker
And it's kind of a fun thought experiment, especially if you supervise people.
00:25:57
Speaker
Like we...
00:25:58
Speaker
don't often think about like, how are we, how are we behaving differently?
00:26:03
Speaker
And we think we hide everything and cover it up real well, but everybody knows when the boss has got something going on.
00:26:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:11
Speaker
No kidding.
00:26:12
Speaker
Everybody, everybody knows.
00:26:14
Speaker
That's right.
00:26:14
Speaker
Looking back at your entire career, what is an opportunity you said yes to that afterwards you wished you would have said no to?
00:26:23
Speaker
Well, there's probably several of these, um,
00:26:27
Speaker
I say yes too quickly.
00:26:28
Speaker
That was a fault.
00:26:29
Speaker
Somebody calls, you do that.
00:26:31
Speaker
I was like, sure, I'll do that.
00:26:33
Speaker
Speak at this conference or write an article or things like that.
00:26:38
Speaker
And when I should have said, let me take a look at my schedule and think about it for a couple of days and I'll get back to you.
00:26:44
Speaker
Sometimes I'd be so excited.
00:26:46
Speaker
Somebody called me on the phone and said, hey, we need you to...
00:26:49
Speaker
write a chapter for us for this, that, and I was like, oh, sure, sure, I'll do that.
00:26:52
Speaker
And then I didn't ask about the deadline.
00:26:54
Speaker
I didn't ask about when it was due.
00:26:56
Speaker
I didn't ask about what the topic was.
00:26:57
Speaker
You know, I just got carried away with the moment of... And so sometimes I actually had to call them back, you know, and a few days later, I said, I know I said yes, but, you know, I'm just not going to be able to work this out.
00:27:10
Speaker
So I think...
00:27:11
Speaker
Probably I said yes too fast to some of the things like that, and I regret that I did that, and I should have been more intentional with those.
00:27:19
Speaker
What about a missed opportunity?
00:27:21
Speaker
Anything you wished you would have said yes to that you had passed on?
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, there's one.
00:27:26
Speaker
I thought about this.
00:27:28
Speaker
This happened when I was in Tennessee, and I got this call from the Hospital Corporation of America.
00:27:33
Speaker
And they said, hey, we got this gig for you that we'd like you to do.
00:27:36
Speaker
It involves a week.
00:27:38
Speaker
We want you to fly to Saudi Arabia for a week with us, a consulting team, and give us some advice on this hospital operation, this new operation they're starting over there.
00:27:48
Speaker
And I'm going, shaking my head, and I'm saying,
00:27:53
Speaker
You know, you got the right person here?
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:54
Speaker
I said, you know, I don't I don't speak the language.
00:27:57
Speaker
I don't know anything about hospitals.
00:27:59
Speaker
I've never been to the Saudi Arabia.
00:28:01
Speaker
I know nothing about the country.
00:28:02
Speaker
And they said and so they come back with this, you know, something along these lines.
00:28:06
Speaker
They said, well,
00:28:08
Speaker
isn't it true that you house 8,000 students there at the university?
00:28:11
Speaker
And I said, yeah, yeah, that's true.
00:28:13
Speaker
And they say, isn't it true you move them all in with about into the facilities within about two or three day period?
00:28:19
Speaker
I said, yeah, yeah, we do that.
00:28:20
Speaker
They said, well, isn't it true that you have a record on every one of those students and you keep track of them?
00:28:25
Speaker
And I said, yeah, we do.
00:28:26
Speaker
And they said, on any given day, you know where they live.
00:28:28
Speaker
You know, I mean, if they move around, you move them to different rooms and you keep track of them.
00:28:32
Speaker
I said, yeah, we do that.
00:28:34
Speaker
And you have a record of all that.
00:28:35
Speaker
I said, isn't it true that
00:28:37
Speaker
between each of these turnovers and stuff like that.
00:28:39
Speaker
And every time a tenant, one of them moves out, you clean the rooms or you clean the facilities and you turn them around and have these deep cleans and routine cleans.
00:28:47
Speaker
I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do all that.
00:28:48
Speaker
And they kept going through and I kept saying, well, that's exactly what we need.
00:28:53
Speaker
We need to do this.
00:28:54
Speaker
But it was one of those, I wish I had done it, but
00:28:58
Speaker
I have no regrets because if I'd done that, then there'd be other things I wouldn't have done.
00:29:01
Speaker
So, yeah, that would have opened that door, but there might have been some other doors that closed.
Reflections on Missed Opportunities
00:29:05
Speaker
But I always thought about that.
00:29:07
Speaker
And for your podcast listeners, don't ever underestimate your transferable skills that you're getting on there.
00:29:13
Speaker
Because like I say, when they was running through it, they were saying, you know, I kept thinking, what do I know about hospitals?
00:29:19
Speaker
What do I know about this country?
00:29:20
Speaker
What do I know about...
00:29:21
Speaker
You know, the language or, you know, the culture.
00:29:24
Speaker
And they, you know, they went through all this and they said, it sounds like, you know, everything we need, you know, we want to do.
00:29:29
Speaker
We want records.
00:29:30
Speaker
We want somebody to keep track of the records.
00:29:32
Speaker
We want somebody to check people in and out.
00:29:34
Speaker
We want it inefficient.
00:29:35
Speaker
We want cleanliness.
00:29:36
Speaker
We want the facilities done.
00:29:38
Speaker
You know, we want individual records.
00:29:40
Speaker
You know, so it's just kind of an interesting thing.
00:29:43
Speaker
Actually, my housekeeping supervisor here at UTD, she used to work in the hospitals and talks all the time about the same stuff, just kind of a different timeline.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:53
Speaker
What's the most ridiculous meeting you ever sat in?
00:29:56
Speaker
Well, it's probably a committee meeting.
00:29:58
Speaker
They had some lofty title, something along the lines of workload reduction or simplification committee or something like that.
00:30:04
Speaker
And I think the purpose, the person establishing the committee had some lofty goals and stuff, but it was too nebulous and too vague.
00:30:12
Speaker
And so the committee got together and we weren't quite sure where the problems was other than they thought there was too many forms and maybe some of them were overlapping and, uh,
00:30:22
Speaker
and maybe we could reduce the number of forms.
00:30:24
Speaker
And so the first thing the committee did was create a form that we sent to all the department heads to tell them to itemize the forms they used and provide a sample of each of the forms.
00:30:34
Speaker
I think before the committee disbanded, we had more forms than we did before we started.
00:30:39
Speaker
I mean, it was just one of those that was, you know, the marching orders of the committee or the charge statement wasn't real clear.
00:30:47
Speaker
We kind of got bogged down in the mire situation
00:30:50
Speaker
out there in the swamp.
00:30:51
Speaker
And we just, I think we ended up in a place that was worse off than when we started.
00:30:57
Speaker
I mean, isn't that the result of most committees?
00:31:00
Speaker
Well, there are quite a few of them, unfortunately, probably.
00:31:03
Speaker
Did you ever receive a piece of critical feedback in a performance evaluation you didn't agree with, but later realized was correct?
00:31:11
Speaker
No, I don't think so.
00:31:13
Speaker
As performance evaluations have changed a lot over the time, over time.
00:31:19
Speaker
you know, over time.
00:31:20
Speaker
And frankly, I didn't always receive an annual performance evaluation in the course of my career.
00:31:26
Speaker
For the most part, I generally officed in close proximity to my immediate supervisor, and I pretty much knew where I stood on any given day and on any given issue or topics.
00:31:36
Speaker
And the communication was always good and open.
00:31:39
Speaker
So
00:31:39
Speaker
It wasn't like I had a lot of surprises.
00:31:42
Speaker
If I needed to change something, I knew about it.
00:31:44
Speaker
And so the feedback in that exchange was good.
00:31:47
Speaker
So I can't say is that I ever got any major surprises in an evaluation.
00:31:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:54
Speaker
What was a big decision you had to make that you knew was going to be unpopular among the staff?
Improving Workplace Accountability
00:32:00
Speaker
Well, I don't know if there's any...
00:32:03
Speaker
huge big decisions but I you know I told her there's an old Arabic proverb that says something along the lines the dog barks in the night but the caravan moves on you know there's no such thing as a no barking zone at a university I mean people can bark about anything I mean even well thought out and good decisions there's be somebody that barks at them but I think one decision that I I thought about that at the time really concerned me a little bit is that
00:32:31
Speaker
At the university, we had our maintenance, mainly in maintenance, but we had a fleet of about 30, 35 vehicles or something like that that serviced the buildings and did things.
00:32:43
Speaker
And I was concerned that I just felt like we were getting too many accidents.
00:32:48
Speaker
These minor fender benders, accident reports and stuff like that.
00:32:51
Speaker
And a lot of them read that our staff was at fault because they had either parked illegally or done something, backed out and wasn't paying attention to stuff.
00:33:00
Speaker
And so
00:33:01
Speaker
I hammered out a new policy with HR and asked for their support and got it.
00:33:05
Speaker
And basically the policy was that if you had an at-fault accident, you were suspended for one day without pay.
00:33:12
Speaker
If you had a second one within a year, you got a three-day suspension and then you had three at-fault accidents within the
00:33:19
Speaker
a two year period you were dismissed.
00:33:22
Speaker
So I went down to the staff, all those, everybody, but mainly the people that drove the vehicles.
00:33:27
Speaker
I said, this is our new policy.
00:33:29
Speaker
We're just having too many accidents.
00:33:30
Speaker
I'm not blaming anybody.
00:33:31
Speaker
I'm not saying, but we got to put a stop to this and this is the way it's going to work.
00:33:36
Speaker
And so I laid it out and went over it with them.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, there's a little bit of grumbling, but I told everybody on the front end stuff.
00:33:43
Speaker
Well, as luck would have, bad luck, good luck, depending on which side of the coin you're on.
00:33:49
Speaker
The very next week, the landscaping supervisor, he was out in this pickup and he saw a piece of trash or a bottle or something there by the road and he stepped out to get it and he didn't get his pickup in park, right?
00:34:03
Speaker
Well, it rolled off and hit the back of another car.
00:34:05
Speaker
So the police come right up the axiotech fault.
00:34:08
Speaker
Well, he comes over and I said, well, I, I'm going to lay you off for one day without pay.
00:34:14
Speaker
Well, he was upset.
00:34:15
Speaker
He had never had an accident in the 25 years he'd worked for the department.
00:34:19
Speaker
It was funny.
00:34:19
Speaker
So, but he was a supervisor too.
00:34:22
Speaker
So if you don't hold the supervisor, then anybody that comes after that with an accident, they're going to say, well, why didn't you enforce it here?
00:34:29
Speaker
So he was all upset, but I held firm and HR held firm and we gave him a suspension for one day without pay.
00:34:36
Speaker
And
00:34:37
Speaker
my, our, our accident in the department radio went to almost zero.
00:34:41
Speaker
We had almost no accidents for the rest of the time was there.
00:34:45
Speaker
So it's just, but I mean, you have to, sometimes you just have to make decisions.
Critical Speed in Project Management
00:34:51
Speaker
There's a lot of things like that, that you just, but I think any decision that holds people more accountable or is toward a design toward the improving of performance, you'll get some initial pushback initially, but, but, uh, uh,
00:35:06
Speaker
Along the way, people will buy in for it.
00:35:09
Speaker
Well, your poor landscaping supervisor, too, was just trying to do a good deed and pick up some trash and make campus more beautiful.
00:35:15
Speaker
No good deed goes unpunished.
00:35:17
Speaker
And he had a great – I haven't had an accident since I've worked here.
00:35:20
Speaker
This is my very first one.
00:35:22
Speaker
I can't believe you're doing this.
00:35:24
Speaker
That's the policy we whacked out.
00:35:26
Speaker
That's just the way it's going to be, so –
00:35:28
Speaker
So most campuses are hopefully taking a breather after August trainings, move-ins, and welcome events.
00:35:35
Speaker
I think everyone feels a particular moment at some point in the summer, and I'm sure it's different for everyone, where it's like, there's no turning back now.
00:35:46
Speaker
What's your take on this phenomenon?
00:35:48
Speaker
I like to talk about critical speed, you know, where there's no turning back, uh, uh, critical speed.
00:35:54
Speaker
I borrow that from the airlines.
00:35:55
Speaker
It's, uh, I think more specifically, they call it refusal speed or maximum abort speed as background.
00:36:02
Speaker
Uh, so, uh, generally somebody in the cockpit, generally the navigators assigned to keep track of this.
00:36:08
Speaker
So, uh,
00:36:09
Speaker
You're racing down the runway, getting ready for takeoff.
00:36:12
Speaker
And when the navigator says critical speed or maximum abort speed, they say critical speed.
00:36:17
Speaker
That means the plane's taken off or pieces of the plane are taken off.
00:36:21
Speaker
Something's leaving the runway, but there isn't enough runway left to abort.
00:36:24
Speaker
So you have to attempt to take off.
00:36:26
Speaker
So, uh, I think, uh, I used to tell my staff that we've reached critical speed.
00:36:32
Speaker
You know, there's, uh, no turning back on this.
00:36:34
Speaker
We're, we're moving forward.
00:36:36
Speaker
Uh,
00:36:37
Speaker
Something's leaving the runway.
00:36:39
Speaker
Hopefully it's the airplane, but if not pieces are, something's coming apart.
00:36:43
Speaker
So we talked about it.
00:36:44
Speaker
I think there's those times in any of our schedules where there's an event or there's a deadline up there, and that's immutable.
00:36:51
Speaker
That's not going to change.
00:36:53
Speaker
That's the way it is, and we've got to either meet it or there's going to be a kind of a disaster in the works.
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
Is there ever a time in your career where your plane reached critical speed and it did not take off in glorious flight, but rather in pieces?
00:37:09
Speaker
I always have a backup plan or a plan B, but I was in the process of renovating scholarship halls and I was renovating and trying to do one a summer.
00:37:17
Speaker
Sometimes we did two.
00:37:18
Speaker
And that was a tight schedule, that summer window was, because although some of them weren't total reguts, I mean, it was a new furniture code upgrade, you know, a whole variety of things on those.
00:37:30
Speaker
And I'd already successfully done several.
00:37:34
Speaker
And this one came up, it was Pearson Scholarship Hall, and it was coming up for the renovation.
00:37:39
Speaker
In all the other cases, the contractor knew the tight schedule.
00:37:43
Speaker
He had a van there before, and as soon as the students cleared, they hit the thing because they knew they were on a tight schedule.
00:37:49
Speaker
Well, in this one, the summer started, the contractor wasn't there, and the equipment office showed up.
00:37:57
Speaker
Two or three days later, the crew showed up, too.
00:37:59
Speaker
I thought, we're not going to, I could just see it.
00:38:01
Speaker
We are not going to open this scholarship hall-off time in the fall.
00:38:05
Speaker
And of course, it's on the front end of a project, just two or three weeks into the schedule, you can't hardly say, go to the meeting and say, hey, this contractor is not getting it done.
00:38:12
Speaker
Although I was saying that, they said, well, he's got his three months and he says he's going to do it, blah, blah, blah.
00:38:17
Speaker
And I'm thinking he's
Focusing on Current Roles for Growth
00:38:19
Speaker
not going to do it.
00:38:19
Speaker
So I cleared the floor out of another residence hall that had a common lobby that could have
00:38:24
Speaker
you know, they're between there's 30 on a wing.
00:38:26
Speaker
So that would accommodate the 50 men.
00:38:28
Speaker
And I designated, told them, no, nobody got assigned to that floor.
00:38:31
Speaker
So this is where we're going to put them in when we don't open.
00:38:33
Speaker
They said, but they say they're going to open.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:38:35
Speaker
At any rate, that was my backup plan.
00:38:37
Speaker
And sure enough, it didn't open and there were lawsuits and everything else.
00:38:39
Speaker
And before it was all over, we, that guy was term, that contractor was terminating.
00:38:44
Speaker
We had to bring in a, you know, a backup contractor to finish the project and stuff.
00:38:48
Speaker
But there's times where,
00:38:50
Speaker
That's the always have a plan B or a backup plan or always be asking yourself what possibly could go wrong and be thinking of options.
00:38:57
Speaker
So of all the jobs you've held, which was the most important to you?
00:39:01
Speaker
Well, I tell people the most important job you'll ever have is the one you have right now.
00:39:06
Speaker
I always tried to operate with that philosophy that I was always a little bit, I don't know, put off or concerned about people that always talked about their next job or acted like this job wasn't all that important, that it was just a stepping stone and they were putting their time in.
00:39:20
Speaker
And it's unfortunate that somebody of my caliber has to pay my dues and do this job, you know, when really I'm cut out for something higher or better.
00:39:28
Speaker
But I always found that if you did a good job at what you were doing and the position you had now, you tended to get other jobs and stuff.
00:39:34
Speaker
So
00:39:35
Speaker
I always say the most important job is the one you have right now.
00:39:38
Speaker
Do you think people are generally too quick to want to move up before developing the necessary skills along the way?
00:39:46
Speaker
I don't know if they're too quick.
00:39:47
Speaker
I think we're all, particularly when we're younger, I think we're all...
00:39:51
Speaker
anxious to arrive or to do something that we feel is really significant or important.
00:39:56
Speaker
But if it, you know, every job is important or we wouldn't have that job, it's a significant job.
00:40:01
Speaker
And if you treat it as significant and do your best at it and, you know, make improvements and develop your toolbox, you know, your professional skills, you'll get other opportunities.
00:40:10
Speaker
So I think every position needs to be treated as if it's very important.
00:40:15
Speaker
What is one piece of advice commonly given to new professionals that you would tell them to ignore?
00:40:22
Speaker
There's always people say, don't sweat the small stuff.
00:40:24
Speaker
You know, it's all small stuff.
00:40:26
Speaker
Well, you do.
00:40:27
Speaker
The details are important.
00:40:29
Speaker
I think people need to pay attention to the details.
00:40:32
Speaker
Details are the issues that are significant to an operation and you have to make sure they're all covered.
00:40:38
Speaker
So I think I've heard a lot of times people say, oh, don't sweat the small stuff.
00:40:42
Speaker
You know, somebody else will take care.
00:40:43
Speaker
Well, there's details in every job and you need to pay attention to them.
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, somebody else's job.
00:40:51
Speaker
And I think you kind of alluded to this earlier.
00:40:52
Speaker
It's like there's always at universities, there's always something somewhere that someone could be doing or that something needs to be done, you know?
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:41:04
Speaker
I agree.
00:41:05
Speaker
So then do you have any advice for new professionals?
00:41:08
Speaker
My advice for anybody is only work for somebody you like and respect.
00:41:13
Speaker
Hire a great staff.
00:41:16
Speaker
and make sure every year of experience is a year of experience.
00:41:20
Speaker
What do you mean every year of experience is a year of experience?
00:41:24
Speaker
Well, there's a difference between five years of experience and one year of experience for five years in a row.
00:41:31
Speaker
And I think we can get dead-ended or pigeonholed in your job and you can have one year of experience and then you have it five times.
00:41:39
Speaker
Or you can have five years of real experience.
00:41:41
Speaker
I think that's harkening back to your question on evaluations.
00:41:44
Speaker
I think that's one thing that I always work in every year.
00:41:47
Speaker
with my immediate supervisor.
00:41:49
Speaker
I wanted to make sure that there was something a little bit different or I had a different opportunity or there was something else out there that, and for the most part, your supervisors will work with you as long as you're getting the job done and meeting their expectations and fulfilling the job requirement.
00:42:03
Speaker
You say, and these can be all over the waterfront.
00:42:06
Speaker
I mean, I
00:42:07
Speaker
One year I, well, two years I was president of the Credit Union Advisory Board for the university.
00:42:14
Speaker
And I thought, well, I mean, that was nice.
00:42:18
Speaker
You know, one year I was on the NHTI, the National Housing Training Institute faculty, you know, and you do different things like that over time and you work them into your job description, get buy-in from your boss, and they let you do that.
00:42:32
Speaker
I mean, my involvement with Akuho or Advisor to Nakura, I
00:42:36
Speaker
You know, I've edited a couple other publications other than just the journal, traveled a little bit with endowment, done a lot of building committees and housing and stuff, but I got pretty good at that.
00:42:45
Speaker
And then I was asked to chair the building committee for a health center, for a rec complex, for a student union.
00:42:50
Speaker
Probably the most interesting one that I went and asked my boss if I could do, I'd been invited to be on the college advisory board for Walt Disney World.
00:42:58
Speaker
And so, which required me to make two trips to Disney World every year at their expense.
00:43:04
Speaker
I mean, just something a little different.
00:43:08
Speaker
that expands your toolbox, makes you a better person, makes you a better supervisor, makes you a better employee.
00:43:13
Speaker
And so I would always try to make sure that I got buy-in from my boss on those each year that I could, you know, work in a few things like that.
00:43:22
Speaker
And like I say, they don't always have to be related to your profession, but, you know, most of the time it brought credit to the university or it was helpful to the university in some way.
00:43:31
Speaker
Well, and some of those things bring notoriety back to your department that's, you know,
00:43:35
Speaker
What boss is going to say no if you've brought in some notoriety back alongside of your professional growth?
00:43:41
Speaker
One year I did some grant reviewing.
00:43:43
Speaker
Well, you know, we'd read grants and they'd send out these press releases.
00:43:47
Speaker
Ken Stoner's been reading grants for our, you know, for this.
00:43:50
Speaker
It was on alcohol prevention at the time.
00:43:52
Speaker
It was one of the grant programs out of Worsley, and I read grants for them.
00:43:56
Speaker
Well, I mean, that's all good for the university, and it doesn't really, you know, it's just positive recognition and good
Housing Departments and University Initiatives
00:44:02
Speaker
for everybody.
00:44:02
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:44:03
Speaker
Housing programs typically have direct access to a large population of students and therefore, for better or worse, often get instructed to serve other departments by putting bodies at programs or supporting non-housing related campus initiatives.
00:44:19
Speaker
In your experience, why are housing programs so often expected to step up to the plate at the cost of their own staff time, resources, and money?
00:44:29
Speaker
This is probably the most complicated dilemma that people in housing will have to face, or they do face on a daily basis.
00:44:36
Speaker
Housings look to, one, they got access to the people, but mostly they have a different pot of money.
00:44:41
Speaker
And I wrote a chapter once for NACUBO on fund integrity.
00:44:44
Speaker
And so there's state-appropriated funds, there's endowment funds, private funds, and the auxiliary funds, which are housing.
00:44:51
Speaker
And so it's a different
00:44:53
Speaker
It's a different pot of money.
00:44:54
Speaker
And there's a very fine balance there, a delicate line that everybody tries to walk.
00:44:59
Speaker
On the one hand, you want to be a team player with the university.
00:45:03
Speaker
And rightfully, there's some appropriate percentage for administrative fees and overhead and things that ought to be assessed to the department.
00:45:11
Speaker
But these can become excessive.
00:45:13
Speaker
And so it's a fine line out there of what to do on that.
00:45:18
Speaker
There's ridiculous examples.
00:45:21
Speaker
One campus that I was aware of,
00:45:23
Speaker
Their sidewalks were deteriorating all over campus.
00:45:26
Speaker
They were shot.
00:45:27
Speaker
But they deferred the maintenance and stuff.
00:45:29
Speaker
And so they finally did the sidewalk project, and they sent a third of the bill to housing.
00:45:34
Speaker
And when the housing asked about it, they said, what's this about?
00:45:36
Speaker
They said, well, a third of the students that live on campus, I mean, a third of our students live on campus.
00:45:40
Speaker
So a third of the people that walk on the sidewalks are housing students.
00:45:43
Speaker
So you'll get a third of the bill.
00:45:45
Speaker
Well, they could apply the same logic to the College of Liberal Arts.
00:45:48
Speaker
A third of the students were in the College of Liberal Arts.
00:45:50
Speaker
But that is state appropriated.
00:45:53
Speaker
When money is needed, sometimes that fund integrity breaks down and it can get kind of murky out there.
00:46:00
Speaker
Let's see, this is really a fine line out there that has to be dealt with.
00:46:07
Speaker
On the one hand, you want to protect your funds because you know that you have to build reserves for upcoming housing projects and renovations and new things that are on the horizon.
00:46:16
Speaker
So you want to protect them.
00:46:17
Speaker
But on the other hand, you have to be a team player with the university and contribute your fair share, certainly, to being a part of the university.
00:46:23
Speaker
But it's always a that's always a difficult situation.
00:46:28
Speaker
So what I'm hearing is housing is better at managing money than universities are.
00:46:35
Speaker
Is that right?
00:46:37
Speaker
Not always.
00:46:38
Speaker
It's just not always.
00:46:41
Speaker
But when there's fund integrity, it's easier to have accountability.
00:46:46
Speaker
And fund integrity means if you don't mix auxiliary monies with private monies or you don't mix them with, because once you start mixing them, you get used to that mix.
00:46:55
Speaker
And, uh,
00:46:56
Speaker
I'm thinking of everything as one pot of money, and it's really not.
00:47:00
Speaker
If you overtax the housing office and they don't have money for the renovations and projects that they need in the future.
00:47:06
Speaker
On the other hand, housing may not be doing a great job either.
00:47:10
Speaker
If they don't have any money to tax, that probably means they're not doing it.
00:47:15
Speaker
a very good job.
00:47:15
Speaker
But if you get too big of a reserve, there's always people that look at it.
00:47:18
Speaker
Well, and you think about three years ago when occupancy levels dropped to like 50% or less, it's like, you know, I know a ton of reserves were tapped all over the place.
00:47:27
Speaker
If you don't have reserves, it makes it harder to weather storms like that.
00:47:31
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:47:32
Speaker
It is hard to weather those storms and hard to set aside for projects that you know are coming up.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:39
Speaker
So when thinking about every position in a housing department,
00:47:44
Speaker
What position would you recommend a new professional get in really good graces with when they first start there to build departmental capital, get out on the right foot?
00:47:57
Speaker
Find out who the gatekeepers are.
00:47:58
Speaker
There's gatekeepers of the university and they're not labeled gatekeepers, but that's who they are.
00:48:03
Speaker
And I think finding those people, like when I was at Tennessee, we had a full building.
00:48:09
Speaker
It had a full-time staff member at the desk, a 40-hour week person.
00:48:13
Speaker
And
00:48:13
Speaker
We had one student in the building.
00:48:15
Speaker
Well, it actually turns out he is a non-student, but there's a person in the building that I couldn't clarify his student status.
00:48:20
Speaker
And so I really was struggling with that.
00:48:22
Speaker
And I went by his room and talked to him a little bit.
00:48:25
Speaker
And, well, his dad's check bounced.
00:48:26
Speaker
They'd removed him from student status, but that was all being cleared up and everything was going through drop ed now and it would all clear.
00:48:32
Speaker
Well, a week or so goes by and nothing cleared or whatever.
00:48:35
Speaker
And so I'm going to go back by the building.
00:48:37
Speaker
I just got to figure out this guy's status.
00:48:39
Speaker
And I'm stopped there at the desk and I'm talking with her name was Wanda.
00:48:43
Speaker
I'm talking with Wanda and she said, what are you doing?
00:48:45
Speaker
I come by to see so-and-so.
00:48:47
Speaker
up there.
00:48:47
Speaker
I said, hey, student status hasn't cleared and I need to get that cleared up.
00:48:50
Speaker
I'm here to visit with him.
00:48:51
Speaker
She said, well, he's not a student.
00:48:53
Speaker
I said, what do you mean he's not a student?
00:48:55
Speaker
She said, he's not a student.
00:48:57
Speaker
I said, how do you know that?
00:48:58
Speaker
She said, because I've never seen him with a backpack or a book.
00:49:01
Speaker
She said, students will walk by the desk.
00:49:04
Speaker
If they're going to class, they're carrying a backpack or a book.
00:49:06
Speaker
He said, he's never been in the building with a backpack or a book.
00:49:10
Speaker
And then I thought back in my mind, I thought,
00:49:13
Speaker
She's right.
00:49:13
Speaker
I was in his room and I didn't see one book in the room.
00:49:15
Speaker
I didn't see anything on the bookshelf.
00:49:17
Speaker
I didn't see a book in the room.
00:49:19
Speaker
Students have books, you know, I mean, or they have papers or stuff like that.
00:49:22
Speaker
And so at any rate, it turns out he wasn't a student at all.
00:49:25
Speaker
He was just trying to be a college, pretend he was a college student and want to be.
00:49:30
Speaker
But
00:49:31
Speaker
But there's lots of gatekeepers like that and I get to know them.
00:49:35
Speaker
And I don't know if we had time for another example, but I'll give you one other example of gatekeepers.
00:49:39
Speaker
We had, I think it was a Veterans Day program and housing got asked to do the setup and the takedown.
00:49:46
Speaker
They said everything would be delivered.
00:49:48
Speaker
So, you know, they were delivering the platform and stage and all that other stuff and microphones.
00:49:52
Speaker
We just had to set it up and take it down, provide some bodies.
00:49:55
Speaker
That was our role to fill in.
00:49:56
Speaker
So I, and including about, I don't know, 30, 40,
00:50:01
Speaker
potted flower plants that were set around the stage and decorative and stuff.
00:50:05
Speaker
Well, the program was always doing all the takedown and we'd loaded all these flowers and, uh, you know, potted flowers in a van.
00:50:11
Speaker
And it turns out, uh, they were supposed to be giving these away to the, uh, various, uh, speakers and stuff.
00:50:17
Speaker
Uh, and some of the veterans that attended the event, they forgot to do that.
00:50:20
Speaker
So here I have all these potted flowers in a van and stuff.
00:50:22
Speaker
And so, uh, and, uh, what to do with them?
00:50:25
Speaker
Well, since they were going to give them away anyway, uh,
00:50:28
Speaker
Well, I took my business card and I wrote on the back of a whole bunch of them and said, thanks for all you do for the university.
00:50:36
Speaker
And I head over to the administrative building and I find the night supervisor, the custodians, and I talk to her, give her a pot of plant and thank her for all she's doing.
00:50:45
Speaker
And she lets me into all the offices.
00:50:47
Speaker
I put one on the president's secretary's desk, you know, and the chancellor's secretary and the dean of students, a couple of vice chancellors, a few other secretaries and made the rounds and stuff like that.
00:50:58
Speaker
Holy moly.
00:50:58
Speaker
I mean, it was really, I mean, it was just one of those things, but it was an act of, you know, just, it was legitimate.
00:51:08
Speaker
I mean, we appreciate these universities, but it opened gates, it opened doors, it gave me access.
00:51:14
Speaker
I just, sometimes little things like that get to know people that are in those key positions, those gatekeepers around the university.
00:51:22
Speaker
They can be very, very helpful to you.
00:51:24
Speaker
One last example.
00:51:25
Speaker
I traveled to a lot of conferences.
00:51:27
Speaker
I was amazed at the number of people that come up to me after conference and say, hey, do you know my uncle or so-and-so works at the University of Tennessee or works at the University of Kansas, blah, blah, blah.
00:51:37
Speaker
And I'd say, give me your business card and I'll say hello to them when I go back.
00:51:40
Speaker
So they'd give me their business card.
00:51:42
Speaker
And I'd say, write whoever, write your relative's name on the back so I get it right and make sure I knew them.
00:51:48
Speaker
And then I would just stop by and if they were available, I'd say, hey, you're
00:51:52
Speaker
granddaughter, your aunt or your nephew, or somebody told me to say hello.
00:51:56
Speaker
And I just thought I'd stop by.
00:51:57
Speaker
Here's their business card.
00:51:58
Speaker
And we'd visit for a little bit.
00:52:00
Speaker
One time I was at a conference up in Ohio somewhere and the niece of the president, President DiPietro at the University of Tennessee, his niece came up and said, you know my uncle?
00:52:10
Speaker
I said, I don't know.
00:52:10
Speaker
Who's your uncle?
00:52:11
Speaker
She's Joe DiPietro.
00:52:12
Speaker
I said, president of the university?
00:52:14
Speaker
Yes.
00:52:14
Speaker
I said, I know him.
00:52:15
Speaker
She said, well, tell him hello when you go back.
00:52:16
Speaker
Well,
00:52:17
Speaker
You know, I wasn't at the level where I routinely brush shoulders with the president of the system.
00:52:22
Speaker
You know, we had a chancellor on campus, but he had an officer on campus.
00:52:26
Speaker
So I took her business card and I went by the office and I didn't expect a meeting, but I went into his administrative assistant and said, she said, hi.
00:52:34
Speaker
And I, and I'd left her a potted plant earlier, you know, stuff.
00:52:37
Speaker
So we had a nice little visit.
00:52:39
Speaker
I said, she said, what do you need?
00:52:41
Speaker
I said, well, I said, I'm just here to drop off a business card.
00:52:44
Speaker
I said, I bumped into Dr. DiPietro's niece at a conference.
00:52:48
Speaker
She wanted me to say hello.
00:52:49
Speaker
So I just brought her business card by.
00:52:50
Speaker
And if you'll tell Joe that I'm bringing greetings from his niece, she's,
00:52:54
Speaker
She'd appreciate she's oh, hang on, hang on just a second.
00:52:58
Speaker
Hang on.
00:52:59
Speaker
Well, she slipped into his office.
00:53:01
Speaker
Next thing I know, I'm in the president's office having it.
00:53:03
Speaker
And then we just have a nice job, not business or anything like that.
00:53:06
Speaker
But it was just an example of a gatekeeper.
00:53:10
Speaker
You know, these gatekeepers are think we don't give them the importance or do.
00:53:14
Speaker
But there it's it's it's helpful.
Changes in Housing Responsibilities
00:53:17
Speaker
I love that.
00:53:18
Speaker
That's a great story.
00:53:19
Speaker
In the mid-1990s, there was a research study that defined four domains of campus housing, including residence education, maintenance, business fiscal management, and dining services.
00:53:32
Speaker
235 housing professionals were identified as having expertise in at least one of the four areas.
00:53:39
Speaker
At that time, you and Jim Grimm were the only two housing professionals who were identified as having expertise in all four domains.
00:53:50
Speaker
But housing programs aren't as comprehensive as they once were.
00:53:53
Speaker
In the past two decades, components like maintenance and dining have frequently been stripped away from housing programs.
00:54:00
Speaker
As the resident expert, what is the meaning of this?
00:54:05
Speaker
It's just a sign of the times.
00:54:07
Speaker
You know, I've been able to talk on both sides of this issue out there.
00:54:12
Speaker
As things get redefined or reorganized on college campuses, yeah, generally the maintenance is often pulled away, and certainly the food service has.
00:54:22
Speaker
But originally they were all grouped together into –
00:54:25
Speaker
One house is part of the auxiliary operation.
00:54:28
Speaker
So housing funded their own in-house maintenance, their own in-house custodial, their own food services and their residence education.
00:54:36
Speaker
That was all a package deal.
00:54:38
Speaker
But then, you know, as funding and other things become more complicated, as universities evolved, some of these got split off.
00:54:44
Speaker
For example, a particular, let's just use food service as an example or dining services, a
00:54:51
Speaker
Well, sometimes renovations, you're going through the state bureaucracies, it's a little bit hard to get things done and it takes a little bit longer.
00:54:58
Speaker
Well, if you privatize and you hire it out, they can renovate a facility because
00:55:04
Speaker
they're separate.
00:55:05
Speaker
And so you can just have a renovation and do a contract with them.
00:55:09
Speaker
And so that they can do things quicker, get equipment because they're standardized across the country and they know exactly what equipment, the specifications are the same and they don't have to go through the bidding process.
00:55:20
Speaker
So that, in that sense, it makes sense.
00:55:24
Speaker
So sometimes they can make changes quicker and stuff like that.
00:55:27
Speaker
But the downside of that is, is that
00:55:29
Speaker
You got one more level in there and one more, it's one step removed, whether it used to all be in-house and everybody knew each other.
00:55:35
Speaker
If I think something's wrong with dining services now, I got to go to the contract administrator.
00:55:40
Speaker
The contract administrator has got to take it up.
00:55:42
Speaker
And so you end up with a...
00:55:45
Speaker
You know, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
00:55:48
Speaker
It really depends on the contract administrator on campus and the arrangements you have.
00:55:53
Speaker
But yeah, the things were all together at one time, then they've been split off and back and forth on that.
00:55:59
Speaker
So it's a real challenge sometimes.
00:56:03
Speaker
Is this another example of things coming full circle?
00:56:06
Speaker
Like, are we about to reabsorb them all again and then split them apart 20 years from now?
00:56:12
Speaker
I don't think the reabsorption is going to happen, but it does go around like that.
00:56:18
Speaker
I mean, things do have the cyclical nature, but I think they're probably split apart.
00:56:24
Speaker
Certainly housing and dining services are probably split apart for good.
00:56:28
Speaker
You mentioned dining.
00:56:29
Speaker
In nearly every annual assessment I've come across, either at my schools or schools where friends and colleagues have been at, dining is always rated low with poor overall satisfaction.
00:56:41
Speaker
Was this the case when you ran the dining program as a self-op at KU?
00:56:45
Speaker
No, I think, again, your satisfaction is, I mean, really, it's just a challenge.
00:56:52
Speaker
So I think dining services, I tell my sonny to say, if you're only as good as your last meal, I mean, that's what students remember.
00:56:58
Speaker
And so that's just the nature of the beast.
00:57:00
Speaker
But it's difficult to have great satisfaction when you're not the person in charge.
00:57:05
Speaker
You know, I mean, yeah.
00:57:07
Speaker
If there's other layers in there and you have to go across channels, it's just a little bit more difficult to get useful feedback and implement it in a timely fashion.
00:57:17
Speaker
You know, if you're the person that's the hands-on person that's there and on the scenes, you can implement change, particularly in satisfaction, areas of satisfaction, things that students are interested in.
00:57:28
Speaker
Those can be implemented fairly quickly.
00:57:30
Speaker
fairly quickly.
00:57:31
Speaker
It's a little more difficult with the contract food service that or a third party food service that's in it because they've got a profit mode in there to boot.
00:57:41
Speaker
And what you're suggesting may not be as quick to implement or might have a monetary angle that seems to take away from the bottom line.
00:57:51
Speaker
What about residents who are fickle about preferences?
00:57:53
Speaker
How do you satisfy them?
00:57:55
Speaker
Well, you know, that's an interesting question.
00:57:57
Speaker
Yeah, I would always tell the staff that you have to be really careful about what you ask students.
00:58:02
Speaker
And I said, students talk with their feet, survey their feet.
00:58:06
Speaker
You know, we'd ask survey questions.
00:58:07
Speaker
We'd say, like one was when I was constructing that new cafeteria, the survey said the students ate more grilled food, more, you know, hamburger fries.
00:58:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:16
Speaker
Grilled stuff.
00:58:17
Speaker
Well, the truth is they eat more pasta and pizza and stuff like that.
00:58:21
Speaker
So I had to switch the grill and the pasta area around immediately after we opened because the survey said they ate more grilled food, but their feet said they ate more pasta.
00:58:29
Speaker
The same thing with the survey says they want light stuff on the salad bar.
00:58:36
Speaker
Well, they survey light, but they eat heavy.
00:58:38
Speaker
Their feet say they're eating heavy, but...
00:58:42
Speaker
And I don't know, I guess they feel like they'll lose weight by looking at it.
00:58:44
Speaker
But the truth is that you have to really pay attention to what do these things mean?
00:58:51
Speaker
And that's particularly true in food service.
00:58:53
Speaker
Students talk with their feet, survey their feet.
00:58:56
Speaker
I've always felt the best years of a long-term dining contractor, the first year when the company wants to reinforce you made the right decision, and the last year when the company wants to encourage you to re-sign with them for the next term.
00:59:09
Speaker
Why don't we just do two-year contracts then so all we have are just first years and last years?
00:59:14
Speaker
Well, there's a significant investment to changing contractors.
00:59:18
Speaker
And that first year they put a significant investment in there.
00:59:20
Speaker
So, uh, I want a five year minimum contract with a renewal option.
00:59:26
Speaker
Like we give to coaches, you know, that after the end of the first year, you can roll it over another year.
00:59:31
Speaker
And so, uh,
00:59:32
Speaker
So there's always incentive for them to maintain it.
00:59:36
Speaker
At some point, you'll have to re-bid it, but I always tried to do a five-year with a renewal.
00:59:41
Speaker
So at the end of the first year, if things were going great guns, I'd give them another year, you know, another...
00:59:45
Speaker
we'd roll it over for another year.
00:59:47
Speaker
And so if we could get a long-term commitment from a unit that we really liked and a contract administrator is really good at it, that you could make it work.
Maintenance Needs and Staff Recognition
00:59:57
Speaker
All right, let's talk about maintenance then.
01:00:00
Speaker
Another area you were identified as an expert in, but these have been getting slowly peeled away from housing.
01:00:07
Speaker
In episode one, Kent Sampson, who you mentioned earlier, told us that the wildest meeting he ever sat in was when campus leadership told him
01:00:15
Speaker
quote, in no uncertain terms that his maintenance team was going to be absorbed into campus-wide facilities and operations.
01:00:22
Speaker
How would you have reacted to such a meeting?
01:00:26
Speaker
Probably the same way Samson did.
01:00:28
Speaker
Fortunately, that didn't happen on my watch, and we kept the maintenance staff throughout, but they –
01:00:34
Speaker
They're a critical part.
01:00:36
Speaker
You just can't, people have to understand the distinction between housing, you know, maintenance on a classroom is a lot different on maintenance on a student room.
01:00:43
Speaker
The student lives there around the clock and you can't have the same ticket mentality that typically exists with tickets, you know, that
01:00:51
Speaker
You've got to just got to attend to those things and you got to attend to them now and quickly.
01:00:56
Speaker
And you have to be very, very responsive.
01:00:59
Speaker
You know, it's one thing if the air conditioner is out in your classroom for a day, you know, and you have to go there one hour.
01:01:06
Speaker
It's something else if it's out in your room.
01:01:07
Speaker
You know, I mean, yeah.
01:01:09
Speaker
You just have to, I think those are the things that have to be taken into account on maintenance.
01:01:16
Speaker
So across the board, one size just doesn't fit all.
01:01:20
Speaker
It's a whole different ballgame.
01:01:23
Speaker
So how did you show appreciation for, or how did you demonstrate value for maintenance and housekeeping staff?
01:01:31
Speaker
Well, there's probably two things.
01:01:33
Speaker
One, I learned as many names as possible.
01:01:36
Speaker
give you an example that I, when I first went to the university of Kansas, I, well, I, I've done this wherever I have, I have howdy rounds.
01:01:43
Speaker
I,
01:01:44
Speaker
I go out and I try to get out in the buildings and say hello to the staff and meet them and visit with them just informally.
01:01:50
Speaker
I don't take a lot of time, but I would spend time every day somewhere making a howdy round out in the buildings or a building that I hadn't been to for a while and stuff.
01:01:59
Speaker
And I'd visit with them.
01:02:00
Speaker
And I remember one day I was making a howdy round and I saw one of our painters there in the lobby and went over and spoke to him.
01:02:06
Speaker
I said, his name was Don Eric.
01:02:07
Speaker
I said, hello, Mr. Eric.
01:02:08
Speaker
I said, how you doing?
01:02:09
Speaker
He's fine.
01:02:10
Speaker
We visited for a few minutes and I,
01:02:12
Speaker
Appreciate his work.
01:02:13
Speaker
He said, well, I'll be sure.
01:02:14
Speaker
And he said, Mr. Stoner, he said, mind if I tell you something?
01:02:18
Speaker
I said, no, I'd be all right.
01:02:20
Speaker
He said, and it went like this.
01:02:23
Speaker
I don't know if you're competent or not.
01:02:26
Speaker
And I kind of laughed about that.
01:02:27
Speaker
He said, well, that doesn't sound quite right.
01:02:28
Speaker
I said, I don't know.
01:02:29
Speaker
What were you going to say?
01:02:30
Speaker
He said, well, I don't.
01:02:31
Speaker
He said, I don't know what you're competent.
01:02:32
Speaker
I have no idea what you do other than you're the big boss.
01:02:35
Speaker
I said, but I said, here's what I do know.
01:02:37
Speaker
I do know that I appreciate the fact that you call me by name.
01:02:41
Speaker
that every now and then I see you, you appreciate my work.
01:02:45
Speaker
He said, I've worked here 20 years and you're the first.
01:02:49
Speaker
He called me a suit.
01:02:50
Speaker
You have the shirts and suits.
01:02:52
Speaker
The shirts are the...
01:02:53
Speaker
You know, guys that wear the uniforms and stuff and then their suits.
01:02:56
Speaker
He said, you're the first suit that has ever called me by name.
01:03:01
Speaker
And so I got to thinking about that.
01:03:03
Speaker
He's right.
01:03:04
Speaker
You know, I tried to be competent.
01:03:05
Speaker
You know, I tried to stay up with the reading in the field.
01:03:08
Speaker
I tried to write.
01:03:08
Speaker
I tried to meet all my goals and objectives.
01:03:10
Speaker
But he has no idea what those are or what I was thinking.
01:03:13
Speaker
what I was doing, but he does know that I called him by name, you know, and that I appreciated his work.
01:03:19
Speaker
And so I think those howdy rounds and that.
01:03:22
Speaker
And the other thing would be is that any time a special day or a special occurrence, check-ins, check-outs, inclement weather days, you know, somebody has to shovel the snow, you know, on an inclement weather day.
01:03:35
Speaker
Not all the staff gets that day off.
01:03:37
Speaker
So if we had an inclement weather day and I had a crew working somewhere, I'd be in on the university and I'd make the rounds.
01:03:44
Speaker
I'd make sure I was out on that sidewalk thanking them for shoveling the snow or the tractors that were moving things around.
01:03:50
Speaker
I'd make an appearance at those desks or check-in days.
01:03:54
Speaker
I'd make it around and I'd
01:03:55
Speaker
hit the floors and I'd see the custodians and stuff.
01:03:58
Speaker
I wanted them to know that I knew they were working.
01:04:01
Speaker
I wasn't home having my, you know, just a nice, nice warm day at home while I'm making all the staff work.
01:04:08
Speaker
So I tried to always make an appearance at, at special events or special days, check-ins, check-outs, snow days, things like that.
01:04:16
Speaker
I'd make the rounds and I'd make myself available.
01:04:18
Speaker
I just didn't go to the office.
01:04:19
Speaker
I, in fact, I tried to avoid the office.
01:04:22
Speaker
I would head out to all the buildings where the,
01:04:24
Speaker
where the frontline staff was doing what they needed to do.
01:04:28
Speaker
Were you grabbing a shovel to sling snow?
01:04:31
Speaker
No, I wasn't slinging snow, but I was appreciating them for being there and thanking them and stuff like that.
01:04:39
Speaker
But no, I wasn't doing that.
01:04:42
Speaker
I've sometimes, uh, you know, stopped by housekeeping and like, Oh, I got this.
01:04:46
Speaker
I got this.
01:04:47
Speaker
I'm going to clean this and go vacuum or like clean up something.
01:04:51
Speaker
And I'm sure as soon as I left, they just redid it over.
01:04:53
Speaker
Cause can't do as quality a job as they could.
01:04:56
Speaker
But you know, it's such a nice thing when you've got staff at those levels that just take such pride in their work.
01:05:02
Speaker
And then I still think it's like, Hey, let me help you out here.
01:05:04
Speaker
They're like, no, no, no.
01:05:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:07
Speaker
Well, nobody in their right mind is going to give me some floor wax and a buffer.
01:05:10
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:05:11
Speaker
Uh,
01:05:12
Speaker
So, but at any rate, they know what they're doing and I am proud of them.
01:05:16
Speaker
I think that's a perfect illustration too of like, you know, nobody really is bigger than the game.
01:05:20
Speaker
And there's a sense of like, you know, humility that people can pick up on is like, you know, we're willing to be there and we're willing to do that.
01:05:27
Speaker
Like that means a whole lot.
01:05:30
Speaker
And just the other day I was out.
01:05:34
Speaker
dumping a couch with my staff and I was up on trying to make it fit in the roll off.
01:05:38
Speaker
So they wouldn't pick it up because I knew somebody later on was going to have to come in and rearrange that.
01:05:43
Speaker
And, you know, the beta sky sky was like, nice to see you out here jumping on that dumpster.
01:05:48
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, don't tell anyone I'm doing this.
01:05:51
Speaker
Cause I'm sure I'm breaking some sort of OSHA rule.
01:05:54
Speaker
Well, that's great.
01:05:55
Speaker
You know, staff,
01:05:57
Speaker
They really don't care how much you know, but they do know how much you care.
01:06:02
Speaker
You know, I mean, they do know if you care or not.
01:06:05
Speaker
And so, like I say, I don't know if you're confident.
01:06:08
Speaker
Well, I mean, they didn't, but he did appreciate, you know, so they don't care how much you know, but they do know how much
Budget Cuts and Frontline Staff Retention
01:06:16
Speaker
you care.
01:06:16
Speaker
So I think that's important.
01:06:18
Speaker
So we've talked a little bit about the pandemic.
01:06:20
Speaker
So just a quick question.
01:06:21
Speaker
We talked about budgets,
01:06:23
Speaker
if you were still in housing and in control of the housing budget, when the pandemic started, if you had half occupancy, where would you have cut to save jobs?
01:06:36
Speaker
Well, that's a, that's a real tough question.
01:06:38
Speaker
I, uh, I'm not sure, uh, where I'd cut.
01:06:42
Speaker
I'd, uh, look on the administrative side of it first, but I'd try to preserve as many of our, of the, uh, frontline staff as possible.
01:06:52
Speaker
They're the people that you need to save.
01:06:54
Speaker
So I try to save on that.
01:06:57
Speaker
You know, it's tough because each campus, depending on what their debt load is, because debt has to be paid, you know.
01:07:05
Speaker
I mean, there's no way around that.
01:07:08
Speaker
Depending on debt load and reserves and things like that depends on how severe the cuts have to be or what you can get by with.
01:07:14
Speaker
But like...
01:07:16
Speaker
I mean, this doesn't really have to do with cuts, but one thing that I realized, this was at Tennessee, we had a lot of part-time staff in the summer.
01:07:24
Speaker
And so we were having trouble with some of our housekeeping staff just keeping them on board because they were only part-time.
01:07:30
Speaker
Well, by rearranging what we did in conferences, we was able to make them all full-time because by increasing the conference load and working around that, we didn't make a lot of money, but it meant you could keep people on the payroll full-time, which gave them benefits, which gave them
01:07:45
Speaker
And they appreciated that and they worked for it.
01:07:47
Speaker
And so I think sometimes you can rearrange the distribution.
01:07:51
Speaker
In that case, we
01:07:53
Speaker
by changing the way we did conferences and our conference incomes, we was able to get everybody full-time and benefits, which was a big, a big plus.
01:08:01
Speaker
But where you make cuts, it's hard to tell because if you, I say, because cuts will depend on debt load and, and reserves and a lot of things like that.
01:08:11
Speaker
And it's always easiest to cut the front line, but I'd try to preserve them as much as possible if I, if I could probably, you know, like,
01:08:21
Speaker
you hate to do it, but you, you know, you end up cutting travel.
01:08:23
Speaker
You cut some of the administrative, uh, things that you do, uh, which everybody did anyway, but, uh, you just have to do what you have to do.
Reflections as Past President of Akuho'ai
01:08:32
Speaker
All right.
01:08:32
Speaker
As we, as we look to close down, you were president of a Kuhu'ai.
01:08:37
Speaker
Was it more fun and enjoyable being president or being past president?
01:08:43
Speaker
Well, certainly I didn't have as much stress being the past president.
01:08:46
Speaker
Uh, I got rotated over into the, uh, you know, the foundation board and, uh,
01:08:51
Speaker
I did that and was secretary of treasurer or treasurer of that for three years.
01:08:54
Speaker
But I, I, but at any rate, the pressure, a lot of the pressure was off because, uh, you set some goals and objectives going in.
01:09:01
Speaker
You wanted to make sure you accomplished those and, uh, did some significant things while you was president.
01:09:05
Speaker
But, uh, the past president role, uh, I like to say most of the pressure was off and I, uh,
01:09:11
Speaker
I had some opportunities there, but it wasn't like the expected to be at the regional conference or I wasn't expected to speak here.
01:09:17
Speaker
I wasn't expected to, you know, to do all this.
01:09:19
Speaker
So the expectations are that most of the, a lot of the pressure for commitments or making appearances at different places was off.
01:09:27
Speaker
All right.
01:09:28
Speaker
And that is a wrap for this episode.
01:09:30
Speaker
I want to give a big thanks to our guest, Dr. Ken Stoner, for spending some of his time with us today and reflecting on how so much of our jobs is not only annually cyclical, but also macroscopically too.
01:09:43
Speaker
I take it as a positive sign that I didn't hear him once say that he would have rather been fishing than spending some quality time with us.
01:09:51
Speaker
Don't forget to submit any questions or ask for advice through the anonymous form linked in the show notes.
01:09:57
Speaker
I've got a few ideas and some tentative guests lined up for the next block of episodes, but I'm always looking for more guests and topics.
01:10:05
Speaker
If you and some of your colleagues just want to come on and shoot the breeze stream of consciousness about anything housing related, I'd definitely be open to some less structured, more organic episodes.
01:10:15
Speaker
Someone who will remain nameless actually suggested doing after dark episodes.
01:10:20
Speaker
I'm not sure exactly what that means, but my assumption it involves booze and curse words, which I don't know if I'm ready to go there yet.
01:10:28
Speaker
And with that, I say to you, good day.