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![003 - Resident Assistant Hiring Decisions | Craig Seager [Article Review] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=54,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
003 - Resident Assistant Hiring Decisions | Craig Seager [Article Review]
17 Plays4 years ago
A recent article in The Journal of College and University Housing Officers explored the many factors influencing the decisions of housing professionals when hiring Resident Assistants. Our guest today is one of the authors of this article, Dr. Craig Seager from the University of Central Arkansas. In addition to breaking down some of the key findings, Craig discusses the value of being a practitioner scholar, writing for publication as a tool for professional development, and integrating research into practice. Craig provides actionable steps for individuals looking to improve their RA hiring process; but even better, his suggestions are grounded in research.
Be Sure to Thank Our Guest!
Connect with Dr. Craig Seager on LinkedIn
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.
People Mentioned:
Dr. Stephanie McBrayer [LinkedIn]
Justin Leibowitz [LinkedIn]
Dr. Rishi Sriram [LinkedIn]
Dr. Jody Jessup-Anger [LinkedIn]
Dr. Charity Lovitt [LinkedIn]
Dr. Susan Barclay [LinkedIn]
Dr. Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas [LinkedIn]
Other Items Mentioned:
University of Central Arkansas[University Website]
The Effects of a Safety-Promoting Media Presentation on Resident Attitudes [Journal Article, 1991]
Hiring Decisions of Graduate Assistant and Full-Time Hall Directors on Resident Assistant Recruitment [Journal Article, 2021]
The Placement Exchange [Website]
Oshkosh Placement Exchange [Website]
Addressing Perceived Skills Deficiencies in Student Affairs Graduate Preparation Programs [Journal Article, 2016]
The Journal of College and University Student Housing Theme Issue: Resident Assistant Hiring Practices [Journal Issue, 2021]
Factors Residence Life Professionals Consider When Selecting Teams of Resident Assistants [Journal Article, 2021]
Student Affairs by the Numbers [Book]
Laerd Statistics [Website]
The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath [Book]
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Transcript
Introduction to Swakuho Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Swakuho Podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
As always, I'm your host, JC Stoner.
00:00:06
Speaker
Two things often cited by housing practitioners when discussing their lack of engagement with the assessment, research, and evaluation competency are, I don't have time, and I don't know how.
00:00:16
Speaker
Today's episode is going to change that by bringing research to you and breaking it down for you.
00:00:21
Speaker
Occasionally on the podcast, we feature practitioner scholars in the Swakuho region to discuss the research with the goal of inspiring more housing staff members to engage with research.
Interview with Dr. Craig Seeger on Practitioner Scholarship
00:00:31
Speaker
Today we are talking with Dr. Craig Seeger, who recently published an article in the Journal of College and University Student Housing titled, Hiring Decisions of Graduate Assistant and Full-Time Hall Directors on Resident Assistant Recruitment.
00:00:43
Speaker
The article will be linked in the show notes.
00:00:46
Speaker
Today's conversation with Craig begins by discussing the value of being a practitioner scholar.
00:00:50
Speaker
We then focus on his article and where the idea for the research originally came from.
00:00:55
Speaker
The real meat of the episode, we'll be doing a deep dive into the article's findings surrounding what graduate assistants and full-time hall directors consider when hiring RAs from a candidate pool.
00:01:05
Speaker
We close out our interview by discussing the professional and skill development associated with writing for publications.
00:01:10
Speaker
There are plenty of practical takeaways throughout this episode, many of which derived directly from research on RE hiring practices.
00:01:17
Speaker
So if you're looking to make research-based decisions, you definitely came to the right place.
Technical Difficulties Explained
00:01:22
Speaker
Before I share Craig's bio, I do feel obligated to forewarn listeners that while this is the third episode to air, it was actually the first episode I recorded.
00:01:31
Speaker
Craig was generous enough to be the pilot guest.
00:01:34
Speaker
and therefore you will, unfortunately, hear some obvious sound quality and fluctuation issues on my audio once the conversation begins.
00:01:42
Speaker
Thankfully, Craig's audio was nearly flawless.
00:01:45
Speaker
I simply wasn't able to rectify the tracks with my limited editing skills.
00:01:49
Speaker
I hope the audio deficiencies do not distract too much from the conversation.
Dr. Seeger's Professional Background
00:01:53
Speaker
Craig has been a housing professional with the University of Central Arkansas for 13 years.
00:01:57
Speaker
He is currently the Associate Director for Housing and Residence Life, a position he's held for the past three years.
00:02:04
Speaker
His areas of responsibility include oversight of all Residence Life operations and budgets, assessment, student conduct, and graduate assistant recruitment and training.
00:02:13
Speaker
Prior to that, he served as assistant director for Residence Life for 10 years.
00:02:17
Speaker
He has a bachelor's degree in airway science management and a master's degree in administration, both from Henderson State University.
00:02:25
Speaker
In 2015, he earned his PhD in leadership studies with an emphasis in higher education from the University of Central Arkansas.
00:02:31
Speaker
Craig also once played drums for a band that won the state battle of bands and then got to open for smash mouth at a music festival in 2007.
00:02:40
Speaker
Craig Seeger, welcome to the show.
00:02:42
Speaker
Hey JC.
00:02:43
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me.
00:02:44
Speaker
I'm so excited to be here.
00:02:46
Speaker
Good.
00:02:47
Speaker
Glad to hear that.
Value of Practitioner Engagement in Research
00:02:48
Speaker
Well, first things first, did you know you are one of only two housing practitioners who have been published in the housing journal while employed at an Arkansas school?
00:02:57
Speaker
I did not know that.
00:02:58
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:02:59
Speaker
The other person was Stephen Johnson from Garland County Community College back in 1991, who wrote an article, The Effects of Safety Promoting Materials on Resident Attitudes.
00:03:09
Speaker
Wow, that's awesome.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:13
Speaker
I love that.
00:03:14
Speaker
It has a nice little nugget of information there.
00:03:16
Speaker
That's cool.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of cool.
00:03:19
Speaker
So in addition to the article we're going to discuss today, you've authored another article and several talking stick articles.
00:03:24
Speaker
So you must find some level of value in engaging in scholarly work.
00:03:28
Speaker
Let's start our conversation by talking about the value of being a practitioner scholar.
00:03:32
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:03:33
Speaker
I think it's important being a practitioner's caller.
00:03:36
Speaker
I think it adds a different dimension to the work that we do.
00:03:41
Speaker
I know for me, it allows me to kind of reframe some of the observations that I see in the workplace a little differently.
00:03:49
Speaker
It allows me to kind of dive deeper and, you know, look at any...
00:03:56
Speaker
issues I may see rather than just kind of skim the surface.
00:04:01
Speaker
And in a sense, I feel like it reprograms your brain to kind of think differently in a good way.
00:04:07
Speaker
So for example, when I was a younger professional,
00:04:12
Speaker
You know, I would always, especially with grad students or anybody in a casual setting at meals, you know, we would talk about things that were kind of not going well with the, you know, in the department or we would just, you know, I don't want to say complaining, but, you know, just kind of talking about things.
00:04:27
Speaker
And back then, you know, I would kind of chime in, you know, and say, oh, yeah, you know, that's right.
00:04:33
Speaker
And
00:04:33
Speaker
I never thought anything past that, but once you kind of get into that writing and researching and truly engaging in that scholarship, now when I sit down and I have those conversations with the grads, I'm like, really?
00:04:49
Speaker
What?
00:04:49
Speaker
Your RAs are unmotivated?
00:04:52
Speaker
Tell me more.
00:04:55
Speaker
It's developed curiosity, and it's kind of made me more inquisitive with why
00:05:02
Speaker
certain things are happening instead of kind of just accepting issues as, you know, part of culture or things just kind of running, you know, their natural course.
00:05:11
Speaker
But, you know, what I've noticed is, you know, I kind of catch myself kind of like I do with, you know, music.
00:05:17
Speaker
Whenever I think of like a cool lyric or a cool melody, I'll jot it down on my phone or I'll hum something.
00:05:23
Speaker
And I kind of do that now when
00:05:26
Speaker
You know, I'm in a meeting or I've just kind of had a conversation, you know, with someone in the field.
00:05:31
Speaker
I'll be like, oh, this is a cool research topic.
00:05:33
Speaker
So I'll like continuously jot down ideas for me to like, you know, come back to later and be like, OK, now what were those, you know, things that I thought would be interesting to kind of to kind of look at, you know.
00:05:44
Speaker
So what is, give us an idea, because I think a lot of people who engage in research have got a lot of ideas that just like, oh, this would be fun one day, or this would
Graduate Assistant Recruitment Strategies
00:05:52
Speaker
be fun.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah, there's, I mean, there's so many, a lot of it.
00:05:55
Speaker
So a big, you know, part of my role in my department is assessment.
00:06:01
Speaker
So a lot of my, you know, research is geared towards, you know, assessing different functions in our department.
00:06:07
Speaker
So a lot of times if, when I'm having conversations with
00:06:11
Speaker
with different coworkers and colleagues, you know, if they would say something kind of like, you know, my Aries are unmotivated or why is XYZ happening?
00:06:22
Speaker
You know, I'll jot that down.
00:06:24
Speaker
Oh man, let's look and see what's going on with here, investigate.
00:06:28
Speaker
you know, this little effect that I'm, you know, kind of caught on.
00:06:33
Speaker
And so it's really kind of helped with how I view things and the ability to publish is great.
00:06:42
Speaker
And I think it's really tough for practitioners because, you know, that's not an expectation, you know.
00:06:50
Speaker
There's no tenure on the line.
00:06:52
Speaker
No, yeah, there's no, you know, tenure.
00:06:54
Speaker
And so,
00:06:55
Speaker
You honestly have to kind of a have a passion to kind of do this stuff and see the value in it.
00:07:01
Speaker
And you have to kind of carve out time to do it.
00:07:05
Speaker
And that's what I actually do.
00:07:06
Speaker
I have to literally on Fridays, I'll block out two hours of my schedule.
00:07:12
Speaker
and dedicated to research, you know, only because value it.
00:07:18
Speaker
And, you know, you're, when you kind of publish, you're contributing to, you know, existing knowledge base and increasing, you know, the existing knowledge on specific topic or whatever.
00:07:31
Speaker
And, and it kind of makes you somewhat of an expert on the matter.
00:07:35
Speaker
It just gives your feedback and recommendations significantly more weight when it comes to
00:07:41
Speaker
you know, talking to administration or the powers that be, if you're asking for more money or support for a program or initiative, you know, it kind of just, it's difficult for someone to argue against you when you've done some research and you're presenting your work, right?
00:07:57
Speaker
So it's very valuable.
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's a whole
Benefits of Publishing Scholarly Work
00:08:01
Speaker
different thing to say, oh, here are my feelings on something versus, oh, here's what I've found and learned through data and research.
00:08:08
Speaker
Exactly.
00:08:09
Speaker
I think you're right about how it reframes the way people think about it.
00:08:13
Speaker
And I think about like, you know, just because you have, you talk about this laundry list of ideas and I have one of those too.
00:08:18
Speaker
It's like, not all of those have to generate a publication out of it.
00:08:22
Speaker
It's just like, how do we look at things differently?
00:08:24
Speaker
Like I had this one idea when we were at
00:08:26
Speaker
I used to go to TPE every year and it's like, man, it'd be kind of fascinating to qualitatively analyze the thank you notes we receive from Canada.
00:08:36
Speaker
And it's like, you know, there's probably no value for that in the housing journal, but it would be kind of fascinating.
00:08:42
Speaker
And so then it's like, where am I finding those two hours to just kind of do that?
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
And, you know, something similar to that, you know, we would go to OPE every year to recruit graduate students.
00:08:55
Speaker
And, you know,
00:08:55
Speaker
And, you know, we revamped our whole strategy with GA recruitment.
00:09:01
Speaker
And, you know, something that some of the challenges that we were facing when I had taken a GA recruitment under my wing was competing with larger schools, you know, that honestly didn't have to put a whole lot of effort into sticking out.
00:09:17
Speaker
You know, they were depending on the name, you know, of this institution.
00:09:23
Speaker
And so
Strategic Assessment in Recruitment
00:09:24
Speaker
we started being incredibly intentional with everything, you know, we did.
00:09:29
Speaker
Like we had, we would pick a theme and the theme would run through everything we did.
00:09:34
Speaker
And we also did, you know, an assessment.
00:09:37
Speaker
So I, the CSPA program has an assessment class.
00:09:43
Speaker
So, you know, they partnered with us and we actually was fortunate enough to have
00:09:50
Speaker
my co-author, Dr. Bruick, I reached out to him and I said, hey, do you mind assigning a group, one of your projects to help me assess my GA recruitment?
00:10:02
Speaker
And so they surveyed past grads, current grads, and we found out that, and then I also looked at some of our selection data and everything, and we found that,
00:10:18
Speaker
Our biggest strengths were taking a large group.
00:10:22
Speaker
We used to just send four people to OBE, but then we started showing up in numbers.
00:10:28
Speaker
So all our pro staff would go and we would take a pretty big committee of grad students.
00:10:35
Speaker
And that was a big recruitment tool.
00:10:38
Speaker
If we could get them on campus, we knew that was a huge impact and influence on their decision.
00:10:44
Speaker
And so we kind of restructured and revamped the way our timing of offers and everything.
00:10:51
Speaker
It was just immediately, you could see the positive impact that our recruitment had.
00:10:56
Speaker
And we were done by April.
00:10:59
Speaker
And some years we were like...
00:11:01
Speaker
in July, you know, like looking for one or two more people.
00:11:05
Speaker
You've already missed the summer training.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:08
Speaker
You're like, you know, anybody that, you know, needs an assistantship.
00:11:12
Speaker
So, so it's just, it's really cool to kind of see your, your work and the decisions that you've made based on, you know, on some of the data and things like that really, you know, come to fruition.
00:11:23
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
00:11:25
Speaker
And I think your point about, oh, we started sending a mass of people really, I mean, that's a huge investment of like resources and money and personnel hours that I can't imagine to be able to do that without some level of data supporting it.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, I had to tell my boss, you know, I was like, look, this is, you know, we'll have people with their phones if you need to get a hold of it.
00:11:46
Speaker
But essentially the whole ResLife squad was, you know, gone.
00:11:50
Speaker
I think that's the other big piece is having
00:11:52
Speaker
you know, that support and trust from your leadership, you know, and my, you know, supervisor, Dr. McBrayer, she's, you know, she puts full faith in me, you know, so, and she'll ask questions, you know, and then I'll be like, oh, here's, you know, here's the data, this is this, so, and then, you know, she's like, all right,
00:12:15
Speaker
Oh, that's great.
00:12:16
Speaker
Great.
00:12:17
Speaker
So let me ask you this.
00:12:19
Speaker
How did you feel?
00:12:20
Speaker
What was the feeling you had when your very first article was published?
00:12:24
Speaker
Man, it was great.
00:12:26
Speaker
It's so awesome to see your work all nice and published in the journal.
00:12:35
Speaker
It looks way better than the Word document that you've been working on, you know?
00:12:39
Speaker
And it honestly, it gave me, you know, drive and it fueled me to continue, you know, to do this, you know, scholarly type of work.
00:12:51
Speaker
Because, I mean, it's hard work, you know, and some of these studies take two to three years, you know, and it's very rewarding, you know, once it's all said and done.
00:13:03
Speaker
And every time you, you know, engage people,
00:13:06
Speaker
in that type of behavior, you get more confident about doing stuff.
00:13:11
Speaker
As with anything, practicing makes you better.
00:13:15
Speaker
So as through the years, I've made a point to make sure that I'm engaging in that type of work.
00:13:25
Speaker
Make it a priority.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah, making it a priority, absolutely.
00:13:28
Speaker
Even though it's not considered priority for positions, but I think it helps us sharpen a skill set that a lot of times just doesn't get used
First Publication Experience
00:13:39
Speaker
enough.
00:13:41
Speaker
And I can definitely...
00:13:43
Speaker
see that you know the way i tackle problems and analyze you know issues with the department is completely different now you know my my former boss used to say that or does say that like once you publish your first article it makes it a whole lot easier to publish your second one and i think that relates to a whole lot of things that you know like this podcast once you record the first episode it makes it a little bit easier yeah
00:14:06
Speaker
There's that initial hurdle of getting over it that's so challenging, which is why they put part of the value of this conversation is like, how do we enter that conversation with the skills that we already have and what transfers between our work and this side gig that you've got going on?
00:14:24
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:25
Speaker
Absolutely.
Origins of RA Recruitment Article
00:14:26
Speaker
So let's talk about your recently published article.
00:14:29
Speaker
Again, it's titled Hiring Decisions of Graduate Level and Full-Time Hall Directors on Resident Assistant Recruitment.
00:14:35
Speaker
What was the genesis of this article and where did the idea come from?
00:14:39
Speaker
So, you know, our...
00:14:41
Speaker
department is very grad heavy.
00:14:43
Speaker
You know, we have all our RCs or hall directors are graduate students.
00:14:48
Speaker
And I started noticing, you know, some patterns every year in regards to RA hires.
00:14:56
Speaker
And I noticed, you know, we had quite a few that would go on very quickly on performance probation and, you know, some even, you know, getting terminated, you know, a month or two into the position.
00:15:08
Speaker
And a lot of those folks were popular candidates, you know, through the process, you know, they were kind of candidates that were sought off after by, you know, a lot of our grads.
00:15:18
Speaker
And so I was like, well, you know, what's going on over here?
00:15:20
Speaker
You know, what's happening here?
00:15:21
Speaker
Even though, you know, their decisions were based on, you know, data within our process, why was it that we were having so many, you know, go on probation and
00:15:32
Speaker
you know, just are not up to snuff kind of type of thing.
00:15:35
Speaker
And the other part of that was when we lost RAs due to bad performance, and we would have to dip back into the alternate pool, we would find these rock stars sitting there that, you know, ended up being stellar staff members.
00:15:51
Speaker
And that really was when I was like, wait a minute, okay, so
00:15:56
Speaker
Our first picks are there's a percentage of them that aren't performing well.
00:16:01
Speaker
Some of them are getting terminated, you know, a month or two into the position.
00:16:05
Speaker
Quite a few of them are going on probation at the end of the semester.
00:16:08
Speaker
And then when we are placing the ones that did lose their positions from our alternate list, we're finding gems sitting in there.
00:16:16
Speaker
So what did we, you know, what made us, how did they slip through the cracks, type of thing?
00:16:21
Speaker
I was an alternate RA back in the day.
00:16:23
Speaker
Me too, me too.
00:16:25
Speaker
You know, look at that.
00:16:26
Speaker
I'll take alternate RAs all day, every day.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, and I remember one stood out really strong for me, and it was, we were doing camps and conferences, and this person ended up getting picked up as a camp assistant, right?
00:16:41
Speaker
And he was phenomenal, and I was like, hey man, what have you thought about
00:16:46
Speaker
And being an art, he was like, yeah, I actually applied and went through and I didn't get picked up.
00:16:51
Speaker
And I was like, what?
00:16:54
Speaker
So that really kind of got me looking to see what's going on.
00:16:59
Speaker
And then what does our selection process look like?
00:17:02
Speaker
And how are we evaluating these different pieces of our process?
00:17:08
Speaker
And after that's all said and done, are our grad students making...
00:17:15
Speaker
the right decisions based on, you know, our process.
00:17:19
Speaker
And with that, also on the other side, you know, are they getting any sort of training in the program in terms of that HR function, which is a big piece of the student affairs position?
00:17:31
Speaker
Most programs don't have any sort of emphasis on that HR function.
00:17:35
Speaker
I read an article once.
00:17:36
Speaker
I think it was like 9% of programs have, it's either supervision or like human resources, like curriculum.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:17:45
Speaker
And in the article, you know, we cited a study where they did a content analysis of CSBA programs and there was a
00:17:52
Speaker
hardly any emphasis on, you know, that HR piece.
00:17:56
Speaker
Another interesting thing is, is our program went through an assessment and they brought in an external consultant, you know, to kind of just see how things were with the program.
00:18:05
Speaker
And they invited campus partners, you know, to meet with the consultant just to kind of
00:18:09
Speaker
And I asked the consultant, I was like, because, you know, we had just started on
HR Training in Higher Education
00:18:14
Speaker
this article and I was like, what are your thoughts on, you know, this HR function kind of not being part of a lot of these CSP programs?
00:18:24
Speaker
And he said, you know, well, I very, you know, matter of fact, didn't even like...
00:18:29
Speaker
put any thought he was like, I think that's something they just have to learn, like a trial and error type of thing when they take their first position.
00:18:36
Speaker
I was like, really?
00:18:37
Speaker
And I was like, and to me, it's kind of crazy because there's, like you were saying, you know, time intensive, resource intensive, and the RA position is such an important position, you know, the big
00:18:49
Speaker
picture and any position, you know, after that too, it has its role in, you know, retention and whatnot.
00:18:56
Speaker
And so I just thought it was really interesting that it was more so, Hey, you know, just learn from your mistakes and how long is that going to take, you know, for some people?
00:19:06
Speaker
And so I just thought it was interesting that that was something that, you know, wasn't even kind of viewed as important to include in a program.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, it really shows that if we're not getting education in programs, it really is on-the-job training.
00:19:20
Speaker
And then we start to wonder why, like, why are we doing things always the same way we've always done them?
00:19:27
Speaker
And Justin Liebowitz was one of the co-editors of the special issue you were published in.
00:19:31
Speaker
He tells a story about his first full-time job, and he needed to hire some office assistants.
00:19:36
Speaker
And he shared this in the recent Akuhoi webinar on RE recruitment.
00:19:40
Speaker
And basically his boss, he's like, what do I do?
00:19:43
Speaker
And his boss said, make a poster.
00:19:45
Speaker
interview people, hire them.
00:19:47
Speaker
And it's like, that's your process.
00:19:50
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:19:50
Speaker
And I just think that's so fascinating when we look at what's going on.
00:19:55
Speaker
And another one of my favorite Justin stories is like he will always share.
00:19:58
Speaker
And you talk about poor performance of these high rated candidates.
00:20:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:20:03
Speaker
And often we look at poor performances like, well, there must be a training issue.
00:20:07
Speaker
Well, Justin would always say it's actually could be very well be a recruitment issue that we've got recruitment problems that are now putting people in positions where they're not going to be successful.
00:20:16
Speaker
And I think that's fascinating also.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:20:19
Speaker
It's like bad seeds that you're trying to water, you know, like, and that's just exactly what it is, you know, some just have the wrong attitudes or, you know, or some just didn't understand what the position entailed.
Challenges with RA Hires
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:34
Speaker
And even though we had very detailed informational sessions during the application process where they would come out multiple nights and our staff would present on what it means to be an RA and what the job entail and the compensation, all of that, they still had different expectations when they did get hired.
00:20:59
Speaker
And it was just weird.
00:21:01
Speaker
I don't know if that's just a combination of somebody applying, not paying attention at the informational or just not even, it didn't even go to informational or is a friend of an RA that said, hey, just apply and I'm going to push for you to get hired.
00:21:19
Speaker
And then it's a shock.
00:21:20
Speaker
Oh my God, I have to do what?
00:21:22
Speaker
I have to do this?
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:24
Speaker
You know, we see that a lot where the, where RAs prioritize things that they don't get paid for over the position and, you know, all the time.
00:21:32
Speaker
And I'm like, but we're paying you for this, you know?
00:21:35
Speaker
And they're like, well, I have, I have this, you know, thing to do with my organization, you know?
00:21:39
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, but you have a job we're paying you all the time.
00:21:42
Speaker
You know, it just blows my mind.
00:21:43
Speaker
And I was like, what, you know?
00:21:46
Speaker
Well, you mentioned the record, like, oh, I know a friend who's an RA and that's why I'm in
Influence of RA Feedback on Selection
00:21:51
Speaker
this.
00:21:51
Speaker
Like one of the things that came out in terms of what influences hiring managers was current RA feedback on candidates was, I think, ranked like third lowest in all the influences you looked at.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:05
Speaker
But I find that fascinating also that these are the, RAs are the people with the most face-to-face interactive experience with candidates that,
00:22:15
Speaker
And it doesn't seem like it's overly important to hiring managers, at least in what you've found.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yeah, I really thought it would have had a higher influence because just based on what I've seen and on my experiences, you know, and just from having conversations with clients.
00:22:33
Speaker
with candidates in the past, a lot of them would say, oh, I'm here because I know so-and-so.
00:22:37
Speaker
And they would almost pigeonhole themselves to a certain community just because that's where their friend was.
00:22:45
Speaker
And I've even seen it to where some would turn down a position because it wasn't in the community that they wanted, even though we said, hey, we think that you would fit better in this community.
00:22:56
Speaker
But they're like, oh, but I want to be with my friends.
00:22:59
Speaker
over here, you know, and, and sometimes we had to have those conversations with the hall directors, you know, like, okay, because they would push, you know, for having them, you know, there.
00:23:11
Speaker
And, and that was kind of something that came out in the study too, was current staff feedback was significantly higher for males than females.
00:23:21
Speaker
And this is something that I've noticed, especially with, you know, the male hall directors where it was, you know,
00:23:28
Speaker
Much easier.
00:23:30
Speaker
A, I remember they would always try and hire the folks that their RAs wanted.
00:23:36
Speaker
I had, when I was an assistant director, I had an all-male hall.
00:23:40
Speaker
And over the course of my years at UCA, we've had multiple meetings.
00:23:46
Speaker
male hall directors, and this was a conversation I've always had with them where they already knew who they wanted prior to selection.
00:23:53
Speaker
And I was like, how are you coming to this conclusion?
00:23:59
Speaker
And it's purely based on what
00:24:01
Speaker
Their staff is saying, you know, like this person is going to get along great, you know, and I'm like, yeah, but are they going to do the job well?
00:24:08
Speaker
But that didn't seem important.
00:24:09
Speaker
It was more about they're going to fit in.
00:24:11
Speaker
It's going to be less work for me to to do any team cohesion and team development.
00:24:17
Speaker
You know, they're automatically going to fit in.
00:24:19
Speaker
It's almost like a microcosm of good old boys networking.
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:24:24
Speaker
And I don't know if it's that they had less faith in the selection process because that was, you know, something that came out in our study too, you know, that was statistically significant.
00:24:33
Speaker
It was that males just did not have faith in the selection process.
00:24:38
Speaker
And females reported, you know, much higher confidence in, you know, the hiring process.
00:24:43
Speaker
But it was just crazy to me.
00:24:46
Speaker
And something that we noticed was we're very developmental with our grad students.
00:24:51
Speaker
So we're not going to say, you will hire this.
00:24:55
Speaker
We want them to understand the repercussions of
00:24:58
Speaker
of some of their decisions.
00:24:59
Speaker
So a lot of times, you know, we would say, all right, go ahead and, you know, hire this person.
00:25:03
Speaker
And it was great for the first month.
00:25:04
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, so-and-so is, you know, was not picking up his duty, not pulling his weight, not being a team player.
00:25:11
Speaker
And then there's, guess what?
00:25:13
Speaker
You're having to do all this team bonding and team cohesion and, you know, all this because you're, you know, your perfect fit all of a sudden is just not, you know, doing, pulling his weight or pulling their weight, you know, with the job.
00:25:26
Speaker
And, you know,
00:25:27
Speaker
It was just interesting, you know, that that came out.
00:25:29
Speaker
I immediately, you know, connected some of those experiences with this finding.
00:25:34
Speaker
So it was really interesting.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, you mentioned like lack of trust or lack of faith in the process developed.
00:25:41
Speaker
This actually came up in one of the other articles in the special issue by Evan Kiel, who interviewed about like placement decisions.
00:25:48
Speaker
And I thought it's interesting between the two of your articles that that seemed to be something that I think is rather problematic because we spend a whole lot of time, a whole lot of resources and a whole lot of money recruiting people.
Faith in RA Selection Process
00:26:01
Speaker
And then if our hiring managers, whether they're grads or full time,
00:26:05
Speaker
or sit around like, oh, I'm not using any of these metrics because I know what I'm doing as a first-year professional, it seems like there's a little bit of a disconnect.
00:26:14
Speaker
So do you have any more on what that lack of faith is?
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think A is how involved are they in that planning process?
00:26:24
Speaker
So something that this study kind of found too was that folks that weren't involved in any planning or implementation of what selection looks like
00:26:35
Speaker
also didn't have confidence, you know, and that makes sense.
00:26:39
Speaker
And we did see that professional staff do rely more on those like metric based influences, you know, like GPA and group process core and, you know, things that actually have some sort of score attached to it.
00:26:52
Speaker
Whereas the grad students and those that may not have prior hiring experience rely more so on those kind of squishy metrics like leadership experience and
00:27:03
Speaker
The things that are really difficult to kind of evaluate and or their interactions, you know, and I think it's all connected, you know, and I can understand not having faith in something that you just aren't a part of and have not kind of given your feedback.
00:27:20
Speaker
on and more so just kind of said this is the process, this is what you're going to use, you know, and then it's I think it's easy, especially new call directors that are, you know, trying to fit in.
00:27:30
Speaker
They're trying to be popular with their staff.
00:27:33
Speaker
They want to be liked.
00:27:34
Speaker
And so it's easier for them to say, OK, you know, I'm going to take your feedback over my supervisor's feedback or
00:27:40
Speaker
I'm going to listen to a peer and put more value on what a peer tells me than what my supervisors, you know, kind of giving me advice with.
00:27:49
Speaker
And I think it all kind of feeds into that.
00:27:51
Speaker
And, you know, even outside of RA hiring, it's just you have more buy-in when you're kind of have been involved in
00:27:59
Speaker
in the planning and implementation of something.
00:28:02
Speaker
So you understand why we're doing this, why are we doing this activity?
00:28:06
Speaker
What are we evaluating by doing this activity?
00:28:10
Speaker
It just provides more context.
00:28:12
Speaker
So I think that's some of the things that at play with that.
00:28:16
Speaker
Well, on some of that, that buy-in, I totally understand.
00:28:20
Speaker
And I think one thing that comes to mind is like, well, outside of having a committee made up of the entire department so that everyone has buy-in, then what sort of communication efforts are made to explain the...
00:28:33
Speaker
As much as it's in vogue, the why, quote unquote, of certain things or certain questions we're asking and how much time are we investing in staff who are actually on the front lines hiring people that this is why we're asking these questions.
00:28:47
Speaker
This is why we're not asking certain questions or what is a departmental expectation?
00:28:52
Speaker
And again, going back to Evan's article, it was interesting.
00:28:55
Speaker
very clear that there's a lot of departments out there that are not providing expectations on what does it mean to be a part of this process or what are we expecting departmentally?
00:29:04
Speaker
And it's just like, here's what it is, but not the context.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:09
Speaker
You know, because it's going to look different for every department.
00:29:11
Speaker
Like what?
Evaluating RA Candidates' Attributes
00:29:12
Speaker
What does a successful RA look like?
00:29:16
Speaker
I think there are some attributes that would probably span across institutions, but depending on the institution, they may value certain characteristics more than others.
00:29:27
Speaker
And is your selection process designed to evaluate those characteristics?
00:29:32
Speaker
And that was something that we actually built into this survey was this little open-ended question that asked respondents for what are your top three attributes for a successful RA?
00:29:43
Speaker
And Thomas and I coded all that data and we're actually writing another piece about that.
00:29:48
Speaker
But it ended up that there were...
00:29:50
Speaker
we came up with these six dimensions of what the perfect RA would be.
00:29:55
Speaker
But the biggest dimension was a lot of these squishy metrics, you know, that are really difficult to kind of evaluate in a selection process.
00:30:06
Speaker
And so something that we were...
00:30:09
Speaker
looking at and suggesting was that's kind of where you would want to put a lot of value on that reference piece because some of these characteristics were things that needed to be measured over a period of time, right?
00:30:23
Speaker
So it was just too difficult to kind of evaluate that on like one day or two days or from an interview or an activity.
00:30:30
Speaker
It was something that needed to be observed over a long period of time.
00:30:34
Speaker
And to me, that's where references come in.
00:30:38
Speaker
And being very intentional when speaking to references, tell me about so-and-so's passion for XYZ or, you know, just those types of things that are just so difficult to kind of evaluate, you know, on the fly.
00:30:53
Speaker
And so...
00:30:54
Speaker
That was something, that's something, you know, that we're working on.
00:30:57
Speaker
So it's very, yeah, yeah.
00:30:59
Speaker
So very, some very interesting, you know, stuff.
00:31:03
Speaker
And then there's, you know, the, we called universal competencies.
00:31:06
Speaker
I think is that what we call that, you know, one of the dimensions, which was kind of things that spanned across, you know, but I think it's important for departments to have those conversations with their staff and say, this is what we value in an RA and what
00:31:20
Speaker
And then whoever's over selection needs to take a hard look at their process and almost tie those characteristics to parts of their process and say, is this being evaluated here?
00:31:32
Speaker
Is this being evaluated here?
00:31:34
Speaker
And if so, how?
00:31:35
Speaker
You know, and then you get into the whole...
00:31:38
Speaker
Especially with something like group process, which is so valued by everyone, right?
00:31:44
Speaker
But it's so difficult to evaluate.
00:31:47
Speaker
Well, at least evaluate well.
00:31:49
Speaker
Right.
00:31:50
Speaker
And I can't tell you how...
00:31:52
Speaker
frustrated I would get over the years just watching candidates go through and, you know, and I would like intentionally go and look to see what a candidate scored just from observing them because there's, you know, extrovert bias and you have people that monopolize conversations and then everybody that's kind of just sitting there gets a horrible rating, you know, and I'm like, what?
00:32:15
Speaker
And I think a lot of that contributed to these diamonds in the rough being, you know, just a
00:32:22
Speaker
Pushed into the alternate pool, you know, because that one guy that I spoke to that was a conference assistant was a quiet guy.
00:32:28
Speaker
He was an introvert, you know, but man, he worked really well and he had really great one on one relationships with his residents.
00:32:37
Speaker
And, you know, and you just it's so difficult to evaluate those types of things in those types of settings.
00:32:44
Speaker
And then training on how to evaluate candidates.
00:32:48
Speaker
Which we're not getting in grad schools, as you said.
Inconsistencies in Candidate Evaluation
00:32:50
Speaker
Which, absolutely.
00:32:51
Speaker
And you would see this variability from ratings, you know, where somebody would just get a zero and someone else would give them a five, you know, a five out of five.
00:33:03
Speaker
And it just is crazy, right?
00:33:06
Speaker
And so I'm a big fan of rubrics.
00:33:08
Speaker
I think
00:33:10
Speaker
Rubrics are the way to kind of help clear up some of that noise, very detailed rubrics.
00:33:15
Speaker
So being very precise about, okay, this person and keeping it simple, you know, like a 0-1-2 score, you know, or 0-1-2-3 score.
00:33:25
Speaker
And
00:33:28
Speaker
Tying outcomes to each of those scores.
00:33:30
Speaker
So the candidate or somebody that's evaluating a candidate knows, okay, I'm going to give them a three because they've, they've hit all of these check boxes that warrants them a score for, of a three.
00:33:43
Speaker
And, um,
00:33:44
Speaker
And that's something we've done in our department to kind of clean up some of that noise because we had a big issue with just how candidates were being evaluated, all sorts of crazy, you know?
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:58
Speaker
And we've tied rubrics to everything, even evaluating a resume, even for references, you know, we were tying rubrics so that they're
00:34:09
Speaker
extremely clear, you know, with what, how to score somebody so that it's consistent.
00:34:16
Speaker
And we've made quite a few, you know, changes to our selection process.
00:34:22
Speaker
Because of your research?
00:34:23
Speaker
Yeah, because of the research.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:26
Speaker
And because, you know, as even though it took three years to write this article, I mean, I was in the, you know, in the data and whatnot prior to then.
00:34:34
Speaker
So I was already as soon as I would find something that was interesting, I would tell my assistant directors, you know, oh, this this is coming out in my study.
00:34:43
Speaker
Go ahead and change this up.
00:34:45
Speaker
And and actually started from I was actually doing an analysis of applications.
00:34:50
Speaker
OK, I was just looking at application data.
00:34:54
Speaker
And something that came out that was statistically significant
00:34:59
Speaker
was on the application, there was an open-ended question about leadership experience and involvement or something like that.
00:35:10
Speaker
And what I did was I looked to see if there was any correlation between a GPA because something that we were having a problem with was students at the time of application had a good GPA, but by the time they were getting ready to, you know, finishing out the semester, their GPA tanked and we couldn't hire them.
00:35:28
Speaker
And so I was trying to find, is there a predictor to see if there's something that we can get, you stay ahead with this.
00:35:36
Speaker
And it turns, it was just so interesting.
00:35:39
Speaker
It turned out that the students that took the time to answer those open-ended questions, even to say, no, I don't have leadership experience or no, I'm not involved.
00:35:51
Speaker
had a strong correlation to a higher GPA.
00:35:54
Speaker
It was really interesting.
00:35:55
Speaker
And I was like, is that just, and I was like, what is that?
00:35:58
Speaker
Is that fairness of application?
00:36:00
Speaker
Is that, you know, just being, whereas the ones that just didn't even, they just left the question blank, right?
00:36:07
Speaker
Were likely to have their GPA drop at the end of this event.
00:36:11
Speaker
So interesting.
00:36:12
Speaker
I was like, this is really interesting, you know?
00:36:15
Speaker
Well, I'd love that just running some stats on some random departmental data.
00:36:19
Speaker
I did that once for, it was like programming evals and this would have been like six years ago.
00:36:25
Speaker
And I did the estimated attendance against the cost of money spent on food.
00:36:32
Speaker
And there was actually an inverse relationship between attendance and cost of money spent on food.
00:36:39
Speaker
So when people are like, oh, people only come because of food.
00:36:43
Speaker
Well, here's a piece of data that is against that.
00:36:46
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:36:49
Speaker
So you'll find the strangest things.
00:36:51
Speaker
I thought that was really interesting.
00:36:52
Speaker
But going back, we revamped our whole project.
00:36:57
Speaker
We used to have –
00:36:58
Speaker
You know, group process was a whole day.
00:37:00
Speaker
We called it Super Sunday.
00:37:03
Speaker
And we had everybody come in.
00:37:04
Speaker
And it was like, you know, 150 candidates all day going through, you know, and there were large groups, you know, and that was another thing.
00:37:12
Speaker
Like large groups are hard to manage, harder to evaluate everybody in there.
00:37:16
Speaker
And it's more difficult for everybody to kind of pull their own weight, kind of interact within the activity.
00:37:22
Speaker
And so that was the first thing was, you know, breaking that up into more manageable groups.
00:37:28
Speaker
an RA class and not very many schools have that as part of their selection based on the data that we captured.
00:37:37
Speaker
And so we used to, once we hired candidates, the semester that they started working for us, they would go RA class and it was kind of like an extended training and whatnot.
00:37:48
Speaker
But so what we ended up doing
00:37:51
Speaker
was we made the class prior, we pulled it out, and it was something that was part of the application process.
Improvements in RA Recruitment Process
00:38:00
Speaker
And we called it a leadership class.
00:38:02
Speaker
And we did away with group process, and we built our group process into this class.
00:38:08
Speaker
And so we got to see applicants for longer.
00:38:13
Speaker
You know, it was like a six-week, it's a six-week class.
00:38:16
Speaker
type of thing once one hour a week oh four weeks sorry it was four week and they just do some of those group process activities through the class but what what it did was it kind of weeded out all the folks that just weren't serious about the position and it cut it just kind of helped us clean our process right off the bat because that was something else that was so difficult
00:38:42
Speaker
to predict was how many are doing this just for the compensation?
00:38:47
Speaker
Like how many of these students that are applying for this position actually care about the impact that they're making on their residents and whatnot?
00:38:56
Speaker
So building that on the front end
00:39:00
Speaker
and tying those group process activities to the class and having those rubrics to assess all those assignments and whatnot.
00:39:13
Speaker
This is the last year, it was the first year that we did it, so we're still looking to see if any of that predicts some good performance.
00:39:21
Speaker
And what we're doing is we're having multiple people
00:39:25
Speaker
use our rubrics so that we're getting some iterator reliability, you know, so just to kind of see if, you know, two people evaluating, you know, one candidate, how close their evaluations are, you know, just to build a robust kind of metric to evaluate them.
00:39:45
Speaker
And,
00:39:46
Speaker
Hopefully, you know, we'll see some good, you know, results from that.
00:39:50
Speaker
But right off the bat, we're seeing more quality applicants, less applicants, more quality, more committed.
00:39:58
Speaker
And because, you know, four weeks of once one hour a week is, you know, that's a lot for some students.
00:40:06
Speaker
And it's truly weeding out the ones that are that want the job, that are, you know, committed to the position.
00:40:11
Speaker
And then by the time they start working,
00:40:14
Speaker
they have a good idea of what the position entails, which was the other piece that we were kind of addressing is, you know, people getting hired and they're like, what after the duty?
00:40:23
Speaker
What do you know?
00:40:25
Speaker
You know, what, I have office hours?
00:40:27
Speaker
You know, or just stuff where you're like, really?
00:40:31
Speaker
Like, you didn't know this?
00:40:33
Speaker
Well, as you mentioned, group process is always a lively discussion.
00:40:36
Speaker
So next time our listeners find themselves at a conference hotel bar debating the efficacy of group process, what from your article can they specifically say to elevate their participation in that conversation?
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:50
Speaker
I think group process is, from our study, it was something that was valued.
00:40:55
Speaker
The interactions that all directors had with candidates was, I think, the second strongest influence out of our influence characteristics.
00:41:03
Speaker
And then group process itself was the third highest.
00:41:08
Speaker
And I think it's important, again, to kind of break down what group process looks like to see and to ask those questions like, why are we doing this activity?
00:41:19
Speaker
What are we evaluating here?
00:41:21
Speaker
What are we hoping to learn about a candidate from XYZ activity?
00:41:27
Speaker
And then are we evaluating this activity correctly?
00:41:32
Speaker
Are we training our evaluators well enough to be consistent with their evaluation so that we're not getting these questions?
00:41:40
Speaker
this huge spread of scores and and then and then even going back to what we were talking about with the departmental what they value for candidates you know i think that's important because it doesn't make sense that you know
Training for Group Process Activities
00:41:54
Speaker
we value a certain attribute that we're not even trying to flesh out with our process you know like um
00:42:03
Speaker
So I don't know how much of disconnect there is, you know, in that, but I think that's a great starting point, certainly for us.
00:42:11
Speaker
you know, we had to kind of look and see, A, how big are our groups?
00:42:15
Speaker
Because there's so, humans are so complex and it's so difficult to evaluate somebody, you know, with some of these characteristics that we hold so high, it's just so difficult to kind of score somebody on one day, you know, or through an activity like that.
00:42:34
Speaker
And so looking at everything that the group process is made of, the group sizes, you know, the activities, what those metrics are for evaluating, you know, and are the evaluators being trained accordingly to, you know, to kind of...
00:42:51
Speaker
evaluate correctly.
00:42:52
Speaker
So what did you discover about hiring influence related to racial identity of the hiring managers?
00:42:58
Speaker
So staff diversity was the highest influence factor, which I think, I can see if I can find out, but it was the strongest influence on hiring decision.
00:43:12
Speaker
And then people of color, there was a statistically significant difference between people of color and
00:43:20
Speaker
their white counterparts and with a pretty, I think, medium effect size.
00:43:26
Speaker
Something interesting too was the influence of candidates' social media.
00:43:31
Speaker
That one was kind of on the low end.
Social Media's Influence on Hiring
00:43:36
Speaker
And I honestly expected that one to be a little higher.
00:43:38
Speaker
I think that one was the least, I was the bottom of the decision influences.
00:43:46
Speaker
you know and i really thought they'd be higher because i've been on multiple search committees that i know that even for like executive positions you know people stop on their social media like that's happening on the first on the first day you know and so i was like really this is not a huge influence but there was you know there was a big difference between people of color statistically significant difference between people of color and their white counterparts and that one had a close to a large effect size you know and um
00:44:16
Speaker
But I thought it was interesting that it was not higher in terms of the influence.
00:44:22
Speaker
But, you know, the big thing is that, you know, representation matters, you know, for people of color.
00:44:28
Speaker
And I think it's really important to kind of understand that, you know, even for me as a person of color in a, you know, in a...
00:44:37
Speaker
senior leadership role, you know, like I still to this day, if I walk into a meeting, you know, or any classroom or anything, you know, that has leadership in there, automatically I'm looking to see, you know, are there any other people like me?
00:44:53
Speaker
Because it does, you know, impact, you know, to a certain level.
00:44:56
Speaker
to a certain degree of what's valued on the institutional level.
00:45:03
Speaker
And then I think just additional training on diversity and inclusion within hiring practices, I think would be beneficial based on some of the findings that we found.
00:45:17
Speaker
I keep referencing another article on that special issue with some of the qualitative follow-ups about placement.
00:45:23
Speaker
And that article also talked about the interviews that they did.
00:45:28
Speaker
A lot of people talked about how representation mattered or didn't to them individually.
00:45:34
Speaker
And a lot of people said that representation mattered.
00:45:36
Speaker
And I just wanted to be able to ask the follow-up question.
00:45:39
Speaker
It's like everyone's talking about representation, but nobody's follow-up interviews talked about like
00:45:45
Speaker
anything further than just like face value representation and well it's absolutely important but it's like what about the diversity of ideas that are being generated and i almost wonder if that's back to the departmental expectation that we're getting the we need representation yes uh but we also need newer ideas and different ideas and how are we facilitating that upward mobility of uh like diverse networks and diverse ideas
00:46:09
Speaker
Absolutely.
Diversity in Hiring Decisions
00:46:10
Speaker
You know, and that's something that I really take pride in, especially with our grad recruitment.
00:46:15
Speaker
You know, we always hire an extremely diverse set of graduate assistants.
00:46:20
Speaker
And we've had many, like even during interviews at placements or even Zoom this past year, like we had candidates.
00:46:29
Speaker
make comments about how they loved to be interviewed by a diverse group, you know, of leadership, which is something that you don't see.
00:46:38
Speaker
And especially for our students to be able to connect, to be able to see themselves being represented in leadership.
00:46:45
Speaker
I think there's research on, you know, that shows the impact of that and
00:46:50
Speaker
And even with our RAs too, just for them to see this representation, I think it definitely has an impact.
00:47:00
Speaker
You know, that's maybe something else to kind of, I may have to jot down on real quick, put that on the list.
00:47:08
Speaker
Is there an impact on RA performance based on their representation in regards to diversity?
00:47:14
Speaker
I'd be curious to see.
00:47:17
Speaker
So knowing that there's a lot of like entry level professionals out there that have maybe some limited authority or power to make large changes in the department, what do you think is the simplest takeaway an entry level listener could put into action from your research to improve their hiring process?
00:47:35
Speaker
That wouldn't have hiring influence?
Reflections for Entry-level Professionals
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, like an entry level professional, a hall director who is grinding it out, facilitating the interviews, but doesn't necessarily have a whole lot of power to make systematic changes in their current state.
00:47:50
Speaker
Like what's something they can do small scale in their own practice?
00:47:55
Speaker
Maybe looking at what they are basing their decisions on, kind of like having a reflective moment on, you know, okay, this candidate is sticking out to me.
00:48:05
Speaker
It's, you know, in selection.
00:48:07
Speaker
Why?
00:48:08
Speaker
You know, do I have any relationship with this candidate?
00:48:11
Speaker
You know, you kind of have to be honest with yourself and say, am I just picking this person because my staff has been pressurizing me, you know, to hire this person?
00:48:21
Speaker
Has this candidate stuck out to me because I've seen them at programs, because they've stopped by the office, because they're involved with my hall council?
00:48:29
Speaker
So I think as an entry-level professional, when it comes to selection and you don't have control of your process and you're kind of just saying, use this process to hire your staff, take a good look at and reflect on
00:48:46
Speaker
and be honest with yourself about why am I picking this person?
00:48:48
Speaker
You know, where do they stand based on, you know, the evaluation system that my selection process has?
00:48:56
Speaker
And what are the different things that are influencing me to pick this person or to not pick somebody, you know, equally important.
00:49:04
Speaker
And to just kind of be honest about there's a bias if you're
00:49:11
Speaker
that they may are overlooking or are intentionally trying to not kind of admit.
00:49:19
Speaker
But I think it's important to see what is this person bringing to my staff?
00:49:25
Speaker
Are they going to add to my staff?
00:49:27
Speaker
Are they going to complement areas that I need them to in terms of the big staff picture?
00:49:35
Speaker
So I think that's super easy to do is just to reflect on your short list of people that you want to hire and kind of see what, you know, for all of them, what are those big influences that have led me to put their name down on my sheet?
00:49:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's just general good advice of like, how do you just improve within your sphere of influence and, you know, work on personal improvements as opposed to, well, I've got limited ability to improve outside of that influence, but I might as well make my sphere as best as it possibly can be.
00:50:06
Speaker
So I think that's great advice.
00:50:08
Speaker
Yeah.
Peer Review Process in Scholarly Work
00:50:09
Speaker
And then, you know, it doesn't hurt to read and research too, to see things that they may not be aware of, to kind of, you know, bring awareness to some of these things that we're seeing in regards to RA selection.
00:50:20
Speaker
So bringing that awareness to see, is this happening in my selection process?
00:50:24
Speaker
Is this, am I...
00:50:26
Speaker
intentionally going against the grain because I'm not involved in the selection process.
00:50:31
Speaker
Do I actually trust this process?
00:50:33
Speaker
Why am I picking somebody that is so low on the score sheet or whatever?
00:50:40
Speaker
Which I think most departments have a line where if you pick anybody below this type of a score, you have to justify that decision.
00:50:49
Speaker
with your supervisor.
00:50:50
Speaker
I know we have that.
00:50:51
Speaker
And so being able to articulate your decisions honestly, I think is important.
00:50:58
Speaker
So let's talk a little bit about the, just the publishing process while we wrap up and tell me about the experience in the peer review process and receiving anonymous feedback from journal reviewers.
00:51:10
Speaker
Do you have any memorable comment that just like sticks out in your mind, either positive or negative?
00:51:16
Speaker
I can't really think of a single comment.
00:51:19
Speaker
I do remember early on when I was submitting, you know, and something that I remember really frustrating me was I would get feedback, you know, from everybody.
00:51:30
Speaker
And one of the pieces that got rejected and the feedback was contradicting, you know, and I was like,
00:51:39
Speaker
what?
00:51:40
Speaker
So they were like half of the reviewers said one thing and half of the reviewers said to do the opposite.
00:51:46
Speaker
And I was like, what do you do with that?
00:51:48
Speaker
So I remember that being something that was kind of frustrating.
00:51:52
Speaker
So I looked at it as
00:51:55
Speaker
you know, I think all feedback, there's truth to all feedback.
00:51:58
Speaker
And so something like that, where maybe it split, you know, the room, I thought, maybe I can simplify that piece to where there's not people saying do this or don't do that, you know, to try and simplify as best at all.
00:52:13
Speaker
And to think with, you know, the reader in mind.
00:52:16
Speaker
And that was something that as an early writer that I just wasn't
00:52:20
Speaker
good about, you know, I just, I would just like, I'm writing this day, you know, people need to just automatically understand what I'm writing about and know, you know, read my mind, you know, that type of thing.
00:52:29
Speaker
And it's just, you know, just being a young, you know, writer and wanting to, to get your, you know, your, your work noticed.
00:52:39
Speaker
And, and so that's kind of the, you know, the, the early on the feedback was, you know,
00:52:46
Speaker
Keep the reader in mind.
00:52:48
Speaker
Don't overcomplicate it.
00:52:50
Speaker
Be plain.
00:52:52
Speaker
Be simple with your writing.
00:52:55
Speaker
Don't use big unnecessary words and phrases to try and sound scholarly.
00:53:02
Speaker
Because there is a lot of that as a young writer.
00:53:07
Speaker
You want to
00:53:10
Speaker
And with that, I will say that, you know, articles from the past were very dense, you know, and did not take into account, you know, what the reader had to digest, you know, because I remember part of my PhD program, I had to read some really old articles and I had to read some sentences like six and seven times over before I even understood what the heck they were trying to say, you know, with my dictionary out and like, what?
00:53:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:36
Speaker
But I think that's changed a lot.
00:53:38
Speaker
And I think a lot of thought has been given to the reader because you want people to read your stuff.
00:53:44
Speaker
You don't want people to say, oh, my God, this guy writes the most boring or just he's so dense and uses all, you know, like this person's so full of themselves.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's just I don't know what he's trying to prove.
00:53:58
Speaker
But you want in the end, you want people to.
00:54:01
Speaker
to read and understand your work.
00:54:02
Speaker
I think that's the goal, right?
00:54:05
Speaker
You're finding all this good stuff, you're contributing it to the field, and you want as many people to read it and understand it and, you know, make use of it.
00:54:13
Speaker
And that's just not going to happen if you're just, you know, thinking about, you know, yourself and, you know, what you want to get out.
00:54:22
Speaker
Well, I think there's a larger takeaway of like, how do you make what you're working on accessible to others?
00:54:27
Speaker
And using big words limits accessibility.
00:54:31
Speaker
And I think what I've noticed is, you know, you've got the Talking Stick article about RE recruitment.
00:54:36
Speaker
I believe you're doing a presentation at Akuho with some of the other authors of that special issue.
00:54:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:43
Speaker
You're playing to different audiences because the people who read the journal are not always the people who read the talking stick and are not always the people who go to a conference session.
00:54:50
Speaker
So I think there's a lot of value in how do you frame a narrative, whether it's a budget proposal or a program proposal or a award nomination.
00:55:00
Speaker
We have to play to different audiences.
00:55:02
Speaker
And I think that's kind of what I took away from what you were just saying.
00:55:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:55:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:55:08
Speaker
So have you received any message?
00:55:09
Speaker
I know it's fairly recent, but any messages about your work from others?
00:55:14
Speaker
Or I know you said you've made changes.
00:55:16
Speaker
Are you aware of any departments that have made changes based on your work?
00:55:20
Speaker
On this work?
00:55:21
Speaker
No, not yet.
00:55:23
Speaker
I hope not.
00:55:24
Speaker
I hope people reach out and let me know.
00:55:26
Speaker
I do know that when I sent out the survey initially, there were a lot of folks that reached out that said, hey, let me know your findings, you know, after.
00:55:36
Speaker
And I said, I was very...
00:55:39
Speaker
Upfront, I said, this is actually coming out in the special edition, so you'll get to read everything about it.
00:55:45
Speaker
But I had about four or five folks reach out to say, hey, I'm interested in the findings of this.
00:55:50
Speaker
So at the time, I don't think they knew that we had already been slated for the special edition.
00:55:57
Speaker
So there were some folks that did that, but I'm not aware of anybody that has actually implemented anything yet.
00:56:02
Speaker
It's kind of early, so maybe after the Kuho-Ai presentation, maybe that will hopefully generate some positive change with some departments.
00:56:15
Speaker
But with some of the other, now with the talking stick, I did get a lot of people randomly reach out and say, hey, I enjoyed this article or tell me more about your partnership with your campus police or the one that I did on...
00:56:32
Speaker
the one that Thomas and I wrote on, I think, Screen Time or whatever, somebody connected with me on LinkedIn and sent me a message.
00:56:39
Speaker
And it was so cool from up north, you know, and I was like, this is awesome.
00:56:43
Speaker
And they're just saying, hey, I loved reading your article, you know, and that was it.
00:56:47
Speaker
And I was like, dude, you just made my day.
00:56:49
Speaker
You know, that is awesome.
00:56:52
Speaker
You know, one person, you know, read my article and got something great out of it.
00:56:56
Speaker
And
00:56:57
Speaker
Well, yeah, I love that.
Importance of Feedback in Scholarly Efforts
00:56:59
Speaker
And I've had a couple of people reach out to me about some things I've written or my dissertation or whatever.
00:57:03
Speaker
And it's like it's super neat.
00:57:05
Speaker
It's like, finally, someone other than my parents have my dissertation.
00:57:09
Speaker
And it's just kind of neat that someone and I think that's another thing that I would encourage readers of journals and articles is like,
00:57:18
Speaker
It costs you almost nothing to reach out to an author, even if it's like the person who reached out to you just to say, hey, I really liked it.
00:57:24
Speaker
Like they didn't say anything about like, oh, I changed my life or changed my department.
00:57:27
Speaker
But there's like an encouragement there.
00:57:30
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:57:31
Speaker
And it also might build a relationship through LinkedIn and a network node that you can activate later on.
00:57:36
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:57:37
Speaker
It was so great.
00:57:38
Speaker
And then I always have like my old grad students, you know, they'll...
00:57:41
Speaker
send me a picture if they see, you know, my article or something, they'll say, oh, look at you, you know.
00:57:46
Speaker
So, I mean, and that also just gives me so much more fuel to just, you know, keep doing this.
Recognition and Institutional Support
00:57:52
Speaker
Even we have this thing at our university where we can submit to the institution and they compile like a daily briefing of everything that's going on campus, any highlights on certain things, you know.
00:58:05
Speaker
And my boss, you know, she submitted the Talking Stick article, you know, she was like, oh, you know,
00:58:11
Speaker
Craig and Thomas, you know, collaborated to write this piece.
00:58:15
Speaker
And the provost sent me an email and said, it's so great to see, you know, this collaboration.
00:58:20
Speaker
And I really enjoyed it.
00:58:21
Speaker
And I was like, oh, my God, you know, just small, simple things like that.
00:58:25
Speaker
It just, you know, they go a long way and make they make big impact, you know.
00:58:31
Speaker
Yeah, and it's one way of building like departmental or institutional capital of like most student affairs departments have an annual report that they run.
00:58:38
Speaker
And there's that one column for the practitioners like what presentations have people given at conferences and what articles have been published.
00:58:44
Speaker
And in my experience, that articles published one is often very scarce on submissions to it.
00:58:50
Speaker
And so that's a cool way to build some capital for yourself.
00:58:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:55
Speaker
And do you think that that will ever change in our field?
00:58:57
Speaker
Do you think that we would get to a point where scholarly work...
00:59:02
Speaker
gets more of a focus as part of a practitioner's job?
00:59:06
Speaker
You know, I think, I don't think so, at least not in the near future.
00:59:10
Speaker
I think it's one of those, I think writing and researching is one of those things that, especially coming out of grad school, everyone's fired up.
00:59:17
Speaker
Like probably our most knowledgeable people of research are our grad students or recent grad students because they've been in it and everyone's fired up, but it's like, well, now I got to do good at this job and
00:59:27
Speaker
It's not a priority, even though people say it is.
00:59:31
Speaker
I just don't see it.
00:59:32
Speaker
One of my side projects is I've been working with someone on the Akuhai Journal.
00:59:39
Speaker
That's how I knew that you were one of two practitioners, is classifying, categorizing authors by their role.
00:59:46
Speaker
There is a...
00:59:48
Speaker
huge trend down.
00:59:50
Speaker
And the last time I ran the data, it showed like, if the trend continues, there will be no practitioners publishing in like 2025 or 2022, something like that.
01:00:00
Speaker
But I mean, I just think it's one of those things.
01:00:03
Speaker
It's kind of like everyone's, you know, white whale out there.
01:00:05
Speaker
It's like something really cool.
01:00:07
Speaker
There's a lot of like that.
01:00:08
Speaker
I don't have time.
01:00:09
Speaker
I don't know how is probably the biggest one.
01:00:11
Speaker
So I think if there's more people out there that are like, how do you bring people in the fold, help them write their first article or I've done this before.
01:00:18
Speaker
So come along and contribute.
01:00:20
Speaker
It makes it a whole lot easier the next time.
01:00:22
Speaker
And hopefully they can do it themselves.
01:00:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:25
Speaker
Yeah, I actually asked that question because I also was like, where do I find the time to do this?
01:00:31
Speaker
I knew I wanted to do this.
01:00:33
Speaker
And one of the coolest experiences that I've had was, and this is where I met Justin Leibowitz, was at this research seminar.
01:00:43
Speaker
at Elon University, they were doing a special research seminar on living learning programs.
01:00:49
Speaker
And my dissertation was involved with living learning programs.
01:00:52
Speaker
I developed an instrument to kind of assess living learning programs.
01:00:58
Speaker
And I was like, you know, I'm just going to apply and see if I get accepted.
01:01:02
Speaker
And I got accepted and
01:01:05
Speaker
And I went there just not knowing what to expect.
01:01:08
Speaker
And it was a mix of, you know, practitioners and faculty.
01:01:11
Speaker
And it was the coolest experience that I've ever been submerged in.
01:01:17
Speaker
And there were some great authors there that, you know, I actually got one of my books signed, you know.
01:01:24
Speaker
One of the books that I actually use when I do all my research is called Student Affairs by the Numbers.
01:01:30
Speaker
And it's Rishi Siram from Baylor.
01:01:35
Speaker
He was there.
01:01:36
Speaker
And it's one of the easiest stat books to read.
01:01:40
Speaker
And it's all from a student affairs lens.
01:01:42
Speaker
And it just helps you understand some of these complex ideas in a way.
01:01:49
Speaker
through a student affairs language, it's so much easier to understand.
01:01:51
Speaker
But he was there and like Jody, Jess of Anger.
01:01:56
Speaker
And it was so cool to just, you know, at first I was kind of like, oh my God.
01:02:01
Speaker
You know, I had my imposters.
01:02:04
Speaker
Right.
01:02:05
Speaker
You know, I was like, am I even supposed to be here, you know?
01:02:09
Speaker
And then Justin and I ended up getting, you know, in a group together, a research group.
01:02:13
Speaker
And the idea was, you know, we would meet three summers and everyone would kind of find a research project and we'd work on that.
01:02:20
Speaker
And that's what led to my first big publication.
01:02:24
Speaker
with Justin and then our other co-author charity, Love It.
01:02:28
Speaker
And it was so cool, you know.
01:02:30
Speaker
And the only reason I was even introduced to that opportunity was from the CSBA program.
01:02:36
Speaker
One of the faculty members who was on my dissertation committee, you know, Dr. Barclay, she sent me this thing that hit on her list of, and she was like, hey, I thought you may be interested in, you know, applying for this.
01:02:48
Speaker
And I was like, okay, I'll do it.
01:02:50
Speaker
And Elon was amazing.
01:02:52
Speaker
They paid for everyone's flight out there.
01:02:54
Speaker
I mean, they put a lot of resources towards research and whatnot.
01:02:59
Speaker
And then I got to meet Dr. Karen Inkelis, who was a huge influence for my dissertation.
01:03:04
Speaker
It was just, I mean, it was like meeting celebrities.
01:03:07
Speaker
And I was like...
01:03:08
Speaker
cool you know and a lot of times I just sat there and listened you know and just learned a lot you know and people were like you're so quiet and I'm like I'm just listening and just learning so much you know that imposter syndrome probably yeah that's exactly what I was saying I had complete imposter syndrome you know like I don't think I'm supposed to be here like did they you know vet me out properly you know they're all gonna find out
01:03:34
Speaker
But it was so cool, you know, to actually sit down and just talk, shop with some of them and then just to learn who they were as people and what their story was.
01:03:44
Speaker
You know, but I asked Jodi, you know, Jessup Anger, I was like, how do we do this?
01:03:48
Speaker
You know, as a practitioner, how do I engage in it?
01:03:51
Speaker
Because it's so time consuming and there's so much, you know, expected out of us that is not scholarly work, you know.
01:03:58
Speaker
And she's like, Craig, you just got to schedule it into your calendar.
01:04:02
Speaker
And that's what I started doing.
01:04:03
Speaker
And I just started setting, you know, carving out two hours every week dedicated to research.
01:04:08
Speaker
And that's what did it, you know?
01:04:09
Speaker
So Jody, thank you.
01:04:11
Speaker
If you ever did this, you can have advice.
01:04:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:15
Speaker
I talk about random data usage.
01:04:18
Speaker
I wrote a newsletter article for Swakuho once about like engaging with research and basically counted the number of paragraphs in a journal article and
01:04:27
Speaker
And said, if you read a pair, like two paragraphs every day after launch, you'd be done in two weeks.
01:04:32
Speaker
And then you'd probably be more well read than everybody else in your department or something like that.
01:04:37
Speaker
It's like, you know, how do we start small?
01:04:39
Speaker
But part of that is also like whatever the main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing.
01:04:45
Speaker
And you put the time away.
01:04:47
Speaker
I found the best time for me to work on that stuff is.
01:04:50
Speaker
before eight o'clock.
01:04:51
Speaker
And I have always felt the best professional development happens before eight o'clock because it's the only time of day when not everybody in my life is telling me what my priorities should be.
01:05:02
Speaker
Everyone's got a different system and a different play.
01:05:04
Speaker
And I just think it's exciting to kind of explore that for individuals and to see a little bit of momentum.
01:05:11
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:05:12
Speaker
And even if you're not writing and publishing, but you're engaging in reading,
01:05:16
Speaker
You know, scholarly articles.
01:05:18
Speaker
I mean, that also sets, you know, sets you in a different mindset and it makes your discussions and your, you know, any arguments you may have with your co-workers completely because you're, you know, you're going to start citing, you know, the research that you've read.
01:05:36
Speaker
And then it's like...
01:05:38
Speaker
Nobody can argue with you because you're not just talking about your, like you said, it's just not just feelings.
01:05:43
Speaker
And I feel like this or I, or assumptions like this is based on concrete data, you know, and,
01:05:48
Speaker
trends that, you know, people have written on and, and instead of starting every sentence with, I think, I think, I think, well, the literature says this, or I read the article that says this.
01:05:59
Speaker
And that is a completely different level of discourse.
01:06:02
Speaker
And it's a completely different level of a professional to me.
01:06:06
Speaker
You know, I think it's a different, you're just at a different level, you know, definitely.
01:06:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:13
Speaker
So Craig, in closing, I know you've already kind of talked about this, but I give you an opportunity.
01:06:18
Speaker
What's next or what, in addition to the other article you mentioned, like what is your research agenda look like for the future?
01:06:24
Speaker
And what do we have, what do our listeners have to look forward to?
Ongoing Research Projects
01:06:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:27
Speaker
So I'm actually working with,
01:06:31
Speaker
On a piece with my boss, Dr. McBrayer, we're actually looking at student affairs hiring practices.
01:06:38
Speaker
So kind of looking at what is valued based on entry level positions, mid-level and then senior executive.
01:06:47
Speaker
And to see what those search processes look like based on those three levels.
01:06:52
Speaker
Because
01:06:53
Speaker
I've been on multiple search committees and, and like, you know, I'm, I'm, like I said, everything, you know, I reframe everything now from, you know, like, why is this happening or what, you know, so how important is your search committee selection, you know, basically,
01:07:10
Speaker
How many should be represented by, you know, that division?
01:07:14
Speaker
You know, who's chairing?
01:07:16
Speaker
You know, things that I think are important, you know, me personally, but how important are they are for entry-level positions, for mid-level positions, for executive, you know, senior-level positions.
01:07:27
Speaker
So I'll be, we're going to be looking at that.
01:07:31
Speaker
And then Thomas and I are, you know,
01:07:33
Speaker
We've field tested this instrument from this article for a second time.
01:07:39
Speaker
And we ran factor analysis and we have some pretty cool constructs that came out that we're going to be writing on.
01:07:46
Speaker
And then we're also going to write about some of that from some of the qualitative data from the first survey about the preferred RA attributes.
01:07:56
Speaker
So those things, six dimensions of an RA.
01:07:59
Speaker
So that's something really cool.
01:08:01
Speaker
that I'm working on.
01:08:03
Speaker
And then long-term, Thomas and I are working on a, this is all stemming from this same research.
01:08:09
Speaker
We're working on some predictors for RA performance to see if there are any, and even if they're not, that's still valuable research, right?
01:08:19
Speaker
So we're using a lot of this data to see if there's some magic formula that we're using.
01:08:29
Speaker
The silver bullet.
01:08:32
Speaker
Alternate candidates.
01:08:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:35
Speaker
And so, but I mean, I think, you know, it may not be, you know, I definitely do think there's, there are some predictors that exist.
01:08:42
Speaker
And I think it's just a matter of seeing if the data backs that up and, and, you know, we'll see.
01:08:46
Speaker
And,
01:08:47
Speaker
And we'll get to do some regression and whatnot, which I've not really dabbled with a whole lot.
01:08:53
Speaker
So I'm kind of excited about that because stats is like – it's like a language.
01:08:58
Speaker
If you don't practice it, you're going to forget it.
01:09:00
Speaker
And even though I do make research a priority, I still –
01:09:05
Speaker
have to refer back all the time because it's just, it's, you know, it's, it's sad, you know?
01:09:12
Speaker
So, but it's not as scary anymore.
01:09:15
Speaker
And then I think that was something as a young writer was, that's as scary, but you're not having to do these calculations by hand.
01:09:21
Speaker
You know, now it's more so about,
01:09:24
Speaker
interpreting SPSS tables and whatnot.
01:09:29
Speaker
And there's a YouTube tutorial for everything that is helpful.
01:09:33
Speaker
And so I take full advantage of that.
01:09:36
Speaker
And sometimes I'll rewatch videos on YouTube just because I'll forget.
01:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, I've got a stats website that I've got a membership to, Layered Statistics, and it is just like tells you how to write everything.
01:09:49
Speaker
It reminds you of all the assumptions.
01:09:52
Speaker
So that is, I've used that every single time I write.
01:09:57
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:59
Speaker
Well, it sounds like we got a lot to be excited about coming from you.
01:10:01
Speaker
We'll definitely have to have you back on the show when some of that comes out.
01:10:05
Speaker
JC, thank you so much for this opportunity and experience.
01:10:08
Speaker
It was awesome.
01:10:09
Speaker
I had so much fun.
01:10:10
Speaker
It was really cool.
01:10:12
Speaker
It was fun.
01:10:12
Speaker
Good.
01:10:13
Speaker
Thank you.
01:10:14
Speaker
As we close out this episode, I definitely want to thank you, Craig, for investing a bit of your time with us to discuss the article.
01:10:21
Speaker
To all our listeners, please make sure to read the entire article because we only scratch the surface.
01:10:26
Speaker
RE hiring processes are often yet another one of those things we do them the way we do because we've always done them that way.
01:10:33
Speaker
Today's conversation gives some practical ways to start reimagining your staff involvement in the process by considering what motivates and influences their decision-making.
01:10:43
Speaker
Let me know your number one takeaway from this episode by replying on the Swakuho social media podcast posts.
01:10:49
Speaker
Be sure to reach out and thank Craig for participating today via his LinkedIn profile in the show notes.
01:10:55
Speaker
Are you having a professional conundrum and don't know what to do?
01:10:59
Speaker
Do you need some professional advice navigating a situation in the workplace or on the job search?
01:11:04
Speaker
The podcast now has a form in the show notes where you can anonymously ask for professional advice.
01:11:10
Speaker
Once we have a handful of questions, I'll pull together a panel to provide their take on the situation and provide recommendations for you.
01:11:18
Speaker
Consider it like Ann Landers, but for housing professionals.
01:11:21
Speaker
Our next episode is going to be a topical dive into the world of preventative maintenance, where we will discuss competing priorities, the value and importance of preventative maintenance plans, and how preventative maintenance looks upstream to prevent problems before they are problems.
01:11:36
Speaker
This is sure to provide some great exposure to the wild world of facilities for those of you who may work with maintenance, but not for maintenance.
01:11:44
Speaker
You have my personal guarantee that there will be actions you can immediately take in your personal life that will further help you understand and appreciate the maintenance side of the house.
01:11:52
Speaker
Because guess what?
01:11:53
Speaker
You should have a preventative maintenance plan at your home too.
01:11:57
Speaker
With that, I say to you, good day.