2) Describe some challenges you've faced in your work. Are there experiences you've had as a supervisor (or with a supervisor) that presented particular difficulty (or joy)? Are there challenging interactions with faculty, colleagues, students, or parents that have made lasting contributions to your learning?
We all have a life/career changing experience that we can point to as a defining moment in our career. Towards the end of my first year as an Asst. Director we had a student death on campus. The student who died was a freshman. He died in a friend’s room from asphyxiation from his own vomit after drinking too much alcohol. He died in a hall in my area but was actually a resident in another hall in my area. I was one of the first staff on the scene and almost instantly Dee Siscoe (our Dean of Students) and the Director for Housing were both there with us as the incident unfolded. I vividly remember sitting in the room across the hall from the hall director’s office after the ambulance had just driven the body away when my boss came over and told me that Dee was calling the parents. I have never been so happy to not be someone as I was to not be Dee that day. I then had to go to the residence hall and call an all hall meeting for a few hours later that evening to tell all of his friends and hall mates that this student had died. He was incredibly popular and everyone loved this guy, it was such a tragedy. I was also there when his parents came to collect his belongings as they stood outside the door and told us what they wanted out of his room, it was too hard for them to come into the room. The staff at SMU did a great job, and Dee’s leadership was impeccable, but I knew I wasn’t emotionally prepared enough to handle another incident like that at that point in my life.
One of the biggest challenges I have faced recently is the tension between some faculty and staff. I do not think it is this way everywhere, but at my current institution there are many faculty who really look at us in Student Affairs as party planners and do not respect us as colleagues. More than once I have had a faculty member refer to me as “young fella” or insinuate that they can’t believe I am as young as I am based on the email correspondences we have had.
I have had a few good supervisors, a few decent supervisors and some who were not so delightful. I will toot my own horn and say that I am a really good supervisor. I have had the good fortune to supervise some really amazing people. I have never fired anyone, though I have given several people the opportunity to resign. I stated before that at SMU the staff there were like family to me. There was one guy who I was on staff with, he was five years older than me and we instantly became best friends during my first year at SMU. I was honestly closer to him and his wife and son than I was to my own brothers. We would commiserate together when we were frustrated about our jobs, we would go out for a beer after work and we even spent holidays with him and his extended family since our families were so far away. However, when I was promoted to Assistant Director from Hall Director I became his direct supervisor and my office was literally located between his office and his apartment. As his supervisor I can tell you that he was late for everything, turned in sloppy work and did not take his job as serious as I would have expected. When I had to address him as a supervisor he was always full of excuses and I eventually had to write him up for his infractions. Our relationship changed completely. It was hard and I really struggled with my decisions but I had to be objective as his supervisor. His actions were causing me to get in trouble with my supervisor. You will find that in your career you find people who you really like as friends, but not co-workers. You can’t be friends with the people you supervise, you can be friendly, but there is a line.
The best advice I have ever heard about dealing with angry parents or students was to let them “climb mad mountain”. Sometimes people just want someone to yell at, there isn’t really a solution, or if there is, they need to get out their frustration first. As long as people are not threatening or making personal attacks, I have let them voice their frustrations and then I calmly ask them what I can do to help them resolve their issue. I use this all of the time in student conduct.
3) What keeps you going? What are the best parts of the work, particularly any surprises you've experienced, ways in which the work was better or more fun than you expected?
One of the greatest mentors I ever had was Valerie Averill, who worked in Residence Life at USF for a number of years said something that has always stuck with me. Right before graduation Valerie said "You have a child-like enthusiasm and devotion for the work you do in this field and I really appreciate that about you.” I would say that is a pretty good assessment. I love working in Student Affairs, I get excited about the work I do and while every day isn’t sunshine and roses, I still go home feeling fulfilled.
Something that surprises me is that I work with a lot of non-traditional students and active military members and veterans students, 90% of them I will only ever have contact with through phone or email. I have been surprised at how much I have enjoyed working with these non-traditional students and the quality/intentionality of the conversations we have over the phone or email. I have learned more about working in Higher Ed over the past few months working at Columbia College than I have since grad school. I am providing leadership for the Division of Student Affairs so I really have to look at things from a big picture perspective, weighing out our actions legally, ethically, and comparing ourselves to national standards. Columbia College recently sent me and 4 others to the island country of Malta in the Mediterranean because we are considering starting a campus there with an existing language arts school and wanted me to be on the exploratory team. This will be our first international campus. The process of creating a campus with an organization that already exists in a foreign country is fascinating. We will offer a full campus experience there so there are a lot of details to work out.
4) What advice would you share with entering professionals?
The next time you are in class look around, these people will be with you for the rest of your career. When I started at USF there were 28 in my cohort, we were the biggest cohort they had taken at that point. You are at such an advantage to have the opportunity to build these relationships with your classmates. I am still in contact with everyone from my class, several of them were in my wedding, we see each other at conferences, we talk on-line, and we call each other for advice or sometimes just to catch up. I have met alums from this program all over and worked with several who graduated at a different time than I did. I will speak for my class in saying that we have an affinity for this program, we want to see more and more professionals entering the field from USF and we are here to support you. Student Affairs is a small field, it may seem large but everyone knows each other or has some connection. This can work in your favor if you do good work, but it could work against you if you don’t pull your weight or don’t operate with ethics. I get calls occasionally from colleagues who are interviewing someone I know to get my opinion. Most times it is positive, but there are several times when I have not been able to provide a positive assessment based on my experience.
To sum all of this up into three statements:
1. Challenge yourself! Pursue opportunities that are outside of your comfort zone.
2. Build positive relationships with colleagues at your campus and at conferences.
3. Make your personal life a priority just like your professional life. It is possible to achieve some kind of balance.
Friday, February 17, 2012
My Career Path - Dave Roberts pt. 1
Hello CSAers!
My name is Dave Roberts, I was a member of the CSA class of 2004. I am really excited to have this opportunity to engage with you through this blog. Many of your faculty who know me will tell you I am a talker, so I apologize ahead of time for the length of the post. I have tried to share some of the details of my career path and some tips that you can use in yours. I look forward to your comments and questions.
Best Wishes,
Dave
1) Describe your professional path in the field. If there are aspects of your decision-making (in your career choices) that may inform how our students approach the beginning of their own professional employment, please share them. If there are things you'd have done differently, please explain them.
Valdosta State University, B.S.Ed. Secondary Ed Social Studies – 1997-2002My story is probably similar to many of you. As an undergrad at Valdosta State University (Valdosta, GA) I was lost, I was very involved on campus but couldn’t find a major that clicked for me. I loved being an RA and the professional staff there really encouraged me to pursue student affairs as a career option.
University of South Florida – M.Ed. College Student Affairs – 2002-2004I was contacted by Maria Zale, an Area Coordinator from USF at a regional placement exchange who invited me to interview for a GA position as a Residence Director scheduled for 2 hours after I received the invitation. I can tell you that I took the interview to fill the empty hour in my schedule and because it was in Florida. I knew ZERO about USF! The first question I was asked was, what do you know about USF? And I responded by saying that I know very little but that I am sure it had a vibrant campus life being located in Miami. She then explained where it was located and I amended my answer to let her know I knew nothing about USF. I was pretty sure the interview was over at that point but we kept going and it ended up being my favorite interview I had all weekend.
As you begin to pursue jobs in student affairs be sure to research the schools you will be interviewing with, but also, be honest. It is ok in a conference interview setting to say you don’t know much about an institution if this is not an interview that was scheduled in advance. I have never taken a position that I didn’t feel a “fit” with staff at the interview or at the on-campus interview. All of us in the field know the “fit”, it is hard to describe, but when it happens you know it, and when it doesn’t happen, you know it.
At USF I was hired as a Resident Director (RD) for my GA experience. I oversaw Beta Hall (pre-renovation). I was heart-broken when I was assigned “The Beta” at first, I had the worst apartment of all the RDs and on the first day of training the USF Police Officer at training asked who had Beta and when I raised my hand he said “I want to introduce myself to you because, I’ll be seeing you a lot.” I like a challenge and so one of the first lessons I learned was to accentuate the positive. The building was in terrible shape, the unofficial building mascot was the “Beta Dog” (a cockroach) because “the roaches were as big as dogs in Beta” and the rumors/legend of events that had taken place in the building were always looking to be topped by our students. Instead of shying away from this my staff and I celebrated it. We got permission to paint the lobby neon colors, because we could, we put the Beta Dog on t-shirts and we built a really strong community around the idea that we were the group that would be the last to live in “the real Beta”. The conduct issues were cut in half from previous years, we had amazing communities and students loved living there. I learned that we are just as much in the business of marketing as we are in Student Affairs. They say that good work gets rewarded with more work. The next year I was assigned Fontana Hall, the privately owned 13 story high-rise across the street from campus. The university rented it for a year as temporary housing while they built and renovated a number a residence halls on campus. The buildings condition and the overall situation was a nightmare for us as staff and for the housing department in general. I can say in hindsight that, while the experience at the time seemed really frustrating, I came out of it with some amazing skills that my colleagues who got to work in the new buildings probably never gained as a result of their Resident Director experience. If you are someone who is driven to move up in this field, put yourself out there and take on the professional challenges no one else wants. It impresses the higher-ups, builds on your experience and in my case has led to promotions and opportunities that I would have never gotten if I played it safe.
While at USF I met my wife Amanda, she was a year behind me in the CSA Program and also a Resident Director. We had been dating 4 months when I had to job search, though we both knew that we wanted to get married at that point, we also decided that it was best that I do a national job search and we see how it goes. We got engaged the week before I moved to Texas. I will address the role our relationship has also played in my career a little further down.
Southern Methodist University – Hall Director 2004-2006, Assistant Director for Res Life 2006-2007
Once again, I found a good fit with the folks at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX) in Residence Life and took a position as a hall director. Going from an all public school experience to a very affluent private school was a huge adjustment. I encourage you to branch out and seek at positions at different types and sizes of institutions. You will have a more well-rounded experience and a better view of the field of student affairs from a variety of perspectives.
The role as a hall director was a pretty easy adjustment, but there was a level of professionalism expected at SMU that I was not accustomed to. The main challenges I encountered at SMU as a hall director were personal. Amanda I got married after she graduated from the CSA Program the year after me and moved to Texas. We had a plan to spend 5 years working on our careers and then try to have kids. She got hired by the Women’s Center part-time at SMU two months after we got married and a month later we found out we were expecting our first child. SURPRISE! Our daughter Kendall was born at the end of my second year as a hall director; Amanda had to quit her job because part-time employees don’t receive maternity leave and stayed at home (in the dorm) with Kendall. If you have a spouse or partner who also has a career, there is definitely a balance that you will have to work out for you in terms of your career. When you job search, be honest with each other and know that there is a good chance one of you is going to have to make a sacrifice for the other person. Each couple handles it differently, so find what is right for you.
A month after Kendall was born I was promoted to Assistant Director for Residential Life and Assessment at SMU. In my role I supervised 5 full-time masters’ level hall directors and oversaw all departmental assessment initiatives. I adored the staff I worked with at SMU (including Dee Siscoe and Missy Bryant) I felt like the staff there were driven professionals and so supportive. I felt like I had a family there. Unfortunately, I did not feel the same adoration for all of the students I worked with at SMU. The students I interacted with were generally very wealthy and entitled and I had trouble relating with many of them. I had the children/relatives of big name celebrities living in my halls and most of the time when I addressed an incident with students I was told by the student that they were calling their lawyer. As an Assistant Director I was on duty 24/7/365 and my phone rang all the time and it took a toll on my family life. I always said I would not leave a job after year because it was “career suicide”, but my family life was more important. It was the first time in my life that I really started to think that I didn’t want to be in housing anymore.
I chose to get out of housing and pursued jobs in Student Life. I was told that once you are a housing person that you can’t break out. This is B.S. I developed a functional resume which highlighted my experience in order of the skills I possessed and not in your typical chronological resume. I am sure this helped because it took the focus off of me being a “housing geek” and focused on me as a Student Affairs Professional. I would highly recommend that you consider this as an option when you apply for jobs.
University of Missouri – Director for Leadership Development – 2007-2011
Fortunately I was hired as the Director for Leadership Development and Community Involvement at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). The position at Mizzou was really a dream job for me. I was able to teach class and have complete control over programs at a flagship state university. In my role at Mizzou I learned very quickly that I had to run my office more like a business than a just some programming office. I didn’t just want good programs, I wanted GREAT programs and I wanted my office to be a force on campus. I did an analysis of cost per student for each program, we looked at attendance numbers, did assessment on student satisfaction, focus groups about what students wanted and looked at national best practices in higher education. I also did something that I would encourage each of you to do upon starting a position. I asked my predecessor for the names of 8 faculty/staff on campus that it was crucial that I build a relationship with. I sent emails out and asked to meet each of them for coffee (my treat) at the Starbucks on campus. If you meet with someone in their office there are distractions and at least one party is out of their element. I chose to meet them at a neutral location, I bought them coffee and we talked about how we could work together and I would ask each person if there was anything that I could do in my office to better serve them or their students. I would also ask the people for additional names of people I should meet with. In one semester I took 44 professionals (faculty, staff, & community leaders) to coffee. I sometimes had meetings 2 or 3 times in one day (that’s a lot of coffee) but it was worth it. Within a year I was more connected than people who had been there 20 years and I had an abundance of resources for me, my students and staff to use. I also found some great mentors that way.
Columbia College, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs - 2011 - present
After four years at Mizzou in that position I was called by a colleague at a small local private school in June of last year who said that they had a position open for an Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. I LOVED Mizzou and my position as Director for Leadership but I hadn’t felt challenged for about a year. I told my boss I was thinking about applying and she supported it. On the negative side, it was a significant change in responsibility, it limited student contact, and I would be leaving Mizzou. On the plus side it was a significant pay increase (and our pay had been frozen for three years), I would have more “normal” work hours and I would be the number two student affairs officer on campus. I started as the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at Columbia College in July 2011. In my current role I supervise the Directors for Residence Life, Student Activities & Leadership and Student Development (Wellness, Diversity and Orientation). I also serve as the primary conduct officer for the 30,000 students on all 34 of our campuses nationwide and online. I am one of two people on the Division of Student Affairs Staff of 22 with a master’s degree in Student Affairs and the most seasoned of those two professionals. I am also one of the youngest if not the youngest Assistant Deans on campus (I’m about to turn 33). I am at a point in my life where I am ready to take on more responsibility and while I love working with students, I know the next steps in my career path are as an administrator.
My name is Dave Roberts, I was a member of the CSA class of 2004. I am really excited to have this opportunity to engage with you through this blog. Many of your faculty who know me will tell you I am a talker, so I apologize ahead of time for the length of the post. I have tried to share some of the details of my career path and some tips that you can use in yours. I look forward to your comments and questions.
Best Wishes,
Dave
1) Describe your professional path in the field. If there are aspects of your decision-making (in your career choices) that may inform how our students approach the beginning of their own professional employment, please share them. If there are things you'd have done differently, please explain them.
Valdosta State University, B.S.Ed. Secondary Ed Social Studies – 1997-2002My story is probably similar to many of you. As an undergrad at Valdosta State University (Valdosta, GA) I was lost, I was very involved on campus but couldn’t find a major that clicked for me. I loved being an RA and the professional staff there really encouraged me to pursue student affairs as a career option.
University of South Florida – M.Ed. College Student Affairs – 2002-2004I was contacted by Maria Zale, an Area Coordinator from USF at a regional placement exchange who invited me to interview for a GA position as a Residence Director scheduled for 2 hours after I received the invitation. I can tell you that I took the interview to fill the empty hour in my schedule and because it was in Florida. I knew ZERO about USF! The first question I was asked was, what do you know about USF? And I responded by saying that I know very little but that I am sure it had a vibrant campus life being located in Miami. She then explained where it was located and I amended my answer to let her know I knew nothing about USF. I was pretty sure the interview was over at that point but we kept going and it ended up being my favorite interview I had all weekend.
As you begin to pursue jobs in student affairs be sure to research the schools you will be interviewing with, but also, be honest. It is ok in a conference interview setting to say you don’t know much about an institution if this is not an interview that was scheduled in advance. I have never taken a position that I didn’t feel a “fit” with staff at the interview or at the on-campus interview. All of us in the field know the “fit”, it is hard to describe, but when it happens you know it, and when it doesn’t happen, you know it.
At USF I was hired as a Resident Director (RD) for my GA experience. I oversaw Beta Hall (pre-renovation). I was heart-broken when I was assigned “The Beta” at first, I had the worst apartment of all the RDs and on the first day of training the USF Police Officer at training asked who had Beta and when I raised my hand he said “I want to introduce myself to you because, I’ll be seeing you a lot.” I like a challenge and so one of the first lessons I learned was to accentuate the positive. The building was in terrible shape, the unofficial building mascot was the “Beta Dog” (a cockroach) because “the roaches were as big as dogs in Beta” and the rumors/legend of events that had taken place in the building were always looking to be topped by our students. Instead of shying away from this my staff and I celebrated it. We got permission to paint the lobby neon colors, because we could, we put the Beta Dog on t-shirts and we built a really strong community around the idea that we were the group that would be the last to live in “the real Beta”. The conduct issues were cut in half from previous years, we had amazing communities and students loved living there. I learned that we are just as much in the business of marketing as we are in Student Affairs. They say that good work gets rewarded with more work. The next year I was assigned Fontana Hall, the privately owned 13 story high-rise across the street from campus. The university rented it for a year as temporary housing while they built and renovated a number a residence halls on campus. The buildings condition and the overall situation was a nightmare for us as staff and for the housing department in general. I can say in hindsight that, while the experience at the time seemed really frustrating, I came out of it with some amazing skills that my colleagues who got to work in the new buildings probably never gained as a result of their Resident Director experience. If you are someone who is driven to move up in this field, put yourself out there and take on the professional challenges no one else wants. It impresses the higher-ups, builds on your experience and in my case has led to promotions and opportunities that I would have never gotten if I played it safe.
While at USF I met my wife Amanda, she was a year behind me in the CSA Program and also a Resident Director. We had been dating 4 months when I had to job search, though we both knew that we wanted to get married at that point, we also decided that it was best that I do a national job search and we see how it goes. We got engaged the week before I moved to Texas. I will address the role our relationship has also played in my career a little further down.
Southern Methodist University – Hall Director 2004-2006, Assistant Director for Res Life 2006-2007
Once again, I found a good fit with the folks at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX) in Residence Life and took a position as a hall director. Going from an all public school experience to a very affluent private school was a huge adjustment. I encourage you to branch out and seek at positions at different types and sizes of institutions. You will have a more well-rounded experience and a better view of the field of student affairs from a variety of perspectives.
The role as a hall director was a pretty easy adjustment, but there was a level of professionalism expected at SMU that I was not accustomed to. The main challenges I encountered at SMU as a hall director were personal. Amanda I got married after she graduated from the CSA Program the year after me and moved to Texas. We had a plan to spend 5 years working on our careers and then try to have kids. She got hired by the Women’s Center part-time at SMU two months after we got married and a month later we found out we were expecting our first child. SURPRISE! Our daughter Kendall was born at the end of my second year as a hall director; Amanda had to quit her job because part-time employees don’t receive maternity leave and stayed at home (in the dorm) with Kendall. If you have a spouse or partner who also has a career, there is definitely a balance that you will have to work out for you in terms of your career. When you job search, be honest with each other and know that there is a good chance one of you is going to have to make a sacrifice for the other person. Each couple handles it differently, so find what is right for you.
A month after Kendall was born I was promoted to Assistant Director for Residential Life and Assessment at SMU. In my role I supervised 5 full-time masters’ level hall directors and oversaw all departmental assessment initiatives. I adored the staff I worked with at SMU (including Dee Siscoe and Missy Bryant) I felt like the staff there were driven professionals and so supportive. I felt like I had a family there. Unfortunately, I did not feel the same adoration for all of the students I worked with at SMU. The students I interacted with were generally very wealthy and entitled and I had trouble relating with many of them. I had the children/relatives of big name celebrities living in my halls and most of the time when I addressed an incident with students I was told by the student that they were calling their lawyer. As an Assistant Director I was on duty 24/7/365 and my phone rang all the time and it took a toll on my family life. I always said I would not leave a job after year because it was “career suicide”, but my family life was more important. It was the first time in my life that I really started to think that I didn’t want to be in housing anymore.
I chose to get out of housing and pursued jobs in Student Life. I was told that once you are a housing person that you can’t break out. This is B.S. I developed a functional resume which highlighted my experience in order of the skills I possessed and not in your typical chronological resume. I am sure this helped because it took the focus off of me being a “housing geek” and focused on me as a Student Affairs Professional. I would highly recommend that you consider this as an option when you apply for jobs.
University of Missouri – Director for Leadership Development – 2007-2011
Fortunately I was hired as the Director for Leadership Development and Community Involvement at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). The position at Mizzou was really a dream job for me. I was able to teach class and have complete control over programs at a flagship state university. In my role at Mizzou I learned very quickly that I had to run my office more like a business than a just some programming office. I didn’t just want good programs, I wanted GREAT programs and I wanted my office to be a force on campus. I did an analysis of cost per student for each program, we looked at attendance numbers, did assessment on student satisfaction, focus groups about what students wanted and looked at national best practices in higher education. I also did something that I would encourage each of you to do upon starting a position. I asked my predecessor for the names of 8 faculty/staff on campus that it was crucial that I build a relationship with. I sent emails out and asked to meet each of them for coffee (my treat) at the Starbucks on campus. If you meet with someone in their office there are distractions and at least one party is out of their element. I chose to meet them at a neutral location, I bought them coffee and we talked about how we could work together and I would ask each person if there was anything that I could do in my office to better serve them or their students. I would also ask the people for additional names of people I should meet with. In one semester I took 44 professionals (faculty, staff, & community leaders) to coffee. I sometimes had meetings 2 or 3 times in one day (that’s a lot of coffee) but it was worth it. Within a year I was more connected than people who had been there 20 years and I had an abundance of resources for me, my students and staff to use. I also found some great mentors that way.
Columbia College, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs - 2011 - present
After four years at Mizzou in that position I was called by a colleague at a small local private school in June of last year who said that they had a position open for an Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. I LOVED Mizzou and my position as Director for Leadership but I hadn’t felt challenged for about a year. I told my boss I was thinking about applying and she supported it. On the negative side, it was a significant change in responsibility, it limited student contact, and I would be leaving Mizzou. On the plus side it was a significant pay increase (and our pay had been frozen for three years), I would have more “normal” work hours and I would be the number two student affairs officer on campus. I started as the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at Columbia College in July 2011. In my current role I supervise the Directors for Residence Life, Student Activities & Leadership and Student Development (Wellness, Diversity and Orientation). I also serve as the primary conduct officer for the 30,000 students on all 34 of our campuses nationwide and online. I am one of two people on the Division of Student Affairs Staff of 22 with a master’s degree in Student Affairs and the most seasoned of those two professionals. I am also one of the youngest if not the youngest Assistant Deans on campus (I’m about to turn 33). I am at a point in my life where I am ready to take on more responsibility and while I love working with students, I know the next steps in my career path are as an administrator.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Welcome to the CSA Management Issues Blogspot for 2012
Hello All- We are ready to kick off the blog for EDF 6938. I appreciate your participation and I think we will all learn a lot through this interactive electronic communication board.
To start us off, I'd like to welcome Dave Roberts, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Columbia College...
Dave, when you get a few minutes, please get the ball rolling by replying to the questions below. The exercise is intended to help our students learn through the experiences of others in the field. Since you are a graduate from the USF CSA program, I think they will find your comments and experiences to be especially interesting and helpful.
There are 32 students enrolled in EDF 6938, however only a third of the students are expected to actively participate in a dialogue with you this coming week. Students in the class with the last name starting with A-F will be monitoring and engaging with you in this process. The other students in the class will monitor only this week's conversation. Thanks to all, in advance, for your participation!
Discussion starters:
1) Describe your professional path in the field. If there are aspects of your decision-making (in your career choices) that may inform how our students approach the beginning of their own professional employment, please share them. If there are things you'd have done differently, please explain them.
2) Describe some challenges you've faced in your work. Are there experiences you've had as a supervisor (or with a supervisor) that presented particular difficulty (or joy)? Are there challenging interactions with faculty, colleagues, students, or parents that have made lasting contributions to your learning?
3) What keeps you going? What are the best parts of the work, particularly any surprises you've experienced, ways in which the work was better or more fun than you expected?
4) What advice would you share with entering professionals?
Again, a portion of the students will be interacting with you over the course of the coming week. They will react to your observations and ask follow-up questions. Whatever time you can spare to respond to them would be greatly appreciated. A dialogue with you, in effect, is what I am seeking.
Thanks again Dave!! I appreciate you! Dee Siscoe
To start us off, I'd like to welcome Dave Roberts, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Columbia College...
Dave, when you get a few minutes, please get the ball rolling by replying to the questions below. The exercise is intended to help our students learn through the experiences of others in the field. Since you are a graduate from the USF CSA program, I think they will find your comments and experiences to be especially interesting and helpful.
There are 32 students enrolled in EDF 6938, however only a third of the students are expected to actively participate in a dialogue with you this coming week. Students in the class with the last name starting with A-F will be monitoring and engaging with you in this process. The other students in the class will monitor only this week's conversation. Thanks to all, in advance, for your participation!
Discussion starters:
1) Describe your professional path in the field. If there are aspects of your decision-making (in your career choices) that may inform how our students approach the beginning of their own professional employment, please share them. If there are things you'd have done differently, please explain them.
2) Describe some challenges you've faced in your work. Are there experiences you've had as a supervisor (or with a supervisor) that presented particular difficulty (or joy)? Are there challenging interactions with faculty, colleagues, students, or parents that have made lasting contributions to your learning?
3) What keeps you going? What are the best parts of the work, particularly any surprises you've experienced, ways in which the work was better or more fun than you expected?
4) What advice would you share with entering professionals?
Again, a portion of the students will be interacting with you over the course of the coming week. They will react to your observations and ask follow-up questions. Whatever time you can spare to respond to them would be greatly appreciated. A dialogue with you, in effect, is what I am seeking.
Thanks again Dave!! I appreciate you! Dee Siscoe
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