01/23/2017 by @Sit_With_It - 0 comments

Our Love Affair With Dualism

As a society, we love dualism. We enjoy reducing our options to two, and framing it so that the only options we have are the two that we often can’t stop obsessing over. Yes, our love of dualism is a lens to view the most recent presidential election and its aftermath (e.g., You either were for Trump or participated in the marches this past weekend, You either were for Trump or are for abortion, etc.).

It is also a lens to view most decisions. A few dualisms related to higher education, and specifically student affairs are:

films-cinema-movie-choices-romances-tedium-rte0331_low.jpg We either go to college or we don’t; We are either life-long learners or we’ve stopped learning; and one that has been on my mind over the past two years, “I will either get better or I will not”. Thankfully, given my health challenges I’ve had to make my options for this one more complex than a simple one or the other.

Another that has cropped up recently in my mind is:

We are either for students developing/growing/learning/becoming complex in how they make meaning or we are for student success.

Why is it that we do this?

I genuinely am interested in knowing. It makes no sense to me why we would frame our practice as though we have two options (please know that I am not perfect in not doing it either..see above). Yes, there is a movement to use “big data” to shape the higher education experience for students. And I agree that it has potential to result in some more personalized experiences for our students, which is great! Still, I believe that it is us humans that assist in the development of students (aka, helping others learn), not computers exporting formulas. Thus, I believe that there will always be a need for some sort of student affairs professionals.

Additionally, although I agree that the innovation of the assembly line in the United States (U.S.) allowed us to gain traction in terms of having an advantage on a global scale economically speaking, I do not think that human growth occurs in an assembly like fashion. If it did, I hope we would have had it figured out a long time ago. Thus, another reason why I believe that there will be a need for student affairs professionals.

Another way that we enjoy dualism in our everyday lives is to reduce our interactions with others to be simply an evaluation of someone’s intelligence.

They are either intelligent or not.

This one I’ve heard a lot lately due to the election, so not just within education.

Although lately in higher education, we seem to be doing this in regard to a variety of issues: social justice issues, what it means to be professional, political perspective, etc. I hope that we catch ourselves in these moments and pull back from drawing a causation between a person’s intellectual abilities and how they make sense of the world. I know that we often don’t…as evidenced by conversations I’ve witnessed in person and on social media.

The multitude of options that exist between two choices is an area we as student affairs professionals can assist others in seeing. As long as we continue to be the folks who have examined change (aka development) on the individual level, as well as on the organizational level–including how the two interact. Again, there is another reason we need student affairs professionals….perhaps even for life, not just within institutions of higher education.

Lynn Pasquerella, President, Association of American Colleges and Universities, speaks to our belief in dualism as well in a video published by The Chronicle of Higher Education in December, 2016.

So, again, I ask: Why do we reduce our options to only two? And this time I add to the question: What can you doing to recognize it and help move beyond it?

09/29/2016 by @Sit_With_It - 0 comments

On My Journey Through Darkness

I recently reread a short essay by Maureen Watson (2015) titled: Treasures in Darkness: Loving the Questions. In the essay, Watson speaks about what it feels like to live in the darkness. A year ago I was in a dark place, and although I had good reason to be there, it was torture. Parker Palmer’s metaphor of winter also speaks to where I was at the time. It was cold and it felt like the wind was blowing hard as I stood on a flat plain all alone in the dark of night.

My choice to phrase the above paragraph in the manner that I did was intentional, and does mean that I’m no longer solely in that place. I don’t want it to be heard that I’ve somehow done a 180, but I have made progress. And I can see the progress. All of this I share because recently I’ve been thinking about how I once had a counselor who asked me if it was okay to revisit experiences that I thought I had worked through. I was in a very stubborn place and was sharing with her that I refused to consider the past…I just wanted to be fixed even though I knew that she wasn’t going to tell me how I could be fixed. She pointed out that despite working through something in the past, I had since had more experiences that might lead me to see my past experiences differently, and she asked me if I thought that was possible. Her question stayed with me, and is often something I still consider.

All of these thoughts combined with a passage I was recently reminded of in my Introduction to College Student Personnel course:

“Personnel workers see the person–at whatever age–not as a single moment independent of the past and the future, but as a transition point in a stream of experience that goes back to infancy and will continue on into the future” (Lloyd-Jones, 1954).

And the combination of these thoughts with current events such as the shooting of Keith Scott, the homelessness of the Syrian Refugees, the Native American tribal land protest, and the weekly interactions I have with first generation students place my mind in a spot where I can’t imagine how we could ever feel settled in higher education. Yet, feeling settled is often what I believe we desire. I know that I’ve desperately wanted to feel the security of having settled over the past year and a half–the safety that I can count on at least one piece of knowledge and believe it to be true.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could feel comfort in spite of today’s current events instead of only frustration and darkness?

It is in these moments of desiring comfort and stability, however, that I can see that I’ve managed to get through the dark place I was in and find a bit more light by going one step at a time. And this time, I deeply value the light rather than taking it for granted. In other words, now that I am able to see how far I have come, I find that I want to make sure that I am always a bit uncomfortable, and in many ways I hope that we all are a bit uncomfortable. For it is in that spot, that I believe we discover the most about ourselves.

04/18/2016 by @Sit_With_It - 0 comments

Is Illinois’s Higher Education Funding the State’s Massive Resistance?

A few weeks back, I was listening to a radio show about the upcoming presidential election that will occur this November. Please know that I typically limit my intake of political advertising because it is overwhelming and designed purposefully to have you think a certain way. However, the radio was on, and the show came on, so I listened.

The hosts on the radio show were going to go to various places around the country to explore if where you live impacts what you want from your government. They call their show “The View from Here”. Unsurprisingly, although perhaps it is a surprise for those that do not live in Illinois, the most representative place in the United States based on race, income, religion, etc. is Peoria, Illinois. So, this is where the hosts decided to start their show. And, it is for this same reason of representation that I believe those who work in higher education throughout the United States should pay attention to what is going on within the state of Illinois. It is bound to come your way soon too. After all, our world is interconnected.

What is the “it” that I am talking about?

It is not the high taxes.

It is not the dismantling of unions.

It is not the strategic movement of money from the public to the private sector.

I have two thoughts about what the “it” is:

First, it is the inability to compromise between two polarized points of view. For example, not wanting to raise taxes, and keeping pension plans the same. You might ask, what is being learned from this dichotomy? To me, it is that if one has enough means one does not need to compromise, but rather should dig in their heels until they get what they want. A point to consider is that in this battle, no matter who wins, the winner will be of a class that most of us do not have access too.

Second, higher education will become what public k-12 education was in Prince Edward County during the Civil Rights era. If you are unfamiliar with Barbara Johns and the walk out that she led, you should become familiar. A quick overview: In

Photo credit: Joan Johns Crobbs

1956 the state of Virginia moved to block itself from having to desegregate their school in accordance with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education. The move was coined the Massive Resistance. For five years, because Prince Edward County did not want to desegregate, they closed the public schools. This, as one might imagine, led to only those who could afford private education to be able to attend school. In other words, and at the time, the White students. The hope was that other counties in Virginia and other states would view Prince Edward as an example and follow suit. A fairly long, but quite engaging series of events occurred, which prevented the Prince Edward County example taking root in other places. To this day, Prince Edward County is healing both economically and in terms of community relations.

So, how is it that I see this connected to the current issues within the state of Illinois? If Illinois is not careful, it will rid itself of public education, which will leave private education to only those that can afford it.

Yes, one might say, but they would never rid themselves of the University of Illinois, it is an elite institution. Yes and at many elite public institutions the questions of going private has surfaced for many reasons. Here is another article on the difference between public and private institutions.

Now, keeping this in mind, and switch out the idea of race from the Virginia Massive Resistance, and replace it with the idea of class (albeit there is overlap between the two identities), thus is born Illinois’s version of the Massive Resistance. You might be thinking, what is it that is being resisted? And that is a fair question. My response is connected to point number one above.

No compromise is being found because the two polarized points of view are actually connected. Each side is resisting the other so that everything stays exactly the same, which is a Virginia a la 1954 kind of move Illinois-style. No budget is passed in Illinois, Prince Edward County did not have to desegregate…no matter the method, the price is great for all of us when we abandon education and there will be ramifications for years to come.

06/09/2015 by @Sit_With_It - 0 comments

The “How”, Spoon Theory, and #SAPros

In January, I experienced a medical crisis that caused me to reestablish all of my personal and professional goals for 2015. I have been working toward my goal of recovery and adjusting to my “new” normal ever since. Recently, I was given permission to return to my teaching position in order to teach one course this summer. I am both excited and anxious about it. So far, it is progressing nicely, but week one is always an easy week, because you are getting the course established and going. 🙂

Beyond my anxiety around not being able to fully walk due to my acquisition of foot drop, I knew I would be challenged to have enough energy to fully return to work. I’ve been told ever since I “woke up” on January 7th that I would be tired and would need a lot of rest. And, yes, early on this was true, I did need rest. Yet, my need for rest has evolved as I’ve progressed in my recovery (at first I was tired from coming back to life, and now I get tired from using more higher order cognitive skills).

Recently, I was describing the unique way in which I found myself tired– “I can feel my brain and it is tired”, and a friend told me that it sounded to her as though I was describing Spoon theory. A few days later, Spoon theory was shared on the Stroke Talk for Facebook group that I am a member of, so I decided to spend more time with it. Prior to my January experience, and the conversation with my friend, Spoon theory was not a theory I’d come to know. It isn’t found in any student development book that I know of, nor have I come across it in any counseling theory texts. I found it to be accessible, easy to understand, and quite important to our field when considering a host of invisible disabilities. (I will assert that I believe we quite often complicate how to bring theory into practice by not using accessible examples for all—perhaps we need to use more dining utensils 😉 ).

Furthermore, I teach the Student Development Theory 1 course at Western Illinois University and during class we spend time exploring how development occurs. We do this because I believe it is powerful to know how development occurs if one is going to promote development amongst students, not just what the identity or characteristic that is developing. It is challenging to explore development theory this way because it is almost always easier to identify “what” the theory is developing rather than clearly articulating “how” it is being developed. As we do such exploration as a class, we begin to realize the power dynamic present when one determines a developmental place:

Does one place another in a specific spot in their development?

Does one allow another to share where they are at in their development for themselves?

These are important questions. They are the difference between prescribing developmental interventions, as if we ourselves are fully developed, and creating developmental interventions, with the assistance of others, because we acknowledge that none of us are fully developed.

I’m not necessarily advocating for Spoon theory to be included in student development theory courses, although I do secretly think it would be a good idea. I am asking us to consider what it would look like if, instead of focusing so much on “what” is being developed, and the end result of that developmental process, we start the conversation about bringing theory into practice by focusing on “how” development is occurring.

For example, Spoon theory asserts that if my foot drop heals (which I am really hoping that it does) and I am left with a non-visible neurological disorder due to my January experience, I will only be given a limited number of spoons for the day that I can use to accomplish my tasks. It also claims that each of my tasks will use up a spoon, which might result in me only having one spoon left for the day come 6 p.m., but more work to do. In other words, instead of focusing only on what my decreased energy is at various places on my road to recovery, Spoon theory also helps others understand how it is that I’ve come to have decreased energy. And, personally, I’ve found that understanding both how I’ve come to have decreased energy, and what decreased energy is like for me, allows others to better understand my experience and support me as I continue to develop toward my goal of full recovery. If this is how I’m left feeling about the inclusion of attending to how, and not just the what, in the process of development, imagine how our students might feel if we were to do the same as we put theory into practice as student affairs professionals. It certainly seems to me as though it would create a more inclusive environment for our students.