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If we ain't changin' people we ain't livin'.
This post also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Change
My friend Tate found this in the mall. He took a picture too. I thought I would post it here to my blog. Do you ever stop to think if you are the same person you were a year ago? Two years ago? How about ten years ago? I doubt any of us are the same people we were ten years ago.
This post also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
This post also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
Harry Potter Mania
Perfect cure for a headache? Harry Potter marathon! I own all eight films so of course they are all part of the blog project. I thought long and hard about how to blog about eight movies in one post. In a perfect world I would have eight separate posts. But I conducted a brief survey of people that might want to read my blog and they unanimously voted that I should NOT post eight different posts about this amazing series.
I thought instead I would tell a quick story. Once I was in college, at a small, private, liberal arts institution in MI that changed my life in so many ways. One is that it introduced me to the lovely ladies of first east Wesley Hall. I met my first real career role model in Jessica Zamborsky. She had a little apartment and was probably the best RA I have ever come across. I also meet a great gal named Angela. Angela would turn out to be my roommate in the Mae when we were seniors. It was there, in that glorious building number four with the crabby party animals living downstairs that I discovered Harry Potter. It was the 2003-2004 academic year and Angela suggested I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when I had some down time from class. There was this rust colored arm chair that was in our room to collect clean clothes and winter coats. I cleaned that bad boy off and read that classic in record time. I was amazed that I had not read it before! How had I avoided the wonderful tale of the boy wizard that long!
Well I was books behind. I needed to catch up and quick. Thank goodness I was a senior and Friends was in its final season so that I could find time to some reading! I had four minutes of spare time as I was failing economics each week and I spent them reading Harry Potter! Then I graduated from college and moved to Wisconsin to become a hall director. Well you know what happened next...I read every Harry Potter book as they came out. From cover to cover and usually within days of purchasing it. Well you can imagine my joy as all of the books were made into films and I got to enjoy them in my next favorite form of media-film.
I recently learned that my friend Pam has not finished reading all of the books. So if I were to recap these films I might ruin parts of those books for her! And since there are only a few people who read my blog I need to be loyal to those few. But I can share that one of my RAs found a sweet program online to work out to the Harry Potter movie. I think it was on Pinterest. But wherever she found it, it was a sweet program. A little bit Jane Fonda brought into the current generations mental time frame with Harry Potter.
I thought instead I would tell a quick story. Once I was in college, at a small, private, liberal arts institution in MI that changed my life in so many ways. One is that it introduced me to the lovely ladies of first east Wesley Hall. I met my first real career role model in Jessica Zamborsky. She had a little apartment and was probably the best RA I have ever come across. I also meet a great gal named Angela. Angela would turn out to be my roommate in the Mae when we were seniors. It was there, in that glorious building number four with the crabby party animals living downstairs that I discovered Harry Potter. It was the 2003-2004 academic year and Angela suggested I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when I had some down time from class. There was this rust colored arm chair that was in our room to collect clean clothes and winter coats. I cleaned that bad boy off and read that classic in record time. I was amazed that I had not read it before! How had I avoided the wonderful tale of the boy wizard that long!
Well I was books behind. I needed to catch up and quick. Thank goodness I was a senior and Friends was in its final season so that I could find time to some reading! I had four minutes of spare time as I was failing economics each week and I spent them reading Harry Potter! Then I graduated from college and moved to Wisconsin to become a hall director. Well you know what happened next...I read every Harry Potter book as they came out. From cover to cover and usually within days of purchasing it. Well you can imagine my joy as all of the books were made into films and I got to enjoy them in my next favorite form of media-film.
I recently learned that my friend Pam has not finished reading all of the books. So if I were to recap these films I might ruin parts of those books for her! And since there are only a few people who read my blog I need to be loyal to those few. But I can share that one of my RAs found a sweet program online to work out to the Harry Potter movie. I think it was on Pinterest. But wherever she found it, it was a sweet program. A little bit Jane Fonda brought into the current generations mental time frame with Harry Potter.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Training the Trainer
I am one of those people that learns something new all the time. Today I learned something about nature and I also learned something about myself in a way. First-I love watching nature shows/videos and today I learned about these stinging bullet ants that simulate the feeling of being shot with each bite. Also I learned how ants eat a worm and get all the food inside for the other ants, imagine a food regurgitation train. It might look a little like this in humans or this classic video. Be careful watching these videos- I just laughed so loud my neighbor knocked on the wall.
I must learn because I also read a lot. I did not know how cool Twitter was until I started using it for work rather than just personal stuff. I find so many great blogs, articles, and news about higher ed that I have to ration it during the daytime work hours. Even though I think that counts as professional development time and the College should be so lucky that all of my development has been free on the Twitter.
Anyway today I was interviewed by a former student about my role in training the RHDs and RAs on staff. It is so easy to be consumed by our own areas of expertise that it is nice to talk about training in a broad sense and then relate it back to higher ed. I get inspired by conversations like that- you know the kind where you are forced to think critically and assess your methods then justify them to another person while they look at them through a different lens? Well Amelia did that all while having a higher ed perspective and the unique opportunity of having been trained by me when I was what we will call a "novice".
This past week at work there have been lots of discussion about people in an organization and how they make the difference. Leadership, orientation, and training of your employees can make a big difference when there are big changes in an organization. Time is the one thing that does not factor into a budget that can make changes and challenges seem smaller and easier to deal with in a department. In my opinion, time with people on your team, your staff, your workplace, is the single most valuable asset to an organization.
Time makes the biggest impact on our students as well. This past weekend was alumni weekend on campus and the students who came back and chatted with me shared those moments when I spent time helping them solve a problem, showing them that I cared about them when they were sick, helping them develop a program or a organization that has left a lasting impact on them and the College. None of those things cost the College money, none of them cost me money personally either. Not all of those things happened when I was "on the clock" (not that there is a clock in student affairs). It is rejuvenating when I can see the transferrable skills those students learned in action when they describe their current careers. It is a great reminder of why I do what I do.
Some of what Amelia and I talked about was taking time to know your audience and taking the time to form those relationships that make all the difference on a staff. Not only does this help you be a better and more effective trainer, it teaches those intangible skills that students need. It is easy to get discouraged in times of budget cuts or when you wish you could pay your student staff more for what they do- but having time to reflect like I did today with a former student brings everything full circle. Amelia learned a lot during her time in College, she learned some examples of what to do and what not to do in building and maintaining relationships on a staff. She learned about training and how to adapt to your audience to make sure the message is heard. Then she took jobs both in and out of higher education and still used those skills. Even now while getting her Masters Degree she is learning more formally all those things she has been part of since she was 19 years old. She is learning how to train, how to teach, and how to make that applicable in a any situation.
Just listening to Amelia tell me about her goals and projects in this Masters program warms my heart and reminds me just why I spent all that time with her when she was a student. I can see the skills she learned then- maybe without even realizing she was learning- showing through in the professional she has become. But I can also see that in the human she is today. On the other side of the coin, I feel like I am a better person for the time I spent with her. There are times still today where I look back on some of the experiences I had in hiring (or not hiring in one case) her for specific jobs in the department or thinking about the things I learned too about myself as a supervisor during a long night watching the Lion King. People make the difference, no matter what you do for a living, but for me especially in higher ed.
I must learn because I also read a lot. I did not know how cool Twitter was until I started using it for work rather than just personal stuff. I find so many great blogs, articles, and news about higher ed that I have to ration it during the daytime work hours. Even though I think that counts as professional development time and the College should be so lucky that all of my development has been free on the Twitter.
Anyway today I was interviewed by a former student about my role in training the RHDs and RAs on staff. It is so easy to be consumed by our own areas of expertise that it is nice to talk about training in a broad sense and then relate it back to higher ed. I get inspired by conversations like that- you know the kind where you are forced to think critically and assess your methods then justify them to another person while they look at them through a different lens? Well Amelia did that all while having a higher ed perspective and the unique opportunity of having been trained by me when I was what we will call a "novice".
This past week at work there have been lots of discussion about people in an organization and how they make the difference. Leadership, orientation, and training of your employees can make a big difference when there are big changes in an organization. Time is the one thing that does not factor into a budget that can make changes and challenges seem smaller and easier to deal with in a department. In my opinion, time with people on your team, your staff, your workplace, is the single most valuable asset to an organization.
Time makes the biggest impact on our students as well. This past weekend was alumni weekend on campus and the students who came back and chatted with me shared those moments when I spent time helping them solve a problem, showing them that I cared about them when they were sick, helping them develop a program or a organization that has left a lasting impact on them and the College. None of those things cost the College money, none of them cost me money personally either. Not all of those things happened when I was "on the clock" (not that there is a clock in student affairs). It is rejuvenating when I can see the transferrable skills those students learned in action when they describe their current careers. It is a great reminder of why I do what I do.
Some of what Amelia and I talked about was taking time to know your audience and taking the time to form those relationships that make all the difference on a staff. Not only does this help you be a better and more effective trainer, it teaches those intangible skills that students need. It is easy to get discouraged in times of budget cuts or when you wish you could pay your student staff more for what they do- but having time to reflect like I did today with a former student brings everything full circle. Amelia learned a lot during her time in College, she learned some examples of what to do and what not to do in building and maintaining relationships on a staff. She learned about training and how to adapt to your audience to make sure the message is heard. Then she took jobs both in and out of higher education and still used those skills. Even now while getting her Masters Degree she is learning more formally all those things she has been part of since she was 19 years old. She is learning how to train, how to teach, and how to make that applicable in a any situation.
Just listening to Amelia tell me about her goals and projects in this Masters program warms my heart and reminds me just why I spent all that time with her when she was a student. I can see the skills she learned then- maybe without even realizing she was learning- showing through in the professional she has become. But I can also see that in the human she is today. On the other side of the coin, I feel like I am a better person for the time I spent with her. There are times still today where I look back on some of the experiences I had in hiring (or not hiring in one case) her for specific jobs in the department or thinking about the things I learned too about myself as a supervisor during a long night watching the Lion King. People make the difference, no matter what you do for a living, but for me especially in higher ed.
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