Shows
SWACUHO Podcast025 - Fun Topics from the ACUHO-I Community Forum | Joel Gatti [Feature Topic]After a three month gap, we have M. Joel Gatti (Director of Housing Operations at SMU) back on the show. This time around we are cruising the ACUHO-I community message boards for topics to discuss and banter about. Those topics include:Mid-semester room cleaning, preparation, and handling abandoned property;Requiring staff to be trained to administer CPR and Narcan, plus the logistics behind such emergency response expectations."Valet" laundry and trash services.The professional value of participating in and/or observing niche conversations about specialized topics outside your expertise.It's a wide range of topics you certainly...
2024-02-121h 13SWACUHO Podcast024 - Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and the Texas Legislature | Dr. Reba Sims [Feature Topic]When recording this episode, there was simply too much to cover so please excuse the discontinuity between the intro and the topic for the month. We had such an expansive conversation with Dr. Reba Sims (Texas A&M-San Antonio) that the recording was divided into two episodes. This month we are covering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion... and the Texas Legislature, specifically SB17. Reba talks about immediate impact before getting into long-term implications that stem from the inevitable confusion with vaguely worded legislation. She talks about how individual interactions ultimately determine an institution's culture, often more than programmatic efforts do...
2023-10-0256 minSWACUHO Podcast023 - The Friend of My Friend Could Be My Friend: Network Science [Book Club]This month we are using the book "Friend of a Friend: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Career" to talk about network science. In this episode we define the various ties in your network: strong, weak, and dormant ties, revealing the value of each. We cover out of the blue recommendation letters or reference checks, how to see your whole network, being a network broker, and the concept of homophily and how it impacts your network. There are plenty of tangible takeaways to put into practice that only take a few minutes to help keep...
2023-08-071h 15SWACUHO Podcast022 - Moving On or Moving Up, Programming Models, and Assessment | Molly Albart [Feature Topic]This episode features Molly Albart, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs at UT Arlington. Molly talks about moving up and moving out of housing into an AVP role that, interestingly enough, does not include housing in her current portfolio. We talk about the transferrable skills housing experience provides when considering to make a move into other areas of student affairs. We then tackle community development and programming models, with some very candid observations and feedback about the practicality of their purpose and success. We then talk assessment and geek out on some very practical Excel skills anyone looking to...
2023-07-031h 19SWACUHO Podcast021 - Reflections on Professional Involvement | Don Yackley [Past President]This month we are joined by Don Yackley, fresh off his tenure as President of SWACUHO. This is probably the most organic interview we have had thus far on the podcast, with topics ranging from stupid questions to imposter syndrome to having situational awareness. Most all of these topics weave in and around the actual topic at hand: professional involvement. Don gives us his observations on whether people are too busy to get involved, managing and changing priorities, and ghosting committees. The bottom line is this: raise your hand to do something, then show up to do it, then...
2023-05-011h 13SWACUHO Podcast020 - Mentorship On-Demand - Answering Listener Questions (Vol. 2)This month is our second round of asking the most important questions of all: your questions! That's right, our panel today is responding to listener questions. Coming back on the show is Adonis Thompson, Maggie Guzman, and Ken Stoner who give advice and some tough love to the following questions:Should you look to leave your job when you don't really like your supervisor but love your departmental leadership?Is there a way to get out of being required to move halls after two years of employment?What to do if you always feel out of the loop...
2023-04-031h 05SWACUHO Podcast019 - To Every Summer Season - Turn, Turn, Turn | Kyle Estes, Drew Jahr, Joel Gatti [Feature Topic]Although it is only March, our three guests today have already been hard at work planning for the summer make-ready season. Those rooms don't magically get perfect before August move-in, but rather take lots of time, planning, and resource management. Our guests today walk us through systems, checklists, and all the moving parts related to summer turn. While doing so, they also highlight the transferrable skills from other functional areas that can scale up to coordinating the summer from a maintenance and facilities perspective. We spend time talking about how every room is the chance for a first impression...
2023-03-061h 10SWACUHO Podcast018 - Building Relationships is Our Business | Trey Stoermer, Norma Ramirez, and Felisha Perrodin [Feature Topic]CORRECT EPISODE NOW UPLOADED!The annual conference is right around the corner, and to lead up to the big event, this episode was put together by SWACUHO's Exhibits and Displays Committee. In this episode, Trey Stoermer, Norma Ramirez, and Felisha Perrodin break down the exhibit hall at conferences and hone in on how it is more a place to build and foster relationships, which sometimes happen to result in business transactions later on. For many professionals without purchasing power, the exhibit hall can be overwhelming or may seem like a waste of time... but it is far...
2023-02-0759 minSWACUHO Podcast018 - Building Relationships is My Business | Trey Stoermer, Norma Ramirez, Felisha Perrodin [Feature Topic]The annual conference is right around the corner, and to lead up to the big event, this episode was put together by SWACUHO's Exhibits and Displays Committee. In this episode, Trey Stoermer, Norma Ramirez, and Felisha Perrodin break down the exhibit hall at conferences and hone in on how it is more a place to build and foster relationships, which sometimes happen to result in business transaction later on. For many professionals without purchasing power, the exhibit hall can be overwhelming or even a waste of time... but it is far from that. This episode is ripe with commentary...
2023-02-0558 minSWACUHO Podcast017 - Sitting in the Big Kid's Chair for the First Time | Tanya Massey [Feature Topic]We start the New Year off with Tanya Massey, who about six months ago began her new role as the Senior Managing Director for University Student Housing at Texas Tech University. To mark her first-time accession to the SHO role, Tanya shares going through the candidate process, the experience of sitting in the "big kid chair". While this episode will certainly be beneficial to our region's mid-level professionals, professionals of all levels will benefit from Tanya's nuggets of insight demonstrating how all things are scalable between position levels.Download the Reflection Guide! (forthcoming) - If you p...
2023-01-0258 minSWACUHO Podcast016 - An Exodus or a Reckoning? The Great Resignation in Campus Housing | Robin Williamson, Stephanie McBrayer, and Mimi Benjamin [Feature Topic]This month on the SWACUHO Podcast we are joined by Drs. Robin Williamson, Stephanie McBrayer, and Mimi Benjamin to discuss and dig into "The Great Resignation". While we only scratch the surface, we start by looking upstream at the challenges of recruiting staff before looking downstream at retaining staff once they are with us. We ask the following questions: Is the field less attractive than it once was? Are placement exchanges a thing of the past? Are all "essential" positions created equal when it comes to remote work? Are additional responsibilities assigned due to staff vacancies a legitimate "opportunity?"...
2022-12-051h 15SWACUHO Podcast015 - Reflections on the New Professional Experience | Nancy Chadwick-Murphy [Past President]On this episode we talk to Past President Nancy Murphy-Chadwick. We start with Nancy's hobby of making stained glass windows and applicable lessons to the workplace and how Nancy originally wanted to be a high school band director, but was steered away because those jobs were for men. Nancy talks about her thirty years as the SHO at TWU, a job she apparently enjoyed enough to come out of retirement to serve in an interim role during a supervisory transition. We talk about how to best share award recognition during job interviews and how determine departmental culture during a...
2022-11-071h 04SWACUHO Podcast014 - Disarming the College Student Suicide Conversation | Rikki Turner [Feature Topic]To conclude Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, this episode features Dr. Rikki Turner, Founder and CEO of Still You Rise, Inc. Rikki worked her way up the housing ranks in Arkansas and through her dissertation research found her life's calling working with college campuses providing suicide awareness and trainings. We begin the conversation with how Rikki disarms groups when talking about the sensitive topic of college student suicide. We then reflect on past strategies and techniques colleges used in the past that thankfully have fallen out of favor, which leads us to current research and what conditions need to exist...
2022-10-031h 03SWACUHO Podcast013 - Reflections on Coming Full Circle | Ken Stoner [Past President]This month we have a very special guest who was never employed at a SWACUHO-affiliated school but certainly orbited SWACUHO throughout his long career in student housing. Several of our guests talked about SWACUHO being a family, so in my best judgement between him attending a couple SWACUHO conferences, keynoting at SWACUHO events, and consulting at SWACUHO schools, it's almost as if our guest is already family. On this episode, Dr. Ken Stoner (hailing from the UMR and SEAHO regions) reflects on how it seems everything in campus housing comes full circle. Examples include residence hall designs...
2022-09-051h 10SWACUHO Podcast012 - Mentorship On-Demand: Answering Listener Questions | Various GuestsThis month is special as it rounds off one full year of the SWACUHO Podcast. To celebrate, we are answering listener questions. Four people wrote in over the course of the year asking for advice. Along the way, I've recorded various guests answering these questions. For dedicated listeners, you will recognize every voice today as a repeat guest. Today we are responding to the following topics:The value of completing seemingly inconsequential daily reports even if nobody ever follows up when they don't get done.Whether you should apply as an internal candidate despite projected awkwardness.H...
2022-08-0150 minSWACUHO Podcast011 - Intentional or Misspent Resources in RA Hiring Processes | Apefa Cooper [Article Review]It's been mentioned on the Podcast a few times how time consuming it is facilitating RA hiring processes, so today Apefa Cooper (Texas A&M San Antonio) came back to the show to talk about an article she wrote in The Journal of College and University Student Housing about this very thing. Apefa not only talks about the hours upon hours spent in the various components, but also coverts that time into real money: staff wages. Apefa breaks down her article and the various alterations to RA hiring processes to intentionally look at how we are investing our resources...
2022-07-041h 02SWACUHO Podcast010 - Read, File, Delete, or Ignore: Email Management | Monique Burkley and Maggie Guzman [Feature Topic]In the fast pace world of campus housing we have to be effective at communicating through a variety of formats to reach our audiences. One of those formats, is email. This month we are joined by Monique Burkley (UT Arlington) and Maggie Guzman (Texas A&M) to talk about how they manage their email. We start by talking about how many total email and how many unread emails we have in our inboxes, then promptly move towards email etiquette and departmental cultures/expectations for email. Throughout the episode there are many small scale strategies for effective email management. Our...
2022-06-061h 06SWACUHO Podcast009 - Reflections from a Black President | Adonis Thompson [Past President]This month we are joined by Adonis Thompson, who served as President of SWACUHO in 2018 and 2019. We start by talking about Adonis’ career on the operations side of the house and how processing conduct cases built the necessary skills to be successful in operations. We talk about catch phrases, picking your battles, balancing job responsibilities and self-care. We then move into his SWACUHO involvement and the pathway that led him to become the first Black man to serve as President. Adonis talks about the expectations and hopes he felt and the platform he ran on to involve more HBCUs. We...
2022-05-021h 25SWACUHO Podcast008 - The Expectations and Satisfaction of Residents with Autism | Dustin Grabsch [Article Review]April is World Autism Month, so this episode aims to share the stories of residents with autism. To do so, we are joined by Dr. Dustin Grabsch from Southern Methodist University who published an article last year in The Journal of College and University Student Housing exploring the expectations of residents with autism to increase satisfaction with the on-campus living experience. We discuss the five themes that emerged from the resident interviews including academics, campus housing, community, roommate expectations, and the student experience. Throughout the episode it become abundantly clear that professional staff need only think just a little...
2022-04-041h 19SWACUHO Podcast007 - Overthinking Everything in Campus Housing | Jasmine Jennings and Sara Frick [Book Club]Today our guests use the book Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking as a vehicle to discuss those inevitable rabbit holes within our mind that every campus housing professional has fallen down at one time or another. Our guests today are two self-described overthinkers, Jasmine Jennings and Sara Frick, who reveal an important truth: you aren’t the only person overthinking your work in campus housing. Takeaways directly from the book include overthinking as a dial versus a switch and questions we should be asking when we find ourselves overthinking things. From there, they provide plenty of real examples re...
2022-03-071h 13SWACUHO PodcastB01 - Live Recording at the 2022 SWACUHO ConferenceWe have a special bonus episode of the SWACUHO Podcast today. We recorded live from the SWACUHO Annual Conference during session block 6 where we heard about some programs conference participants ended. Of course we dive into random topics related to our guests who were willing to volunteer their time and experience for the benefit of our region.On this episode we talk to:Nicki Neely, Assistant Residential Life Coordinator at The University of Texas at DallasJames Fairchild, Director of Housing at The University of North TexasTrish Snow, Area Coordinator at Texas Lutheran UniversityLaura Glasgow, Rresidential Life...
2022-02-2339 minSWACUHO Podcast006 - Student Staff Accountability: Demerits or Development? | Alana St. Cyr, Victor Salazar, and Jason Titus [Feature Topic]“This podcast has positive psychology and solutions-based counseling.” -Jason Titus, Ph.D.Today’s episode is another feature topic: student staff accountability. If the only times you think about staff accountability are when you are facing staffing situations, this episode will demonstrate the value in considering these topics when things are going fine to better position yourself and your department for when things inevitably go sideways. I’m joined today by Alana St. Cyr, Victor Salazar, and Jason Titus who help explore all things student staff accountability. Yes, that’s right. We are talking about the practicality of RA agre...
2022-02-071h 11SWACUHO Podcast005 - Reflections on Professional Families | Tanya Massey [Past President]We start off the New Year with a conversation with another SWACUHO Past President, Tanya Massey from Oklahoma State University. Tanya spent a number of years focusing on the human resources component of campus housing, so we dive into importance and nuance of recruitment and training staff. We then explore the value of developing small skills with long term career impact before jumping into association involvement. In that part of the conversation, Tanya discusses the challenges with balancing volunteerism, professional responsibilities, and personal/family lives. We of course end with some fun stories demonstrating the importance of “making work fu...
2022-01-031h 17SWACUHO Podcast004 - Preventative Maintenance: Solving Problems Before They Are Problems | Drew Jahr, Katy Pelton, and Miles Oller [Feature Topic]On today’s episode we explore the maintenance side of the house, specifically looking at solving problems before they are problems with preventative maintenance. Our three guests are Drew Jahr, Katy Pelton, and Miles Oller, all of whom began their professional career in residence life before moving into housing maintenance and operations. We first discuss the differences between residence life and maintenance, then we do a deep dive into the importance of looking upstream for continuity of facility service with preventative maintenance. It’s definitely a complex balancing act between proactive work and reactive work. Our guests provide plenty of r...
2021-12-061h 13SWACUHO Podcast003 - Resident Assistant Hiring Decisions | Craig Seager [Article Review]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...
2021-11-011h 11SWACUHO Podcast002 - Meaningful Moments in Campus Housing | Apefa Cooper and Maddie Reid [Book Club]We often talk about the experience students will have living in campus housing. When we look more closely, experiences are really just a series of moments, one after another after another. The book, The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, outlines four unique types of moments: (a) moments of elevation; (b) moments of insight; (c) moments of pride; and, (d) moments of connection. Our guests today are Apefa Cooper and Maddie Reid who talk about The Power of Moments and demonstrate how they engineered specific types of moments to provide a stronger overall experience for t...
2021-10-041h 07SWACUHO Podcast001 - Reflections From a Single Institution Career | Kent Sampson [Past President]On the inaugural episode of the SWACUHO Podcast, we talk to Past President Kent Sampson, who served as the SWACUHO President in 1980 and 1981. Kent reflects on his career, the entirety of which was spent at Oklahoma State University. Kent not only discusses being an internal candidate as he progressed at Oklahoma State, but also talks about trying to determine where the grass was greener when opportunities to leave came about. We then move into his involvement with SWACUHO that led him to the presidency role and the importance of visibility and timing. Kent imparts a lot of wisdom with...
2021-09-0942 min