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elevating and amplifying women's voices and issues in higher ed.
the uplift
Summer session with Mandy Balek-Stephens
For our summer session we’re running a fan favorite playlist: a combination of the most-listened-to episodes as well as listener favorites. Our Summer Session gives you a chance to revisit episodes you may not have heard in a while or even to listen to episodes you might have missed.
Today we're replaying Episode 24, Empathy & Gratitude: Mandy Balek Stephens on Mentoring Young Professionals. Mandy is School Director for the Schuler Scholars Program at Golda Meir School in Milwaukee. Here's your link to the episode's original show notes.
If you're enjoying the podcast, enter a chance to win a free book! Head over to Apple podcasts (or your fave platform) and leave a review on the uplift page. Once a month I'll randomly select one of that month's reviewers to receive a $20 gift certificate to bookshop.org. You get more summer reading, and I get to help you build your library! It's a win for us both.
So grab a nice tall glass of your favorite summer beverage, pull up your favorite outdoor chair or grab your hammock, and enjoy a few moments of summer, on me. I’ll be somewhere doing the same. 😎
Let's connect! Come find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.
I also coach women leaders (individually and in groups) and facilitate campus workshops. Learn more at the website.
Have a question about whether I can help you? Just ask! I actually love getting emails from listeners. 🧡
Hey there, welcome to Summer at the Uplift. For our summer session, we're running a fan favorite playlist a combination of the most listened to episodes as well as listener requests. Our summer session gives you a chance to revisit episodes you may not have heard in a while, or maybe even to listen to episodes you might have missed. You'll notice, at the end of each episode I tell you how you can be entered in a monthly drawing for a $20 gift certificate to bookshop. org. That's for real and that wasn't part of any of these original episodes. I added this giveaway because I was thinking what would summer be without a good reading list? So grab a nice tall glass of your favorite summer beverage, pull up your favorite outdoor chair, or even grab your hammock and enjoy a few moments of summer on me. I promise you I'm somewhere doing the same. Hey there, welcome to the Uplift podcast, where we talk all things leadership for women in higher ed Carole Chabries and I want to help make your leadership path a little easier, a bit brighter and a helluva lot more fun. Here at the Uplift, we mash up real stories, real feelings, real theory and occasional f**k bombs, all to help you become the kind of bleeping, awesome leader you would love to follow. I'm so glad you're here, let's jump in. Hey, welcome back. Let's get started with episode 24.
Carole Chabries:Earlier this fall, i had lunch with my friend and , and over two ginormous plates of nachos, we were sharing war stories about being women in the workplace. There's this thing that happens in the workplace, and I think it happens to everyone, but it has more serious ramifications for women than it does for men. At work, we are quote unquote allowed to say only things that certain other people consider appropriate. Now, the truth is, this kind of policing isn't limited to work. The truth is, we're socialized into this way of thinking from the time we're kids. We learned this at school, where classroom rules and playground rules are different. Many of us probably learned a version of this at the family dinner table, and this behavior turns social spaces like the dinner table or the classroom or the professional setting into the arbiters of social acceptability. I myself have done this, and sometimes I've done it with really good intentions. So, for example, my swears like a sailor daughter has been quite comfortable dropping all the F bombs and all the other bombs since she was three, and I used to remind her often that while those words were okay at home, they were probably not okay to use at school. And today you know, 13 years later. I'm pretty impressed with how fluently she shifts gears from pottymouth to prim, and in a way, i think this kind of socialization makes sense, whether it's about swearing or other types of behavior. I mean, that's how culture operates. People navigate spaces together, and families bear some responsibility for ensuring their kids know how to navigate the world. So a lot of good comes from this, but there are pieces of this that are insidious, and one of them is reinforcing unhealthy and harmful behaviors that then get normalized, which means that people who buck those unhealthy or harmful behaviors get disciplined and punished.
Carole Chabries:We've all seen this at play. If you have a position of any authority or power over anyone, you have likely used those norms to your advantage I mean, i used them with my three year old kid And if you've had relationships with someone who has power over you, these norms have been used against you. This is basically how the world operates, with those who claim authority setting the norms and everyone else left to maneuver within those norms and around those norms. This isn't news, right? I'm not telling you anything earth shattering, and we know that this is how racism and ethnocentrism, and misogyny and sexism and a host of other social structures grounded in patriarchal white supremacy are enacted and enforced on a daily basis. Most of us share in common this truth that we've all experienced that whole range. We've all been expected to behave certain ways because of some of those norms. We have all likely established and reified some of those norms in our interactions with others. And if you're a woman listening to this show, i'm pretty confident that you have bucked those norms one way or another and you've probably suffered consequences for doing so. And those consequences almost certainly changed in severity based on your age, your gender expression, your skin color, your perceived class status, your primary language and so on.
Carole Chabries:And none of this is news right. It just sets the stage for today's conversation, which I left back at the plate of nachos. So let's go back to those nachos, and I'm recording this at lunchtime So, in case you can't tell, i'm hungry. Mandy and I are both white women who have spent our careers in educational settings, and that means we've usually had bosses who look more or less like us And we've typically had staff who look more or less like us And we've often served at institutions whose students look more or less like us, and there are a million problems with this and we'll continue unpacking those over time and over many episodes. But for today and well, honestly, for the rest of November what I want to dig into more deeply is what the world of work is like and can be like when we seek out, embrace and support differences at work. And it was Mandy who really got me thinking about some practicalities about this. Mandy no longer works in a historically white institution. Instead, she's leading a program housed in one of Milwaukee's public schools, which means she's stepped out of a predominantly white context in higher ed into a more racially diverse and yet unevenly diverse context in the K-12 system.
Carole Chabries:So let me start there with Milwaukee's public schools, just to set some context. Milwaukee public schools, or MPS as we call it, is the largest school district in Wisconsin. Its most recently published data show that MPS enrolls approximately 78,000 students. 82% of those students are considered economically disadvantaged, 54% are black, 27% are Hispanic, 11% are white, 7% are Asian And then a much smaller percentage usually a fraction of a single percent identify as American, indian or Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander. Now, mps is somewhat, but not wholly, reflective of Milwaukee as a whole. As reported in 2020 census data, 38% of folks in Milwaukee identify themselves on the census form as black or African American. A slightly smaller percentage 34% identify themselves as white, 16% identify themselves as Hispanic and 4.5% identify themselves as Asian. Milwaukee itself is one of the most racially segregated cities in the US, and you can see how Milwaukee public schools demographics hint at some of that segregation, because, while more than a third of Milwaukee residents are white, only about one third of those students go to MPS schools, so the majority of white families are sending their kids somewhere else.
Carole Chabries:Within MPS we also see significant variation between schools. So, for example, my kids both attended one of MPS's public Montessori schools. The one they attended is called Maryland Avenue. We loved that school. It's here on the east side of Milwaukee, which is a very highly segregated, predominantly white community, and at Maryland Avenue, despite being a city-wide school, 60% of the students are white. My kids are now both in high school. My older kid attends Reagan College Preparatory High School, which is predominantly Hispanic. It's about half Hispanic, about a third white, and the remaining students are pretty evenly split between black and Asian, with less than 1% identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native. My younger kiddo attends Milwaukee High School of the Arts, which is predominantly black. Its student population is more than half black. It's about 20% Hispanic, about a 10th Asian, a 10th white again, with less than a half percent identifying as American Indian, Alaska Native and 0.2% identifying as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. So even in our highly segregated city you see pockets of different sorts of segregation in the public school system, even though, and maybe because of, families often choose which high school to send their kids to. So that's MPS for you.
Carole Chabries:Back to the nachos. Mandy and I are sharing stories about how challenging it is to be an outspoken white woman in a historically white institution, which is where we have spent much time in our careers. But Mandy was also telling me new stories. Well, they're new to me. They're new for catching up about what it's like for her to lead in a very different setting, because today Mandy works for a non-profit whose staff are not predominantly white folks and whose constituents are not predominantly white students and she's not serving white families. She does this work within the setting of another school in MPS. It's called Golda Meyers School. And Golda, like High School of the Arts, serves predominantly black students, though Golda's student population is 60% black, about 17% white, about 13% Hispanic, 4% Asian and, again with those less than 1% fractions of American Indian, native Alaskan and another 0.4% native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.
Carole Chabries:But Mandy doesn't actually work for MPS, so within Golda she's directing a program that is designed to serve historically and still excluded students. She's School Director of the Schuler Scholar Program at Golda. The Schuler Scholar Program is based in Chicago and it has historically worked in the Chicagoland area, and has recently recently expanding into Milwaukee. Schuler's mission is to equip high achieving and underrepresented students to gain access to and succeed at highly selective colleges and beyond. To date, Schuler has helped more than 1600 first generation students, students of color and low income students in Chicago and Milwaukee on their path to college and beyond.
Carole Chabries:In other words, Mandy is now in a setting where she gets to lead from a place where her power and privilege position her very differently. So at historically white institutions and I'm speaking in generalities here I'm not being particular to Mandy's experiences, but in general at historically white institutions white women's efforts to promote inclusion and belonging are sometimes superficial, sometimes self serving, sometimes they're authentic, and I don't want to downplay the women who are doing that work, but a lot of times the work is more self serving and cosmetic than not, and we're going to dig into that even more in a few episodes, so stay tuned. However, now working for Schuler and situated within Golda, Mandy is in a unique position to use her voice and her power to lift others and, in particular, to give them space to grow in the ways they choose for themselves. What I became very interested in listening to Mandy and eating my nachos was the ways that she's breaking open the idea of quote unquote professionalism by modeling ways to support young professionals who are historically excluded, silenced, policed and told how to behave. And she supports them by helping them chart their own paths, not in spite of their boss, but alongside and with the support of their boss. This, my friends, is something of a radical concept for those of us who have spent our careers in higher ed.
Carole Chabries:I've worked with a number of institutions and leaders across the country and I think what Mandy's doing is atypical in higher ed. In higher ed, we are not known for creating professional pipelines for employees. We are not known for charting paths for growth. We are known for gatekeeping. We are known for pretending that merit is why you advance. So I think it's especially radical for white women supporting young professionals of color, this idea that the young professional is the person with the authority and the expertise to author their own success.
Carole Chabries:I loved listening to Mandy talk about this and I wanted to explore it more. So, my friends, I bring you my conversation with Mandy Balek-Stephens. Okay, almost, because I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Mandy before we dive into our conversation. Mandy is passionate about working with diverse student populations who are exploring Whether they are exploring their majors, exploring whether to transfer institutions, exploring how to go to college or even exploring their identities. So, as I told you, Mandy currently serves as a school director for the Schuler Scholar program at Golda Meier School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Golda serves students from third through twelfth grade as part of MPS, and the Schuler Scholar program serves some of Golda's high school students through its mission of equipping bright, motivated youth with support to succeed at college and beyond. For the students she advises and for her staff and for her colleagues.
Carole Chabries:Mandy is committed to people's professional growth and personal discernment. Mandy is an emerging leader in the world of advising students and guiding them to success in higher education and in their professions. She was an active member of the global community for academic advising, nacada, for many years And she remains an active LGBTQIA advocate, advisor and ally. Before joining the team at Schuler, Mandy was director of academic advising services at Carroll University and prior to that she advised students at the University of Wisconsin Parkside. Alright, my friends, I bring you my conversation with Mandy
Mandy Balek-Stephens:There you go, you are now.
Carole Chabries:I'm bummed we didn't catch that on her question. Hey, Carole, did you hit record? Okay, should we try again. Mandy, i'm so excited you're on the show.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Welcome to the uplift. Thank you, i'm so excited to be here, Carole. It's great to see you today.
Carole Chabries:Oh, my gosh right, we're actually seeing each other too. That's kind of fun. So, Mandy, we've been talking about how awesome you are as a supervisor. We've been talking about that in our real life, and I want you to have a chance to talk about that to the folks on the other end of the podcast. So I'm hoping you can start with sharing your path to becoming a supervisor and tell us a little bit of what you experienced as you were being bossed around by others that helped you shape your approach to being a leader and mentor and guide for others.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Sure, I think, starting out as a young professional in higher education, I had some really wonderful supervisors that I call mentors and have called friends for a very long time, and I think that's part of it right, like seeing the good in those people, even when parts of the job are hard, when you receive hard feedback, when you may not as you know a young professional in an entry level position feel like the decisions that are being made are the ones that you know are going to benefit students in the best way possible, and having your own judgments on that. But then seeing the bigger picture and I had a lot of folks that allowed me that time to grow and time to kind of settle into myself as a professional. I've been called a spitfire before and I am still a spitfire sometimes, but I've had some wonderful guidance and mentoring along the way that has really allowed me to kind of take a step back, not be reactionary and really work with those that I mentor and supervise now instead of supervising them Right.
Carole Chabries:Right, that's such an important difference. I think I came to that distinction very late in my life as a leader. I don't know if you are open to this, but I would love to hear a story or two, especially. you know, is there a story about you being a spitfire, or is there a story about you receiving hard feedback or being shown a bigger picture that, like shifted your perspective? If there are any of those particular stories you're open to sharing, I'd love to hear them. So I think one of the earlier stories.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:I was working as an academic advisor in an advising office for exploring students at my first full-time gig in higher ed and at that time I was very young, you know, early to mid-20s did not have a family, and a lot of those students were first and second year students.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:A lot of them were first generation students, like I was, but a lot of them had a lot of parental or familial presence with them when coming in because obviously they had family members that were very concerned that they were helping to pay for an education or helping support the student in their journey through their education, without a particular destination right, not a degree that they were working towards per se, no major that they, you know, were in, and this is what you need to do, and I was helping them find their way, helping them explore their options, and they had time to do that.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:But it's really hard for a student to explain that to a parent who never went to college, who has a two-year degree, that was very prescriptive, and so I had a lot of parents, grandparents, guardians showing up at my door, knocking on the door, saying that I was a, saying that I wasn't helping their child or helping their student along or questioning my guidance that I was giving the student, and so a lot of times they would ask to see my supervisor and my supervisor would walk in the room and, you know, say the same exact things that I was saying to them and their student and I would be a little upset.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:I would be like I said the exact same thing, you know, like it just irked me and I think after that first year of being an advisor I sat down with my supervisor and we had a conversation about the big picture of things, life, right, like I'm very young in this position, parents don't see me as a professional yet. Parents don't see me being a person that can really help their child find their way, because I don't have a lot of personal experience yet or professional experience. What do I know?
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And really being able to like put myself in that parent or grandparent or guardian or family member, adult, loving adults position and seeing it from their point of view and having those conversations when it happened really helped me to be like, okay, i just need to listen, i need to sit and I need to listen and I need to do my best to explain what the school's take on exploring is not what my take on that was, not being defensive because of what I said to their student, but really listening and taking that in and answering the questions to the best of my ability and saying when I didn't know something, and being able to like learn not only with the students, because I was really good at that.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:I was really good at learning with the student and looking something up or finding the answer with the student, but with those adults I got into defensive mode. I remember those conversations and I remember being in that seat and, like my first annual review, i cried because I was getting great feet and trying to put it all together right and so I just put myself you know, tying it into how I do my work. Now I put myself in that role of like a new professional. What did I need, what did I want, what didn't I know, and I try to help them along their way by putting myself back in their shoes.
Carole Chabries:There's so much I love in that story, like I think you're really lucky that somebody early in your career taught you the importance of listening and taught you the importance of listening, not to obey. It's not like you needed to listen to your directions better, but you needed to listen to be empathetic. I sometimes feel like one of our biggest flaws in all the different kinds of marketing communications in higher ed whether that's a one on one conversation or it's a flyer or it's a promotional video. I think we're really good in higher ed at saying you, the student needs something, and we have it. And I think we're not nearly as good at saying, oh, what do you think you need? And let me help you understand how what I'm offering solves your problem for you or gives you the thing you're looking for.
Carole Chabries:Like you're so fortunate to have learned to listen with empathy early on And I love that. Now that's part of the work you do, but it's also part of your leadership with young professionals, and so I realized this makes me realize I didn't ask you to talk about what you do at the Schuler program, so let's take a little tangent and talk about your current role.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Sure, so, as you probably said in my bio, i'm the school director for the Schuler Scholar Program at Golda Meir School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we're a new program in Milwaukee. So Schuler has been around for a little over 20 years Chicago land area and they decided to kind of spread out their service to underrepresented students into Wisconsin and Milwaukee. So I was hired to start up our new partnership program at Golda three years ago. And now we have two partnership programs in Milwaukee. So it's super fun. And I've been able to take part in adding the other school also.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:So what I do is, I always tell myself, my number one focus is them. I mentor young professionals that work directly with our students for anything from one on ones with academic skill development and reading and writing enrichment to group sessions with those students helping them find their way through the high school curriculum into college. And I have two Scholar coaches that are more or less work with our underclassmen to get them the skills and abilities they need to do well in high school. And then we have an educational counselor that counsel students that are maybe struggling or upper-classmen students that have a jump in rigor their junior and senior year to get to highly selective colleges and universities that we work with across the country. And then we have a college counselor on staff that works with the college- going process Everything from working with the students on learning how to research colleges, what they're looking for and fit factors that they don't even know that they have when looking at colleges and doing that research, to working with the parents of these students on that college process.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And then my number two is working with parents. So we work with students going into sophomore year all the way through senior year, and so I am the main contact for parents learning what their student is going through, helping the parents to help their students, helping support the parents in all these transitions of students going through and understanding what they're going through, being that main person that they can come to. And three is working with the school that we're in, so working with those teachers and administrators to make sure that we are not getting in the way that we are actually helping our scholars, but also helping the school to help the counselors add a layer of, you know, some college counseling, some knowledge that they may or may not need some help with for getting their students at Golda in general to highly selective colleges and universities.
Carole Chabries:Who's your other partner school right now in Milwaukee?
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Riverside.
Carole Chabries:University. If I had a really good arm, I could hit them with a rock from here.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Well, I'm there once a week right now because my counterpart is on maternity leave, So I may have to stop by.
Carole Chabries:Oh yeah, that'd be great. Your job sounds like it's partly leading young professionals And I want you to talk a little bit about who comes to work at Schuler. You've painted a nice picture of who your students are, and then it sounds like part of your work is coaching parents, which sounds a lot like the story you just told, like listening with empathy and helping them connect what their student is experiencing at home and what their student is experiencing and has available to them through the Schuler program. Let's go back to that first part, where you're, where you're setting the tone and leading a group of young professionals. Tell us who comes to work at Schuler in these coaches and counselor positions. What draws them to Schuler, what are they like? What are they like as humans And what are they like as young professionals? Just kind of give us a picture of who your staff is.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Yeah, so I have a hard time describing them because they're so unique in their individual selves. And I feel like our team at Gold is a little unique for Schuler also. But in general, folks that come and work for Schuler either have been scholars themselves. So we have a lot of returning like what's a scholar? A Schuler scholar that went to a school down in Chicago land graduates from their college experience. They come back and work because they see the impact that Schuler made on their life and their process and their family's process of, you know, going to college and supporting that. And so one of my staff was a former scholar and is now working at Golda as a scholar coach.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Many of the staff want to work with students that are underrepresented at the college level because they have seen that at the universities and colleges they've gone to And they really believe that education in general has a service that we need to provide for those families of students that may not really look to go to college because they don't know what they don't know. And some of the Schuler staff just have huge hearts. They have hearts for education. They want to work in education and get some experience before you know, kind of moving into leadership opportunities in different realms of education.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:I think that things have shifted with how we do our programming and things because of the pandemic, which has been interesting, and the folks that we're attracting has shifted a little bit in. You know what they're looking for in their job, but a lot of huge hearts and motivated folks work for Schuler. And I just think that their motivation to help and their motivation because of their own concerns that they have seen and what they've learned about education diversity in education really drives them to do the work that they do. Some of our like counseling positions so like mid-level positions have come from higher ed. So, like my college counselor that works with us on our team, she worked two years in admissions at a highly selective college or university And so she worked at one of the Schuler colleges for a couple of years before coming to Schuler. So we do have a lot of folks such as her and myself that come from higher ed and want to work with the high schoolers and their families before going into college also.
Carole Chabries:I love this. It sounds like, whether you're talking about the coaches, who sound like fresh college grads, or the counselors, that everybody's there for the mission, and I think a lot of. It's kind of one of my pet peeves about colleges and universities that we say, oh, we're here for the mission, and sometimes missions are so generic And I don't mean that unkindly, but like if you were to look at mission statements from across the country like a lot of them are really similar And so being in it for the mission is not necessarily a particularity. But your program has a very particular mission and a very particular audience and very particular goals And it sounds like the people who come there are wholeheartedly behind and into and invested in the success of traditionally and still currently underrepresented students in preparing for and succeeding at college life.
Carole Chabries:Yes, so when you get a group of staff who actually feel like that passion for the mission in their bodies, they probably come to work a little bit differently than a person showing up for a job in a more generic way. So tell us a little bit about how you welcome them in, how you bring them into the Schuler program And you can talk about. You know, talk about whatever you want, but I'm interested in the anything you need to do. That's particular to Schuler. And then I'm also interested in some of the things that I know you do as a supervisor to start building those trusting, successful relationships that will give your staff the kind of mentoring that you valued as a young professional. So tell us a little bit about how how folks get started when they start working with you.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Sure, and each team is a little different. Each position has their own training that they do with their teams. So Schuler has trainings right for each position that they do. We're, all you know, trained on our vision and mission and goals and all of those fun things. A lot of work is done on how to work with students and how to have that listening ear, and a lot of enrichment work goes into our staff at the beginning and throughout their time with us. For me personally, I think that's all great. They need that, we all need that.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:But what's unique about Schuler is that each school, each partnership school, has their own team, and so I get to one, build my team and supervise my team and work with my team in kind of my own way. And so one of the first conversations that I have when a new staff joins our team is establishing that foundation of what Golda is about, how we have partnered with Golda, what that relationship is about and really asking them what they want out of our relationship as a team, as a whole team, and then my relationship with them. And part of that conversation is we all come to a job because we want to do X, and a lot of these folks want help students. And that's why we get into education. But I learned very early on that like it's not all about how staff can help students. It's about how I can help them develop, how I can help them get the skills, gain the skills and knowledge and abilities that they feel they can gain from their current position to move forward in their professional lives. So if that's a move forward with Schuler and, you know, be able to be promoted into a new role at some point.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Or if that's outside of Schuler because in education you know, entry level positions those folks usually stay for two to three years and that's about it And that's just the reality.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And I want to help them like understand that but also get what they need out of this job to be successful later. Or if that's, you know, right now I have a staff person that is looking at grad schools right, let's do that research together, let's talk about that. Let's really like lay a foundation that you can do whatever that next step is, and so that's something that we talk about right away. That's something that I come back to a lot within. You know their time with me and it's always changing and adapting and our conversations grow And it's important for them to see that I value, yes, what they're doing with our students and for our team, but I also value what I and the team can give to them in their growth as a person, which, as a young professional, i receive, but not as transparently and directly as I make sure to be. I think it's important for them to see that that is important, and I feel it's important for them.
Carole Chabries:There's so much. That's so great in that I'm reflecting on conversations I've had over the years with folks, including myself, having bosses who were not interested in my ambition. They saw my ambition as a threat, not necessarily to them personally, but if I had an ambition and it meant I would leave, then that chilled their interest in mentoring me because I didn't want to invest in someone who was leaving. And I don't think that's atypical. I think that happens a lot And I also in my last role I had responsibility for campus wide professional development and I remember talking to a group of staff who were serving as a committee to kind of be the ear of all staff, and someone young on that committee saying I wish there were pipelines. I don't know what would be next for me if I stayed at this university. What would I move into from this role?
Carole Chabries:And I think there often aren't pipelines in staff positions in higher ed. But the pipeline potential is what you're describing. The pipeline is not saying this goes back to what we're saying earlier, it's not like what I can give you, it's what you want, what's that person's path, and I have always believed this. I think you and I are sometimes outliers in this regard, like my job is to help that person find their next thing, even if it's not a path at this institution. So I love that like you're combining your listening, your empathy, your advising skills, kind of taking the same model that you offer the Schuller scholars of helping them prepare for the next thing and replicating that in a professional way with your staff.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:That sounds so beautiful, right, like it sounds so easy, but it's not. It's so not easy. And it's not an easy conversation to start having when you've never had it before And you've never had someone do it with you.
Carole Chabries:Yeah, like maybe the students had that conversation with a college advisor choosing a major and they probably have had someone in their family or their personal lives say, well, what are you going to be when you grow up? But that's all really different from somebody with professional experience helping you chart your next best steps. How do you put yourself on the path towards the things you really want to chase in life?
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Right, and I've found that one of the things that come up in these conversations that we continue to have as team members and building that rapport and foundation of you know how can I help you get to your next step is a lot of us helpers don't see the skills and abilities that we bring to the table. We see what everyone else brings to the table, but we can't you know, we can't put out there what we bring to the table, or we don't know what the next step could be, because we don't really take the time to see ourselves and to be confident in what we bring. And so that is something that I make sure to talk about is you have these skills and abilities. I saw it in you in your interview. I see it in you every day. I'm seeing these things. Let's learn how you can talk about them so that you can start making connections with where you want to go. But also, like when you're ready to make that step, let's talk about how to talk about it with those professionals that you're going to sit down and interview with.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Or let's talk about how to put that in your resume or cover letter or whatever that new job, if that's a promotion here and you have to go through a process, or if that's going out somewhere else, how can you talk about yourself in a way that's humble, right, but also really showing what you bring to the table, because you bring a lot and educators have a really hard time seeing what they bring to the table. And I feel that way about myself when I look for a new role or a new challenge, and so I've had some great mentors along the way that have helped me see that. But also my wife is awesome. Jenna makes me see that and pounds it into my head also, as I do for her. And you know, you need to surround yourself by those people that see those things in you, and as a supervisor and as a team leader, i need to be that person.
Carole Chabries:This reminds me of something Susi Keefe said when I was talking to her about her students at Hamline, and she shared a story about her student, Mike Zhang, who she identified as a leader, and when he heard that from her he was like what? And she had the same conversation with him about being able to articulate what he did well and being comfortable saying those things in a resume, a cover letter, in a job interview. And when I think about that story and she was her program has a high rate of traditionally underrepresented students, and so does your program, and I think about the intersectional identity challenges that people face when it comes to acknowledging how awesome they are and how hard that can be, not just to see but to say out loud, to not be punished for. To say it in a way that you have to balance talking about what you're really good at with knowing how people are hearing you, based on all of the visible identities that you're bringing to the table, and it makes you all the biases people have about. However it is, you're representing yourself, intentionally or otherwise.
Carole Chabries:So I think for your this is the long winded way of saying I think for your students and for your, your staff, there's an added layer of challenge there that they've probably been running up against even as college students and they might continue to run up against in the workplace, and what a gift it is to have a supervisor help them figure out what to what they want to do about that. How did they want to present themselves? how do they practice presenting themselves, get confident presenting themselves? I mean, that alone is a whole professional development piece, aside from building the skills that then you're going to confidently talk about to others. That's, you do a lot of work leading and mentoring this stuff. Thank you.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And that's hard for me to even hear, right like because I'm one of those educators that I feel like it's just my job. but it is different. And it's different.
Carole Chabries:Do you have any stories you are comfortable sharing about specific examples of times when you've had conversations like this with anyone on your team and what that's been like for you or for them, or for both of you together?
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Sure, i've had multiple conversations in the two jobs where I was a team leader, about promotion, about seeing something in my staff member that I wanted them to push themselves and utilize in a different way, because they deserved that job more than anyone else either at the organization or not at the organization and would have to apply. And so I remember talking to a past colleague and friend about taking a promotion and what that would look like. But being able to explain the role and also being able to explain what she brought, that I saw fit in that role, was something I really thought about before making that phone call and having that conversation. And so what I learned from that experience is to be ready to do that, because I didn't think I thought about it as much as, like, I need her in this position and I think we all think that, like, we have this great person, we want them to get the promotion. We just need them there because they already know what they need to know, right, they can just take that next step and being able to break that down and really pull in directly, talking about why. Directly talking about why I saw that she had those skills and why I wanted her in that position instead of just saying I want you to have this, this is what you deserve. It's why do you deserve this and what are you bringing to that? and so I tried to do that.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Now I had a staff member on my team still that took a promotion after a first year of working with me, and we talked about that for a really long time, before I even knew that that position was going to be able to be hired for, and so we talked about you know what she needed to learn before going for that position The skills that I wanted her to gain in her first year with us.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:That so that she could talk to that position and being able to talk about how she could sell herself to the position, even though she doesn't have all the skills and abilities yet, and how her growth now can continue as we grow the program and as that position gains more students and gains more responsibility as our, as our team grew and as the groups of students that we served grew. So, being very direct and to the point and, even when it's hard to articulate, having the time to reflect on the words you want to use to that person, but also to those that you know me, as a supervisor of this team reported to to articulate that team members value that they brought and why I thought that they would be a good fit.
Carole Chabries:I know that you mentioned planning, but I think we often don't take the time to really think through the pieces of those important conversations. Even if they're not hard conversations, they're still important. And going into a conversation like that, thoughtfully, is so important and makes such a difference in the tone of the conversation and the outcome of the conversation. So I'm really glad that that's a, that's a practice you're lifting up for others to contemplate, just not because I think people don't want to be, don't want to make plans, but because we often we live in a world where we don't always have the time, but it's important to make. Take that time.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:It reminds me of something that we talked about last week with our office hour for the Leadership Academy is when you take that time to reflect, to do something that is going to help you or your team, or if that's personal or professional, it's not taking time away from something else, right, and taking that time is not going to. You know it's not. It's not something you need to be guilty about.
Carole Chabries:I have a prior colleague who used to use the phrase go slow to go fast, and it's the whole concept is slow down at the front end, because if you go into something with a better plan, you'll spend less time down the road correcting and backtracking and making up for all the things you forgot to do, so you actually gain speed and momentum by following a clearer path from the outset. Yeah, so let's shift gears a little bit. I love the. I like have this picture. I've actually seen Schuler Space because my daughter went to an event there, but I have this picture of what the those one-on-one conversations can look like with your staff.
Carole Chabries:I'd love to hear a little bit more about the group and I know you've got some deep commitment to creating a space that feels and I remember in your old office right, that was just, it was colorful and it was cheery and it had nice lighting and it was super welcoming and it was very inclusive. I know that creating an environment is really important to you And part of creating an environment is what's the word I'm looking for, kind of like hospitality. What are the events you host? What are the activities the team does? What do you all do together that you design specifically to help the team feel like a team.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Yeah, that's a great question And I think that differs depending on the team composition, right? So our first year and a half of being at Golda we were virtual, so that was very hard. I actually hired three staff fully virtually and worked with them fully virtually for the first so long. But I think you know now that we're back in person and we can do those things. One is establishing, you know, that rapport and I believe in team building. I believe in being people together before trying to work together.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:So we do fun team building activities. They've been to my house for like retreats. We do team building activities, we eat lunch together, we do work right, but in a different setting. We get out of the school in different ways, see the community so that we can learn more about the community that we serve. One of the things that we do monthly during the school year is professional development, where each team member takes a month and we bring whatever we want to to the group. So that could be. You know, someone is interested in learning about writing, some sort of you know skills based writing that they can do with scholars. So they find an article about teaching young students how to write in a certain way And we all read that article and we come to discuss and that team member leads the discussion for us or has a student activity around that.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:One of the things that I have done really at all of my jobs is a gratitude professional development opportunity. So, for example, last year I took one of my months for my PD and I sent a TED talk about gratitude in the workplace and how that creates a culture in your workplace, and so I sent this TED talk video ahead of time and we came and we discussed the video. But then also you know how we can practice gratitude in our personal and professional lives I gave them each a gratitude journal that I still see come out once in a while, even though it's been, you know, months since. We did it so that they knew that they could take the time to do the reflection that they wanted or need to. And we also did a fun activity which I have done with my peer advisors in my past role, where we made bags and we put our names on them and decorated them. So it was a fun little creative art activity. But then we hung them on the wall and throughout the next week or two we wrote little notes to each other about why we were grateful for each other and like why we were grateful for the team, and then everyone could take their bag and read their notes and have something that was somewhere safe, that if they needed to pick me up, if they needed to remember why we do what we do, we can take that out. And so that was fun and wonderful.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And I also am very aware that, like, some folks don't take that in very easily And so we talked about that also. But you know, just little things. That didn't cost me any money. It costed what our team we took an hour to do that little activity and however long it took for each of us to write notes to the different team members, but it added so much. It added belonging, it added the sense of how we can help support each other and not just support students. So I think it's important to do those things. You know to have those days where no students are there so you can get up and do something fun with the team, have lunch with the team, go for a walk out, you know, during the day, and, you know, bring a fun question. We do fun questions with students all the time, but why not do it with staff right To just have a little bit of time to get to know each other outside of what we do in our activity? I might borrow that activity I really like.
Carole Chabries:I really like the idea that you start something in a staff meeting and it lives on, so that over the course of a couple weeks, you know I don't have to sit in the meeting and write a write a thank you note to everybody, and which would start to feel mechanical, But if instead, as I go about work, I can take a moment to scribble a note down and go drop it in a bag And I can feel it's more authentic, it's more kind of spontaneous, it's more reflective of something that's actually happening. That's just. It's a great activity.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And I do have to say that I totally sold activity from Jenny Bloom and appreciative advising.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:I went to the appreciative advising I forget what it's called conference and every participant had a bag on the wall with their name on it.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:When we got there and throughout the week that we were spending with this group of people that I only knew one you know a couple of people throughout the week we could grab a piece of paper and jot a note to whomever we were in a session with that we wanted them to know we saw something in them or they said something that hit us in a great way or whatever, and we put them in the bag so that at the end of the week long workshop we got to take our bag with us. So I totally stole it. It's not mine, i'm sorry, Jenny, you know would say to steal it, but I've used it multiple times and it just brings that sense of belonging, that sense of gratitude to the space that is just coming out. And I will look that up and also the TED talk that you mentioned, and we'll drop those in the show notes so folks can see those if they're curious to learn more.
Carole Chabries:I think maybe my favorite thing about that activity for a staff and this probably happened at the conference, but the lasting impact would be different.
Carole Chabries:I think sometimes at work we shy away from emotions, right, like so, don't cry, don't get angry.
Carole Chabries:You know, be professional, have your face on, have your veneer, and what your activity describes is not only recognizing that being seen and valued might cause an emotional response that you need some time and privacy to process, and I think that's just true. I think that's true for most people, and to make that space at work is unique and, i think, valuable. It's also, i think, really important for teams, if they're really going to be successful, to have affection for each other, and you can't build that if you don't have I mean, it's an emotion, right, you can't build affection and care if you don't make space not only to get to know each other but to start to have feelings. And so I love the way that your mentoring helps students see what they're good at, learn how to talk about their strengths and their talents, start to get comfortable with having emotions at work in a way that is authentic for them and also contributes to a deeper team relationship. There's a lot going on in your leadership, Mandy.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Sometimes more than I realize.
Carole Chabries:So, before we wrap up, i want to know if there's anything you wish I had asked you or anything you really want to talk about that you want to insert into this blank moment right here.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:I think we covered a lot of ground. We did, I think you know. The only other thing is there's a lot of talk in higher ed about being authentic, and sometimes that word, depending on how someone uses it, I shy away from because it's out there a lot and a lot of of chatter around that word. And you know I think the other word is transparency. Right in higher ed you hear that a lot but then you don't really see it. And I think you know, for me it's more about bringing my whole self and establishing the rapport and the relationship so that others can feel like they can bring their whole self when they're ready. And for some people that takes a very long time and you may never see them for the full person that they are. And some people are more open to that And you can't push it on someone. You can't make them feel safe or make them feel like they can be fully present.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And so I just try to be mindful of that every day and mindful of what I'm bringing to the table. And we always talk about, you know, showing, showing students. It's normal to do X, y and Z. We're all human beings, you know, and I think that's part of with my staff is, if I'm not bringing my whole self and I'm not transparent about where my decisions are coming from or what my reaction is, or why I'm having the reaction that I'm having, they're not going to feel comfortable doing that. And so my team knows that sometimes I can react to something and then I'm like, okay, i just had that reaction. This is why we can talk about this and come to a resolution that my first reaction may not be in line, the same line with what we come to, and that's okay.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And so I think you know it's hard to do that, especially when we're trying to establish ourselves as, like, the leader or the person that gets to make the ultimate decision, or that we're told we are making the ultimate decision. But I want to hear from them, i want to hear their opinions, i want to hear their ideas, and the only way to do that is to be, you know, transparent with them and say it. But also show that. Show that they're what their ideas are, what they have to say matters. And when maybe someone brings something that you don't decide to go with or not, go in that direction. Be transparent about why, because if we're not transparent about why they may take that back and be like my opinion doesn't matter, and so that's the one thing I guess.
Carole Chabries:When I used to teach creative writing, w e often referenced the old saw, show, don't tell. And what I hear you describing is showing and telling that you have to be explicit and you have to model it. And if you're only explicit but you don't model it, you lose credibility. And if you only model it but you're not clearly articulating what you're doing when you model it, then you risk having the message lost or misunderstood. I like this show and tell. Show and tell with Mandy, show and tell with Mandy. Oh, sometimes I crack myself up. I imagine I'm not the only person who's feeling super energized learning about what life is like at Schuler. So I know the program at Golda is new and the program at Riverside is even newer, but at Golda or Schuler, what sort of successful outcomes do you see for Schuler scholars?
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Yeah, so we tend to have students that want to go to highly selective colleges and universities And our goal is that they gain the abilities, skills and abilities to do well at that school and be successful at that school and not only graduate in four years but also walk out with little to no debt.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:And so that's part of that partnership with that college. And what makes Schuler unique is we work in the schools full time with our students, so we're not just an after school program like a lot of college access programs, but also we we keep in contact with our college scholars and we have programming for them also. We also have different programs for the transition to college. Before they go, some programming through their first and second year and then a lot of programming third and fourth year about the next step, finding a career, finding a grad school if that's something that you want to do, all of those sorts of things. And so we don't just say goodbye after high school. We definitely keep in contact and make sure that they feel supported all the way through that college process.
Carole Chabries:And that that helps bring the circle for me at least together, because it makes a lot more sense that a student who has that college experience would want to come back to Schuler. And now they're they're part of making sure that more students have that great experience. I love how comprehensive and kind of wrap around it is. Yeah, it's really cool. So I've learned things I didn't know about Schuler today, so that was awesome. I've learned things I didn't know about you, which is awesome. And I've learned things I haven't really articulated or thought about in terms of leadership and supervising, so that's awesome. All that makes me kind of triply grateful for this conversation.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Thank you. I'm super grateful to be having it and to be able to articulate some of these things that I don't really think about doing.
Carole Chabries:I just do just right, um, some other time. I want to have a conversation about the point you made about having responses at work, because I think there's a whole investigation into how leaders to use your words bring their whole selves to work, which means you are sometimes going to have responses that are not institutionally sanctioned but they're legit. And what do you do with that? But so stay tuned for part two. Sounds good.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:All right.
Carole Chabries:Thanks, Mandy.
Mandy Balek-Stephens:Thank you, this was fun.
Carole Chabries:Oh yep, there is a lot to ponder there. I'm going to drop some links in the show notes for you. I'll link to Schuler programs website so you can learn more. I'll also link to a few TED talks about gratitude, including how gratitude rewires the brain and the value of incorporating gratitude into your teaching practice So something you can use if you're currently teaching students.
Carole Chabries:Before we close out the episode, though, i want to share one more thing I admire about Mandy. Like many of us, she is devoted to her family her wife Jenna, her son Roman and their pup Seeger. They spend much of the summer kayaking, hiking and spending time at the beach, which is just another way. Mandy is a role model for me. I love how much time she gives to her family, and I make a pledge in 2023 to do more of that. But it's not just that I admire Mandy for spending time with her family. What I really am taking away from her personal growth is that she sought out an organization that would honor her space as a whole person, and she's crafting a career there. So Mandy truly works a full time job, And I just want to pause over that. I don't mean what many of us experience in higher ed right, a full time job where we are constantly on, constantly available working evenings, early mornings and weekends, donating a lot of our time, volunteering, simply to accomplish the endless amount of work that's piled on our plates. I don't mean that And also don't get me wrong I love hard work as much as the next person, probably more than the next person, much to my family's chagrin. I love working hard, i love making a difference, but I'll tell you what I am freaking over sacrificing my happiness and my emotional balance and my time with the people. I love simply to work endless hours for organizations that exploit labor. So freaking. Done with that. So not only has Mandy found professional work with an organization that gives her the time and space she wants to be a full human, but she also then models that for her young staff, and so this takes us full circle, back to where I started the episode.
Carole Chabries:Mandy's way of working means she's creating a social space that acculturates young professionals into a set of norms, and those norms show them that they matter, that their desires and their needs and their goals and their aspirations and their voice matter. Now her staff may struggle to find those norms again in future jobs, but at least because they've seen them, they'll know what those norms look like, they'll know whether they want them And they have in Mandy an ally who will help them fight for those norms, if that's what they choose in their future. That's what I admire The way Mandy can be lighthearted and say I spent a lot of time with my family at the beach and kayaking and hiking and playing with the pup. It's not just that. She can say that, it's that that's part of her professional identity. That's what she's showing young professionals they can have.
Carole Chabries:So today I'm thinking how can we all be a little bit more like Mandy? How can we identify behaviors and practices and ways of being at work that we can model for the staff around us, whether they're reporting to us or working alongside us? So this is my challenge for you this week Choose someone at work, someone relatively new in their professional growth, and identify one thing you can do to help that person claim ownership over their professional growth, over their professional space and their professional track. What supportive conversations can you start? What doors can you open? What alternative, empowering ways of being at work Can you make visible, can you make possible for someone else? One thing just choose one small thing and choose someone new in their career, help them see an alternative to the norm, and then do it, just do it. Do that one thing And that's it Go. Do one thing and then drop me a note and let me know what you tried and let me know how it goes. I can't wait to hear from you. Thanks for joining and thanks for taking me up on this challenge, and I'll see you next week Music playing.
Carole Chabries:Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Uplift Summer Session. I am picturing you listening while swinging in a hammock in the shade with your favorite book nearby. And speaking of books, can I buy you one? Here's the deal I'll make you I'll enter you in a monthly drawing for a $20 gift certificate at bookshoporg If you will head over to your podcast platform and leave me a review Once a month. I'll choose a winner at random and if your name is chosen, i'll thank you on air and send you your gift certificate. This way, you get some great summer reading and I get to help you build your library. After all, i'm the granddaughter of a librarian, so sharing books with people is one of my great joys. So head on over to your podcast platform, or even Apple Podcasts, where it might be easier. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the Uplift and leave your review.