Keystone Concepts in Teaching: A Higher Education Podcast from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning

S2 E16: How Do We Support Our "Contemporary Students"?

• Stearns Center • Season 2 • Episode 16

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Dr. Joisanne Rodgers and Shyama Kuyver from the Contemporary Student Services office join us to talk about who are our contemporary students and how we can support them in their educational journey. 

Resources: Contemporary Student Services Office:  https://contemporary.gmu.edu 

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Rachel:

Hello, and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in Teaching podcast. I'm your host Rachel Yoho, and I'm very excited to be joined by two special guests for this episode. We are joined today by Dr. Joisanne Rodgers, who's the Director of the Contemporary Student Services Office and Shyama Kuver the Associate Director of the Contemporary Student Services Office, both here at George Mason University. So thank you both so much for joining us.

Joisanne:

We're so excited to be here with you.

Rachel:

Yeah. So as we get started, would you be interested in telling us a little bit about either, whichever you'd like to do first, who are our contemporary students and maybe a little bit about your office.

Joisanne:

Absolutely. So contemporary students here at Mason really means post-traditional students and off-campus students. Now post-traditional may not have cleared that up as much as you wanted it to. So when I talk about post-traditional students, we're talking about adult learners, but also we're talking foster care alumni, pregnant, preparing to parent, parenting, or caregiving students, system impacted students, which can also include justice impacted students. Our transfer students, which is the big population here at Mason, but also our veteran and military affiliated folks So it's a really big mix of students at Mason, but also most of Mason students fall into one or more of those categories of being a post-traditional student or being an off-campus student.

Rachel:

Yeah, it definitely sounds like with those, we're talking about a huge group of students, and so maybe you could expand a little bit about, you know, who they are, what does this mean for the university, what this means for perhaps your office and what your perhaps day-to-day looks like.

Shyama:

Yeah, that's a great question Rachel. Mason has been known to be a commuter campus school that is really dedicated to its community. And our community is made up of people who are working full time, who are caretakers for children and parents and spouses, and even siblings. And we see that on our campus all the time and being situated where we are, we also have people who are government affiliated and military affiliated. And so we are at this really unique and very interesting environment, and it allows us to meet so many incredible students because of where we're placed in Northern Virginia. And our students are made up of people who aren't just one thing, right? So our students aren't just students. The experience of working with people who are adult learners who are over 25 and going to school to pursue an undergraduate degree may not seem so normal. But when you're at a place like Mason, it is actually quite normal. And here at Mason, they comprise quite a bit of our students. At Mason, almost 85% of our students are contemporary students. They commute to campus, they're care taking, they're working full-time. So it makes for a really interesting environment where our students have a lot to bring to the classroom.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. What else could you help us understand this wide and varied and very diverse group of students?

Joisanne:

Yeah, Rachel, I think we can come at that a couple different ways. And so one of the things is that life circumstances change, right? When we think about something like being a student parent, that status can change overnight and caretaking can change. We recently did a childcare survey thinking, oh we'll be having a lot of student parents reply to that. But we also had a lot of kinship care where older siblings or cousins were responsible for caring for younger siblings or cousins in their household. And so that wasn't surprising to us. It was interesting to us how many students replied that way because we've seen it. We see it on our lounge. We have a kid zone in our contemporary student lounge in the hub, and we have older siblings bringing in their younger siblings, helping them with homework because their identity as a student doesn't go away just because they have all of these other identities. But it's about finding harmony in all of those things and finding little bits of time here and there to get things done. And anytime you can double dip in that for anyone, I wanna say anyone who has kids, but it's really anyone who does more than one thing, which is everybody, you're always looking for those times when you can double down and get a couple things done. Can I listen to the podcast that I need that's gonna help me stay current as I'm driving to or cooking dinner? What can I double down because I'm not getting any more than 24 hours in the day? So what can I do? And our students are feeling that in really big ways and really impactful ways. And so there's a lot of meaningful conversation and meaningful actions happening here at Mason to ensure there's a sense of belonging for our contemporary students to ensure that we're getting our contemporary students connected to each other because that is incredibly important. We know that from our practice, but we also know that from loads and loads of research as well. But we're also looking at how to ensure that those students are also looking at not just each other for supports, but they know where to find support and resources at Mason because our contemporary students don't have a lot of time. And so if we can make it clear, if we can make it simple and ensure that they have the resources they need to support their success, because the other thing that we know is that many of our contemporary students have higher GPAs. They graduate at higher rates because a lot of them are upskilling reskilling or have hit a paper ceiling. And so they're here with deep purpose to get done, and to get their degree and to get back to their professional goals and their life goals.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. As we're thinking about who the students are, part of this is obviously how the university not only acknowledges these different pressures, but it seems like a lot of the role of your office is creating that support, creating those connections, making that process or resources more transparent. So for our listeners who are Mason faculty and our listeners who may not be Mason faculty, but might be looking for something similar-ish on their own campus, what can you tell us about what your office does, how it does that and what should faculty know about the office, if they don't already?

Joisanne:

I am gonna set this one up, and then I'm gonna let s Shyama hit it out of the park. I like to describe our work as ACES, A, C, E, S. We advocate, celebrate, educate, and serve. And that is directed not just to our students, but it's also directed at our colleagues, the faculty and staff here at Mason.

Shyama:

Yeah, so, ACES gives us an opportunity to provide our campus and our community, with an opportunity to provide our students with a more well-rounded and robust kind of experience. So ACES, that's really like our multi-pronged approach to supporting our students. So advocacy is obviously how we work with institutions on campus, off campus. And we're very deliberate and pretty tenacious when it comes to advocating for our students and with them. We make sure that we're always amplifying their voices and we ensure that we have a presence with our students so that when we are advocating, we're not just utilizing research. We utilize research, obviously, but we want to make sure that our students always have a presence in every presentation, in every meeting that we're in, they're definitely there with us at the table. Celebrating them is celebrating our culture, right? And at an institution like Mason, that is so special and so diverse, celebrating them allows us to really recognize what a public institution can really be. You know, we have such a robust system here at Mason. And we educate ourselves and our faculty and staff peers to really be able to meet our students where they are with what they need to attain their degree So we want to create as many opportunities of access for these students as possible. It's really important to be able to educate ourselves on what they're facing so that we can kind of help lessen any barriers that are in the way for them to attain that degree. And finally serve. And I think that serve is really the foundation of everything that we do. It really is that opportunity to provide our students the scholarship, the experience, the sense of belonging, the basic needs, the sense of connection that they might miss out on otherwise, because we know that contemporary students they don't always realize that they have so many other options and opportunities that they could have.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely.

Joisanne:

And I'll add onto that too. And Shyama spoke about access, right? And a lot of times when we talk about access, we think about access to higher education. But in reality, when we're talking about contemporary students, we start that conversation about access, it's also information, it's resources, it's support, it's all of those things in a way that's gonna meet those students where they are. I researched post-traditional students for my dissertation, and access was one of the big things that came up for post-traditional students of knowing if there were opportunities because the traditional ways of flyering across campus and those kinds of things didn't always make it into their footprint on campus. And so how access to information and opportunities comes to them is incredibly important. And that's one thing that we are working with our colleagues across the institution to ensure is that traditional hours, like those nine to five hours of offering services isn't gonna meet everyone's needs. So how can we work to ensure that there's access to services, support, and information and getting that out in different ways in multimodal, just like we think about if we're trying to get information to our online students, that's a different way of getting information than a traditional student in a residence hall.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. And so we're talking about access and I really like how you were talking about how access isn't that single point in time. It's not just access to higher education, it's access to all the things within and as situations and circumstances change as well. But let's take even a step back with this because here at George Mason University, we often talk about, or particularly the university president, President Washington, often talks about access to excellence. So can you tell us maybe in that big picture sense about how supporting contemporary students broadly creates that access and that type of support, aligning with the university mission, vision? How we're supporting so many different identities and experiences with that.

Shyama:

Yeah, I think the amazing thing about when you support contemporary students, you really kind of build an amazing infrastructure of access and support for all students, right? So it, it kind of creates almost like a universal design. And I think a perfect example is when lockdown in the covid pandemic first hit, and right before that when our office first opened and we were really trying to encourage people to have more flexible hours and to have more virtual hours, and people were really like, nah, I don't think that will work. And then they were kind of forced--

Rachel:

Oops! Yeah, hahaha.

Shyama:

--To do it. So it was, I hate to say it, but it was a little bit of a boon for our office'cause we're like, well, now you have to do it. And you can see that it actually works. And it not only works for contemporary students, but it worked for all students. It worked for students who just needed that flexibility, needed to find another job, needed to have more time off campus.

Rachel:

It works even for students who are very traditional in many aspects who don't wanna walk two buildings over but are still gonna attend your office hours.

Shyama:

Right, exactly.

Rachel:

So we're supporting everyone with all this. Yeah, that's great. So let's shift over in our conversation. You know, we've talked a little bit about the big picture and the university, and a little bit about what your office does and who our contemporary students are. But let's shift specifically to a faculty audience. So this for our instructors, for our faculty members who are listening. As with many aspects, there isn't a prescriptive approach, obviously, when we're talking about such a large and varied group, to supporting and including contemporary students. But how do we think about this? What can we do? How do we move into a space where students can succeed or feel their voices are heard or feel they're part of that community and culture?

Joisanne:

I'll start this conversation off and then I'll kick it over to Shyama, because I think one of the important things in this conversation is that contemporary students, when we look at the data from campus surveys, contemporary students report things like belonging lower than traditional students, like five, seven points lower than traditional students. But when it comes to questions around what I'll call a Patriot Pride index, so their pride in Mason, their wanting to be here, their excitement to be a George Mason University Patriot, the score around those questions is actually almost 11% higher than traditional students. So while the belonging is lacking a little, their pride at being here is off the charts. So I think that really kinda speaks to our contemporary students being full in here and really proud to be here and excited. And as Shyama spoke to earlier, when we're talking about contemporary students, we're also many times talking about multi-generational approaches in that too, and that they're proud to be here. They want their kids to know that they're here. They wanna bring them onto campus. They want their parents to know they're here and bringing them onto campus. And seeing that they're doing this and they're proud to be doing it here at Mason.

Shyama:

That was really good, Joisanne. I think that the part where the students start to feel like they're really part of the community and culture is when they're kind of called out. When they hear programs that are for transfer students, right? And they're like, oh, that's for a transfer student. I know I can go to that. And at a certain point, something clicks and they're like I am just a Mason student. And that takes like about a semester, maybe two semesters. And they always have that kind of transfer student pride, but I think inviting them in as a transfer student and then kind of reminding them that you're not a transfer student anymore. And we try to kind of, usher them in and make them feel a sense of belonging through the spaces that are on campus. That there are these nooks on campus where you can just go and be. There are people on campus that you should really go and get to know because they wanna invest in your success. There are classes and programs and speakers, and these are all designed so that your experience is enhanced and you get to just learn. This is your time to just take things in. And we try to tell our student staff to remind other students that too.

Joisanne:

Yeah, and our students encouraging each other and as they're in our contemporary student lounge, talking to each other about great experiences that they've had in classes or how a TA was really helpful, or how they went to a tutoring session and that was really great, or they had a question, so they went to office hours, and encouraging others to do the same and to leverage those opportunities like office hours and knowing that we have contemporary student champions across campus and being able to connect students with them and doing, for lack of a better term, a warm handoff and saying, Hey Rachel, I have this really amazing student they have some questions about this. I directed them to you. Keep an eye out for them. I told them that you're awesome. Being able to say that makes a lot of difference for our students because they know they're going into a place where they will be welcome and accepted and somebody who understands and will listen. And that makes all the difference in the world for our contemporary students. At the end of the year, so each spring, we do a contemporary student graduation celebration. And when our students RSVP for that, we ask them who were amazing champions or advocates for you during your time here at Mason. Tell us who it is. Tell us a little bit about how they were a champion or advocate for you. And we take those and we put them in a slideshow. We show it during the event. But we also reach out to those faculty and staff and say, Hey, your students are saying that you're awesome. We think you're awesome too. Come celebrate with us. So if any of y'all get that email from us, please come, enjoy, celebrate with your students because we always love to see the champions that are out there.

Shyama:

Some of the ways that those students have relayed to us that those faculty members have been champions for them have been things like they haven't made assumptions about who their students are, and they've kind of allowed students to unfold in front of them and, you know, self-identify in ways and haven't judged them for who they are or their identities. Other things that faculty that have done, that have been really helpful for our contemporary students, have been things like naming student parents in their syllabi. Like, oh, if you have things like caretaking duties, please let me know ahead of time so that I can support you in having more flexibility. And those things go a long way just for a student, even if they don't take you up on it. Just for them to feel seen in a really passive way can go a very, very long way for them to feel like this is a classroom in which I can succeed.

Rachel:

Absolutely. So with this, it really sounds like our keystone concept here is really about access. We talked earlier about it's not just access to the higher education side, but it's access to the resources, to the faculty members, to participation in the course, and that really comes back to those aspects of transparency. How do we create connections? How do we make people of all different identities and experiences and contemporary and not contemporary students feel seen and heard and have that sense of belonging? So it's really about that access across all different dimensions and all different ways and experiences. So as we wrap up our conversation for today, any last words you'd like to leave our listeners with?

Joisanne:

I'll take the opportunity to do a little bragging about my team. In that there are a couple things that we know that contemporary students look for when choosing an institution, right? They're looking for that flexibility. They're looking for any kind of shorthand that tells them that the institution's gonna be friendly for them and their identities. And that can look like if you've ever seen Best for Vets or Best for Military or those Best for kind of brandings or awardees that you see different institutions have, and Mason has some of those, right. But one of the ones that our team worked really hard to make sure that we had was the Family ACL, which is a national certification recognizing the importance of student parents and caregivers. And that there were opportunities at the institution and access to economic mobility for them to thrive. We have that seal. We're very proud of that, and it definitely serves as a shorthand for a lot of student parents and caregivers to know that Mason is a space for them to show up and not just foot in the door and survive, but to show up, to step in and thrive here at Mason in our altogether different world. But I'll also say that my staff has done some amazing work to do some really cool things like trunk or treat in the fall semester each year. And winning a Jack Wood award for community and campus relations with that. And some national awards, awards from NASPA and other things like that, that recognize that the way that we are doing this is unique. When the university innovated to create Contemporary Student Services, we were, and as of last Google are still the only contemporary services unit that does this, like we do it. And is keeping an eye on rising populations. I always say we need to put the support in place before we need it. And so we're consistently looking to ensure that we're putting the support in place, that we're doing the research, that we're doing the work, that we're talking to benchmarks and colleagues across the nation and across the globe, really to do good work and to have these supports in place to best serve our students so when they show up, they know that they belong here at Mason because I think that is part of the founding of and continued growth and success of Mason.

Rachel:

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It was great to talk with you a little bit more about your office and how we support our students of all these different identities and experiences and our contemporary students in particular. So with that, I appreciate their time, and I encourage everyone to check out our different episodes. We're posting every two weeks, so I invite you back to check out our upcoming episodes as well. Thank you for joining us, and I look forward to connecting with you in other ways as well.

Joisanne:

Thanks so much for having us, Rachel.

Shyama:

Thank you, Rachel.