Year-End Reflections & Summer Aspirations

In this mini end-of-year recap, let's reflect on the academic year, graduation celebrations, summer plans, and innovative ideas for professional development in student conduct. Colette and Kurt share personal stories, future plans, and invite community engagement as staffs ponder what sorts of creative work they can do to learn, grow and update practices.

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Theme music "Fuzzball Parade" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Ms. Behavior End of Academic Year wrap-up episode. My name is Colette.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

And I'm Kurt.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

We're your hosts, and we have just gone through a whole academic year of podcasting, which has been fast and exciting.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

So is your graduation soon?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

We just had it.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Yeah, ours is coming up very soon. Uh I'm I'm very excited. This is definitely my commencement is my favorite event of the year, I think. So do you have uh do you have a a valedictorian or a student speaker at your commencement?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

There is a through a competitive process and they know who they are.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah. That's how ours is run too. Um which is the first school I think that I've worked at where, you know, it was a vetting process that happened. But man, I love we always end up with a student speaker with an amazing story of how they got to where they are and just hearing about all of the obstacles that they've overcome to get to this point in their academic career. It's so inspiring. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

There was a um a student at Franklin and Marshall whose mascot is the diplomat, that one year they were reading this student's credentials, and she had been all over the world and done internships with dignitaries and um done all kinds of community service. And the student sitting next to me is like, damn, she is actually a diplomat. Kurt, we just wrapped up our first academic year of podcasting, which is super cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yep. I and I tell you what, every conversation, I hate it when it ends because I still have 8,000 questions for guests or things for us to talk about. Uh so I feel super inspired for another year, and I'd love to try some experimental stuff over the summer.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Okay, I like experimental. Go, shoot. What are you talking about here?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yep, we have launched the idea of a dissertation book club, and our friend Erin Kaplan, who inspired this idea, just defended successfully the dissertation that she talked about when she was a guest on our show. And I'm ready to get my hands on the real thing and read it cover to cover, and I think other folks are too.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Well, the shout out to Erin. Congratulations to you. Very exciting.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Oh, and just by the way, our super fan Tiffany is also actively. I just did an interview with her for her dissertation research, and her school makes her also, in addition to the dissertation, create a takeaway for people.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

And she's making like a kit, uh, a self-care kit for conduct professionals, and part of it is the Ms. Behavior Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Oh, I love well, I love the whole thing, but yes, that's that's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Uh and listeners, we would like to host a couple Ms. Behappy Hours over Zoom where we could all meet real time. It's such a fun community. I get texts from people, email, we meet on social media, but it would be so fun to have just a bunch of conduct nerds in one space without an agenda to just have fun.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Would it be sort of like the lobby experience of ASCA, but with uh adult beverages?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I love that idea.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Love it.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Isn't that always the most fun? Having coffee with a colleague you haven't seen all year.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Love it.

unknown 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

What was the other thing you were telling me recently?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

We're talking about like summer reading and getting ready for the next academic year. I hate to put the cart before the horse, but uh, you know, as soon as commencement ends, I am starting to think about the next year, and um I'm curious to know what folks are reading over the summer, whether it's for pleasure or to start to get in the mindset for next year. Um but I'm also curious, uh, we did not talk about this. I always remember as the conduct officer being invited into RA training, hall director training, and you know, are folks starting to think about that and what innovative um elements they're going to bring to those discussions in August. So I know we have some new technology that folks can write in and share thoughts. There's a text feature. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

It is. You can text us, you can put a voicemail message to us, you can email us at misbehaviorcollege at gmail.com. Lots of ways.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Free fern for anybody who knows.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

I know that we're gonna have a guest uh come talk to us more about improv, kind of taking off from Keith Sawyer's research about the importance of improvisation in education. And as folks are getting ready to do the inevitable like staff retreats, uh it would be great to give people a toolkit of activities they can use that really generate new, fresh, innovative ideas for our field. I'm a little nervous right now. I'm hearing lots of talk about benchmarking, and like benchmarking is important, but benchmarking is not best practices, it's just what everybody's doing.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

What are folks benchmarking?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Like sanctions, okay, how they resolve cases.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

You know, I think back to when uh we were both working in housing together and the um the residence hall that we set up with a scenario on every floor that our RAs would have to deal with, and that felt at the time super innovative to me. I wonder if it would hold. Does it stand the test of time? Do you think it has?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

It is uh still a mainstay in practice. But if we're improving, wouldn't it be interesting? Because what we learned from Keith Sawyer about really good creative educational practice is it takes practice. Yeah. And we know that new conduct officers are often more punitive, more hierarchical, more linear, more scripted than people that have done their 10,000 hours. Are there opportunities to create those types of opportunities for people to get the muscle memory of flexibility in a summer experience?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

I think it would be fascinating also to take that floor-by-floor scenario to the next level so that you know you have the RAs who are handling the situation, but they never get to see behind the curtain and know what happens in the conduct hearing. It would be fascinating to move down the hall and have them watch the conduct officer have the discussion about the incident report that they just filed with the student.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

And to see how important the report is.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

That like certain details are incredibly important to helping get to the right details of the case, to have the the deepest conversation you can have, the most honest conversation.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I think as an RA, I probably also thought that that was a super punitive meeting. Like, here's the rule you broke, and here's what's happening to you. And to understand the other aspects of the meeting, the the care that goes into checking on the whole student, not just that situation. Uh, that could be really I think it could be informative.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Mm-hmm. And maybe um having a panel of students who have been through the process tell RAs about it or tell staff. I mean, that's really what Erin did in her research, is she talked to people that had been through the system to learn what worked, her thesis is about belonging. Oh. What leads to a sense of belonging and what absolutely doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

I bet stern rules lead to belonging.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah, brutality. Yeah. Yeah. So we, I mean, we're just sitting here riffing ourselves, but we'd love to turn this into a community of innovators. So tell us what things you're struggling with or some just kooky cool ideas that you all are gonna try this summer.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

And when are we gonna get this Aaron Kaplan back on? Because I need to hear more of it.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

As soon as possible. I want my grubby little mitts on that dissertation and a highlighter pen and enough room to write in the margins because there's so much to learn.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Does this make us nerds? Because I I think I've told you before, one of my side gigs is I do APA editing for doctoral dissertations, and uh part of it for me is I just love reading current research. And you know, you get that reference list at the end of all the cool things that they read to prepare for it. It's uh it's just like the gift that keeps on giving.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah, if you could have seen her. I've seen uh defenses where they threw softballs at the candidates, or you could tell they didn't really know the field. She took some really good, hard questions and was cool as a cucumber, really knew her stuff. So yeah, it'll be such a treat to have her back here. It's funny I say cool. At the end, she took her jacket off. The air conditioning in her building that day was broken, and she was sitting there in the heat doing the defense. Good on you, Erin.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

That is some warrior behavior right there. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

She was so fierce. Yep. Oh gosh, so much to look forward to this summer. Listeners, go ahead and tell us your ideas, your wishes, your just ponderings, and we're gonna make it happen this summer.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

And also, I would say, uh, given that it's the end of the year, take time to just take a deep breath, reflect on all the the good that happened this year, all the difference you made, and um, you know, before you move into the summer and completely unwind. I think it's so important to take a step back and look at the year in its totality.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Maybe that would be fun. Send us three things that you're proud of from this year, and we'd love to amplify that for you.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

I'm picturing a word cloud.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Oh, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

We'll put it in an Excel sheet and then I love your brain. Oh my.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Okay, gang. We're gonna wrap this up so you can get back to your end-of-year duties. But um, thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Ms. Behavior is written and produced by Colette Shaw and Kurt Doan. Theme music was written and performed by Kevin McLeod from Incompitech.com. You can contact Ms. Behavior at Ms. BehaviorCollege at gmail.com. That's MSBhavior College at gmail.com.