Effective Communication in College

Tune in to our discussion on Effective Communication among college students and faculty/staff.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Higher University Podcast. We have a great one in store for you today. We're going to be talking about effective communication. Yes, yes, to my all of my higher ed professionals. I know this is really big for you when it comes to coming correctly in emails and in person, office hours, all of that jazz, and we got to put some respect on the perspective of our students. We're getting into it. Let's get it. All right, we're getting on into it today. But first, how are we doing on this lovely Wednesday? How are we doing, y'all? I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

I mean, we I'm doing. I'm doing like midterms came out last week, so I'm getting a whole bunch of alerts, trying to reach out to students, schedule been packed, you know, one meeting after another, after another, after another. I'm I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

You're doing okay. Justin, what about you then?

SPEAKER_02 1:31

I'm doing what Blaze is doing. I'm doing. We I'm doing it. I mean, you know, so it is uh for me, midterms, uh sent out notices. They were my students that I teach, they were proud of me. It's talking about no extra homework, so try to make it simple and make make my life simple. So I don't have to do any extra grading, just keep it, keep it status quo.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, yeah. I I feel that. And for our listeners, especially if this is your first time, just give me your reminder. Uh, Blaze and Justin work heavily in the advising uh space, so heavy on the academic side. So I think I think, especially this time of year, when it comes to um your communication skills, you know, going both ways, to be honest. Uh, sometimes we always gotta really be in tune with that, um, especially when we're receiving all the alerts, or I'm scared, or do I need to drop a class and everything like that. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Justin particularly brought up this thought, and I thought it was, you know, a really great thing to add in because we have to understand that sometimes our students do not know what they do not know. And also we have to be mindful of holding our students to a certain standard when that hasn't been clearly communicated either the first day of classes, via email, or definitely within our syllabus. So, so just going into that, like when it comes to y'all's experience, say for instance, this time around this or around this time of the year, or just in general, when it comes to advising, making sure you're staying on the same page when it comes to the next steps. Like, just talk about what that experience is like when it comes to your different channels of communications, because I can see how sometimes you may end up talking to an administrator at times, you may talk to a professor at times and get clarity on certain things. And then you can also, you know, of course, always advocate and talk to the students. So, you know, Blaze, for instance, like how has that experience been when it comes to using that skill set and and also like what the experience is like um when it comes to your role?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yeah, so I make sure if I'm starting with the student, just a bit listening, you know, what what is going on in the situation and what do they want out of this situation? You know, is it they really just need help, some a mediator between them and their instructor? Um, do they just are they lacking the motivation? Like what I I want to listen to them and see like what's going on. If I'm starting with the instructor, then I'm kind of just getting collecting information, collecting the evidence, and then I'm a reach out to the student, kind of pretty much friendly, and just be like, hey, what's going on? And kind of let the student tell me their side of things. And then, you know, for those students that don't want to say what's really going on, that's when I start dropping what the instructor said. Like, well, you know, your instructor did say you haven't been in class since February, you know. Let's talk about that. What's going on with that? Um, but one of my favorite questions I always to ask a student is like, have you talked to your instructor? Usually they have not. And I'm like, well, that's your first, that's your first um form of communication that you need to do is talk to them because they're the ones that decide everything that goes on in that class. And so if you haven't spoken first spoken with them to settle whatever situation, then you are already putting yourself at a disadvantage. And so making sure I teach students that my first time meeting them, because that's going to help them throughout their entire educational journey.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

What about you, Jay? So I piggyback what Blaze was saying. For me, from my perspective, it's a two-part. I give the instructions to my students to say, hey, make sure you reach out to your professorslash instructors if you have questions. Now, it's up to the instructor and professor to have that effective communication courtesy to the students, because a lot of times we are of the age to where when we have people that look like us, just like grown folks, but they sit in classroom or via uh email, I mean via online or whatever, via email or online to try to communicate. But just because you assume that a person's at that mindset, they still need reinforcement to the effect of communication. They need to have, and so society would say it's hand holding. It's not hand holding because if our job is to advise or our job is to instruct, then we got to take onus on that. So it's a it's a mediator type of thing to where being an advisor or being an instructor, you got to kind of just look at it big picture. But often, oftentimes not. The instructors getting overloaded with X amount of students, so they can't manage or or effectively communicate to 100 students, or for example, and then the students are scared to effectively communicate with the instructor because they feel like they feel like they should know what they don't know. So it's just for us being mediators, like, hey, have you sent that email? Well, no, well, you may want to do that, or or they'll send an email and say, my instructor has not responded back to me. And so it's like, well, there are changes for that. You can resend the email, and if that doesn't uh go, then we do have department heads that you can now include them in CC about it, you know, situations and circumstances. So I do agree with Blaze. And then if you're saying that the last time that you know uh you were in class was February and this is March, the uh onus on the instructors is what they call census day. How are you letting the students still not even participate? I mean, if you don't see them and you actively not even engaged because you got a case uh student load, that's that's still not an effective communication on nobody's part, you know? No, so that the student is feeling, you know, uh a certain type of way, and the instructor is gonna be like, Well, hey, it was in the policy or in the syllabus. Well, have you effectively communicated that? You know, are you assuming everybody knows how to read or you know, close caption or something, you know, to help CYA on both sides?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Gotcha. Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. You know, it's as I said, and then you know, you shared again. Sometimes students truly don't know what they don't know, uh, no matter what the age is and everything like that. And we sometimes as administrators and professors, we have to be mindful of not getting frustrated with what they don't know, or how we prefer things to be done if we share that, or if anything, like just still understanding, like you said, don't get frustrated that you may have to, you know, so-called hold the hand through the process or slow down to break it down. Um, well, what I honestly sometimes like to say, don't get too caught up on your high horse that you forget that you're here to, you're here to serve, whether you're serving in the sense of an actual service to all the way to instruction, like it is your job to give to the student. And just because it's higher education and all this stuff like that should not alleviate the whole fact of like you're here to provide a service on the behalf of the university, it's not about you in the classroom and stuff like that. And so, kind of going into that, what have y'all felt that y'all learned over time and y'all in your roles where you you realize that there are things that students don't get students don't understand professors as much as a as and also where professors don't understand students, like so it's kind of like a parents just don't understand type of thing. So, what is what is something that you've learned from both sides that you wish there was a way for you to bring them together so they will understand each other's way of doing things or their worlds or their language? What is something that's like, well, I wish they would have learned that or they would have known this, and I wouldn't have to be as much of a mediator in this in this situation.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

I mean, I wish that, like on the instructor end, don't forget when you were in school. And even with that, don't measure the type of student that you were to the students that you have. For example, I mean, I was the student that went to class all my classes, turned in all my work, all of that. And so I may not, I may not, you know, relate necessarily to students who miss several assignments, they miss several classes and things like that, but I know how to talk to them because I understand they got a lot of things going on. So it's my job to teach them how to balance everything. So I can bring my experience of balance to them. But I think that instructors just need to remember who they were in school and then also get to know their students and get to know the demographic that they are teaching at. You know, if you are providing instruction at a college that serves mostly non-traditional students, adult age, you know, people who have full-time jobs, children, all these other things, then their availability, their needs are going to be different than, let's say, first, like fresh out of high school students. And so you're going to have to um approach them accordingly, kind of like like church, meet them where they are, you know. Um so I that that's something that I think on the instructor side maybe needs to be worked on a little bit more and just have some compassion because you can have compassion and standards. And I think that sometimes instructors they feel like they they gotta have these high standards, and so the compassion gets thrown out the window. And it's like, no, you can you can feel where they're coming from and you can provide parameters for them to still stay within your standards while also showing compassion on the student side. I want them to understand that their instructors are are human, they are human, meaning they may make mistakes, but they also have a life as well. They may have kids, they may have a family and all of that, and so they are not available 24-7. So just because you do your homework at nine o'clock at night and you decide to turn in your test that's due that same day, right before the deadline, and then it's not working, and your instructor's not responding to your email, that's on more on you than on the instructor. Maybe not, don't wait until the deadline to do your um your test or whatever, because you're not gonna get a response immediately. And that and and so that they they need to understand that their instructors are people too, and they can't hold them to such a high, like they're not God, they're human.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about you, Jay?

SPEAKER_02 13:18

So I have a different approach when it comes to the student and the instructor. Uh, it is a human element, and you have to understand, like kind of like what Blade was saying, you you started off somewhere as a student, as an apprentice, to get to the level of instructor. You had growing pains to develop, to learn, to go to these classes and seminars. And so, from that element, an instructor should be held to a higher standard versus that student who's trying to be that next instructor, politician, or this, that, and the third, they are in training. So, for my approach, I would always like uh we always use cue when we have these breakout sessions for student orientations. And I say, when you look on rate my professor or rate my instructor, the students, the students will actually tell you how good an instructor is and how bad they are. And when I say bad, I mean bad. So it's it's a responsibility, you know. Let's just be real. If an instructor is considered a salesman, what are you selling? Well, if you want to sell hopes and dreams and and and all kinds of different dichotomies of how to be educated, fine. But as a student, a student has to buy in too. So you do have to have a little bit of common sense to where everybody is not on the same level. So when you want to, when you want to link it or bring them together, this is where a tool like Rate My Professor and an advisor and an student could be like, well, I heard X uh ex-professor was uh, you know, such and such and so and so. And you'll say, Hey, don't always look at what you read, experience it for yourself, and then you can be that trendsetter to be like, hey, what's the foundational principles of learning academia? It's the ability to comprehend. If you if you're having a problem for the ability to comprehend, then the other things you can do is go back to the first part. Go to your professor, go to your instructor. You know, if you don't get any response, a lot of times they have this thing called DFW rate, drop, fill, and withdraw. And that's on the student onus. But I wish that the instructor, other than rate my professor, you know, they're there, they should be rated too. Kind of like Madden or uh NBA 2K. You know, you have, you know, if if Blaze is a 98 and and Corrigan is a 97, and then here comes Justin, a 17, uh, I ain't seen to get picked up. I'm not, nobody's gonna pick me. So you that's that's kind of like setting the the standards of the next generation because you want that student to say, I was in, I was in Professor uh Blaze's class, and man, you know, she was she did good. I was attentive, I didn't get on my phone or whatever. But if Blaze don't say, Hey, here's some housekeeping rules, guys. I I want y'all to learn, I want y'all to do XYZ versus hey, I'm going in, hey, here's a piece of paper, sign a roll, and then after class, you be the first one out the door as instructor, and you don't even sit around and be like, Hey, and let me see if anybody has questions. So it's just that human element and just these housekeeping basic rules of at least show that you care. That's the empathetic side. They always say you can't be sympathetic, but you can be empathetic. And I kind of I kind of have another debate on another time about that, but it's just core principles, core values. And it's just it's it's hard to where if if the attrition of a university they're trying to get instructors in, you know, pay them the right price, that's number one, and then when you get them, then here's your hundred students. Good luck in life, and then the instructor be like, I I start off, I want to be the the one who wants to bring together. I want to make sure I check my grade book, I want to be available, but then what happens is they're available. That's the key. And sometimes they can't actually get on with their lives because the student is can be too too clingy, too. I've never had a father figure, a mother figure, or a brother, sister, cousin. And I see you and Professor Blaze showing me that she's a mother, a mother figure. So after class, hey Professor Blaze, I want to talk to you about such and such. You know, I'm having problems at home. How are you doing in class? Oh, I'm I'll make an A's, but I want to talk to you about, you know, uh me not me not getting on TikTok until after 10 o'clock. I want to talk about that. And it's nothing to do with topic, but it's just saying if you want to be effective, and sometimes that's a curse, because if you're good at what you do, that comes with the bad because people gravitate to the good, and that takes that takes your energy away. Who recharges you? If the students are supposed to recharge me, or I'm supposed to recharge the students, somebody's getting something taken away. So, how do you, you know, that's that's a that's a question about balance that I don't think anybody has the answer to. You can read a book, you can do a PowerPoint, you can have breakout sessions all day long. But at the end of the day, that student has 15 hours or five classes or more that they have to balance equally. So they have to give their time and energy. But if I'm a professor for X class, I don't care about those other four classes, but I should. That's what you talk. You have to take in consideration of the totality of that student because they don't just have you, they have other things, you know, that's going on.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

So yeah. No, I mean that was that was a really good point about you know the rating and everything. And I think during that season, because we've I've been having multiple conversations about a time and a place, and also understanding your power as a professor, as a student, and so forth. And although I do believe like ratings is good, as we also know, especially with getting on Google and everything like that, sometimes it's fueled from um uneducated frustration, you know, or or ignorance, you know, of the situation and not understanding like the reason why certain things are the way they are is not or it happened the way it did, is not because that person that's telling you no or no can do or only giving you certain options. There, they may they may not have too much control, and that's all that they can provide, you know. Because we I had conversations with alarm about homecoming stuff or whatever, and they were asking questions. And at one point, you know, at one point it was a big fuss about when homecoming one time, like the actual game was in the middle of the week on a Monday, and there was an uproar and everything like that. But what they did not understand of those who were so frustrated is that because of the new conference that we were in in the time of the year that whole season, we didn't have any weekend games at all. And, you know, the university that we're at, and some listeners, especially on the administrative side, will understand, you know, and we were in basketball. Now, could there have possibly been other ways that could have gone about it, like the athletic department trying to find a way to create an exhibition game or something of that nature? Possibly, but right now, at the end of the day, this is all that we have. And instead of trying to understand these things, it's just all this institution, they all the stuff like that, instead of trying to find out why things are the way they are. So, why is a professor very strict on timing? Why does a professor not let me come in X amount of minutes too late? Why does a professor take off a certain amount of points if you turn in a uh a grade late? And it's and it's going back to what you said, Justin, that professor may need that structure because that professor may be overloaded with too many classes during the week. And so, and able to keep their life in order, as you were saying earlier, Blaze, it's like I have a life too. And in order for me to stay on top of my grading and keeping a seamless uh experience for myself and also making sure I'm being fair enough to return, uh giving a return on investment of their effort towards these grades, I need them to be on time with submissions. And if you miss out, you just miss out in any inconvenience that you make for myself because of your error, unless it's life that happens for you, and you hopefully will communicate with me about this. Is just how it has to be, you know, and it's kind of, I feel like some of the help. These ways to go about things is kind of like just on the instruction side, is a coach perspective. The coach's purpose is to help you develop as a player. So therefore, you'll be able to put on your best performance on whatever platform that you serve in within your sport. And in order to do what they need to do, they need to know you on an individual basis if as much as possible, like you mentioned, Justin, or at least as a unit, so where so they're able to apply the knowledge in the best way for you to obtain it, put in practice, and be able to move on and perform. And then also, which I feel like is a little bit more controlled, and sometimes people miss out on this, especially in the summers in uh in summer sessions, is that okay, you did this on this assignment. This is what you did on this. I see this is where you're going about it. If you want to have a conversation about this, schedule time with me so we can look at this and go over this. So, therefore, for that next test, you'll be good to go because I know that this knowledge right here is a stepping stone for that next thing, you know. And so, again, you know, you both of you were saying like very valid things, and I think it's just one of those things, us being able to slow down in both parties to truly understand like why we are here. We're here to provide the knowledge and develop, and then we're also here to receive the knowledge. But understanding this word of academia when it comes to higher ed, this is a transactional situation. We have uh we are the providers and we're providing the service, and therefore, those that we're providing the service with that we put online, set an orientation and recruitment. If we're not upholding those standards, then we have to be receptive of that criticism, you know. Um, but we do have a right, going again with what Blaze said, to have a limit on what do we take, because at the end of the day, we are not of the institution, we're just getting paid for to uphold a role that we're at for this very moment. So, therefore, at the end of the day, you have to respect me within this role as much as I'm trying to respect you, you know, and so and also going to what you said, Justin, I think what will help out the word, the world of higher ed when it comes to all students and all walks of life that comes to us and we all, you know, build connections with them and everything is that if there was more individuals in the village supporting and being open, then they wouldn't have to come to us all the time. Instead, it'll just be a hey, how you doing? Or I'm talking about you for this particular thing. It'll be like, Hey, you know, I talked to you about this the other day, but let me tell you about this. Well, I know you like sports, Mr. Williams. So, like the other day I went to so-and-so game, and man, it was something else. Did you see it? And just having that moment as opposed to, as you said, they're just completely infatuated with the connection that they've been able to make because at the end of the day, basically they're seen out of all hundreds and thousands of students, they're seen. And I feel like that's one of the things that universities nowadays don't realize that if you want to build the the key to building your retention is building a strong sense of belonging in almost in every student that you possibly can, and that is willing to allow you to connect with them. And when you do that, I guarantee you, once they join that organization, once they join that club, once they helping you with recruitment and all the different initiatives, or they just connect with you, they're gonna do whatever they can to make sure that they are able to keep that experience going. Some fail, some not able to do it, but they're gonna work their tails off to make sure that they can always come back. And sometimes you got to make sure that they don't stay too long. Oh, yes, you know, um, and I feel like in different ways, all of us have been able to experience that. So, so yeah, like this is this has really been great. Any other thoughts when it comes to just advice on moving forward for any party when it comes to having great communication skills and just knowing how to navigate within this space with one another?

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Um I think just all parties need to always remember that it's a shared responsibility. You know, you said it best, Corgan, when you said it was like a transaction. Instructors, they have they have a product to sell, and the students, you know, they coming in and they buying that product, but you got to have the money to get said product, you know. And so your your the instructor's responsibility is, you know, putting in grades on time, responding to those emails, being being available to students during those office hours. The students' responsibility is to do their work and when problems arise to reach out to their instructor in a timely fashion, not two months down the line, not in the last week of school, but in a timely fashion, as soon as you can. Um, and I think when both parties understand that, then the communication will flow smoother. And also another thing, what what I sometimes run in with students is that they feel like the instructor is against them or they they they don't um want the best for them. Honey, how are we gonna get paid? Nobody is against you. We want you to be successful because when you pass this class, it makes their success rates look well. It makes it makes the college want to continue to hire them. So nobody is against you. Nobody wants to see you fail, nobody's picking at you. It has nothing to do with that. We just had they may just have expectations and they need you to fill those expectations. So if they say the assignment is due at midnight, you need to turn that assignment in at midnight.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Right, right. Most definitely, most definitely. What about you, Jack?

SPEAKER_02 28:24

So three T's tension can arrive from both said student and instructor. Uh what's the other T? Time, time management for both said student and instructor. So one thing the 15 hours or more for a student, some of them have jobs and stuff, so it's kind of hard that the final T is transparency. So transparency is the third T. There has to be a uh a meeting in the middle to where if I said professor or instructor uh knows that if a person has to take one class and they have to study, they have to sit in class, and then it's like a full-time job. So if they have five classes at 50 minutes to an hour and a half apiece, wow, they are totally drained at the end of the day to where you're not gonna give them their best on the student side. Because think about it, let's just let's just unpack this real quick. If they have over five to eight hours a day of academia, and we only assign as an instructor to one section of that, we're gonna come in more like, you should know this, you should be da-da-da-da-da. We don't take, and so it should be vice versa. It's like a workshop. We we can promote and we can say, hey, pick me, and da-da-da-da-da. But you have to be cognitive of the totality. You have to realize, well, this is where uh back in the day, like back in my day, I had took this and I used to have to write things down. You, you, y'all have it easy. I got AI, y'all got computers, y'all got everything else. So it's almost like a trend breaker to where you need to recognize this again, going back to basics, to where the time is still gonna be the time. How do you use that time? Change it is gonna rhyme, transparency, those three T's. That's all I, you know, will always try to enforce. When I see students, you know, I hear about other teachers. They don't always complain about my class because I don't, I mean, you know, hey, you know, they they'll take me for woodwork if they could. They say, but I'm just saying, but it's just because I understand where I came from. I understand that everybody doesn't know what I know. And so when you when you be vulnerable, not to be vulnerable like uh I'm just gonna give you a grade, but just be vulnerable to like understand it. We have power as instructors to slow things down, and we also have uh the power to actually mitigate or just advocate if we if we do it right. But if we come in trained to like, you don't show any of this, and I got too much workload because it is it's the real fact factor, Blaze, Corrigan. You've seen this, y'all may have 50 CLC or 50 dah-da-da-da-da to one person, and you're trying to come throw up an event, and you like you don't have any support, your battery's drained. Who's gonna recharge you? You did all you can. So, but what reach what recharges us as a student is like Mr. Corrigan, Miss Blaze, man, I appreciate it. And you'd be like, Okay, that that put a little bit of back deposit back in there, or you know, so that it's it's a two-way street because they they do pay us, but they can pay us with acts of kindness and love too. So right, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

No, no, most definitely, most definitely. I can definitely relate to just just sharing feedback, and even if it's just one of those things, like, yeah, like you know, sometimes after an event, we the way the platform will send back to them if they register to come to the event, sometimes they will put feedback on their experience and everything, and that truly helps. And so I appreciate feedback, I appreciate honesty, and of course, like who would not? I appreciate you saying, hey, we saw how hard you and the student leaders were working and stuff, and that was a really great experience. We appreciate it. Like, you know, we just had a pretty big event this past week, and you know, it wasn't the full amount of people that we kind of hoped to come and who register, but I feel like it was a great time, and also that's what a lot of student leaders and some of the other attendees mentioned is like, yeah, we would have wished there was a little bit more people that would have came, but we really had a good time. Like, we we look forward to the next one, and so so yeah, so I really I really do, I really will say, and and especially for any college students that may be listening, like those comments go a long way for us. It's not that we need it for validation, but if you only knew what we have to go through just to provide the service to you all at times, um, and trying to balance you know life along with this, because this is a this is a very taxing role to to invest your time in when it comes to a job and so or a career more so. And it can be pretty challenging at times. So being able to know that, hey, this thing that I tried this one time, or whatever case it is, that it worked or it made an impact on you. Like one student randomly even even mentioned about talking about, I think it was either empathy or something like that, based on the assignment. And this is going into her the end of her sophomore year. She took that class over a year ago, and that still stuck with her in her mind. I'm like, wow, like that makes me feel good. Because you just truly sometimes you never know, especially with my classes being so large, you just really never know what really sticks, or they just kind of go along with the flow because it's not a very difficult class, it's just very needed when it comes to your professional development. So, but cool. This has been a very great, this has been very great. This has been a great conversation uh with y'all. I hope that all of the listeners got something from it, whether you're a student, whether you're a parent that has a student that's on their way, or someone that's looking forward to possibly transitioning into higher ed. You know, I hope we didn't make too many professors mad and stuff like that. But I know that those who truly care about their impact, I feel like they appreciate any type of you know conversations that's related to this. So, but other than that, y'all have a great rest of the day, morning, and night, whenever you listen to this, and tune in for the next one. See y'all. Peace. Peace.