Built to Persist, Fueled by Purpose (and Iced Coffee) - Adventures in Advising

In this episode of Adventures in Advising, Ryan flies solo for a one-on-one conversation with Dr. Patricia (Patti) Griffin, Director of Academic Systems and Advisor Development at Fort Hays State University, a longtime NACADA leader, communication scholar, and proud member of Starbucks’ top 4% worldwide. ☕ Yes, really.

Patti reflects on grit, growth, 18 office moves, and a steadfast belief that listening is one of the most powerful tools an advisor can carry.

You’ll hear:

• How to balance big-picture systems thinking with day-to-day student realities
• What professional development should actually feel like
• And why sometimes the breakthrough comes after you almost give up

This conversation is equal parts practical wisdom and reflective fuel for advisors navigating change, complexity, and the ever-shifting landscape of higher education.

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Transcript

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, welcome back advising friends to another episode of the Adventures in Advising podcast. My name is Ryan Scheckel, flying a little bit solo on this project. It's always, always exciting, a little daunting. You know, for a little bit of transparency and stuff, there's, there's always things in our lives that we're do we get a chance to do that we're like, can I? Can I really do this and and certainly I appreciate when we got my co host, Matt with us, but today, we're going to be taking a different approach and and meeting somebody who I've known in various ways for a while but never had a chance, just to sit down and get to know in depth. And you know, the the networking of people and places and the experiences we have in them, they form so much of the way we think of ourselves that I think we ought to take a little bit more time to slow down and and just have some one on one conversations and and so I'm looking forward to that today With our guest, but I know wherever you're at there's a good chance that you're hitting what might feel a bit of a middle in the schedule, in the routine of things and and just know that if you're taking time for yourself, taking your time to tune in and listen and to think about the work you're doing, that that's that's good reflective practice, that there's some real benefit there, and we're glad that you chose to do that with us today. So with us today on the podcast, is Dr. Patricia Griffin. She's the director of academic systems and advisor development and an associate professor of Communication Studies at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, in her director role Patti provides leadership for institution wide academic advising, systems advisor professional development and initiatives that support student success and persistence. Throughout her career at fhsu, Dr. Griffin has held a range of responsibilities, including leadership of the Academic Advising and Career Exploration center, oversight of the university's academic probation suspension program, and delivering on the implementation of a university wide academic advising program as its first director. Her service also includes chairing the academic advising committee, developing courses, membership on the council for Institutional Effectiveness, writing for the North Central Association Higher Learning Commission, or HLC accreditation. She's also contributed to ongoing advancement of higher education as an academic quality improvement program, peer reviewer for HLC and as both a leader and active member of the Kansas academic advising network. Patti became a member of NACADA in 1997 after attending her first annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri, and has since been deeply engaged in service and leadership at both the regional and national levels. Her current Nakada commitments include service on the academic advising, consultants and speakers, service advisory board and Professional Development Committee. Patti earned her Bachelor's and Master's in communication from Fort Hays State University in 1987 and 1991 respectively, and her PhD in Curriculum, Instruction and policy of higher education from Kansas State University in 1996 but if you know Patty, you also know she is a daily Starbucks regular, an essential part of her professional routine. She spent much of her career focused on helping advisors and institutions build strong student centered advising practices. Patti Griffin, welcome to the podcast.

Patricia Griffin  
Thanks so much, Ryan. I'm happy to be here. Excited to just share, right? 

Ryan Scheckel  
And, you know, we, we've talked a lot about this, but I got a note. Are you the kind of person who wings it every time you go to Starbucks? Or do you have a set regular order?

Patricia Griffin  
So I'm not a winger unless it's for somebody else that I'm buying for. And I'm just trying to guess, you know, on that kindness thing. And so, nope, my order is the same every day. It's a trenta iced coffee with sugar free vanilla and non fat milk. And that's a half inch of milk for those of you who maybe not be regular Starbucks, but even today, I had already had one this morning, but I knew I was coming to to do this, and so I stopped by and picked up a new one so I'd be ready to go nice.

Ryan Scheckel  
I understand that you have a bit of a reputation at the Starbucks.

Patricia Griffin  
I do. And you know, so a year ago, if you're not a Starbucks fan, at the end of the year, sometimes they say, Here's your year in review. And so last year, I was in the top 4% in the world with Starbucks. And my husband, that was a struggle for him. He said, I think that's a sign of a problem. And I said, you know, there are so many worse things I could do besides drink coffee every day. So you know, that's where we are. And you know now the new reward system's coming, and my husband's like, I think I'm going to be green. And I go, Well, that's too bad for you, because I'll be at the very top level. I won't be gold anymore. I'm going to move up. It. So, you know, it's always something new and different. And, you know, there's still a competition, because I have to, I have to stay at that top tier. I have to be ready to go.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, I always like when people put the, you know, this will only cost you this much per day, that's and they almost always talk about it in terms of a cup of coffee somewhere.

Patricia Griffin  
So, yeah, it's the reward though, right? Four days, use a personal cup in between your personal pepper rewards and your purchase rewards you're drinking for free, there you go, and it's Thursday. I drank for free this morning.

Ryan Scheckel  
Nice. Well, one of the things we always do on the adventures in devising podcast is ask our guests to sort of give us their origin story, their their journey in higher education. So could you tell us, you know, where you got started in this process, what it was like for you in your undergraduate journey all the way through to to where you are now.

Patricia Griffin  
So last year, my or last semester, my senior year of high school, I didn't have a plan anymore, and my parents said you need to go to college or get a job, because you're not going to live here for free. And, you know, I really didn't want to get a job, and I really didn't want to live there anyway, so I decided, April, I guess I'll go to college, right? Because what else am I going to do? Then it became the Where do you go? You're late to the game. What's on the table? And so, you know, in the very end, my sister was at Fort Hays State University. It wasn't far from home, but it was far enough away from home. And so I said, Well, I guess I'll go to Fort Hays. They had offered me a track and field scholarship. But any of you in the 90s who were involved with track and field know that you were going to do a lot of work for less than a penny, you know, an hour, probably back in the day. And so I just decided I was going to come and be a student, and I picked business because my sister was in business, and, you know, I had a lot of fun. College was a great experience. I really engaged in the process of being a college student. And I did college business for two years, and then I found my home in communication studies, and it was just like a whole new world for me. My engagement at college was very different in regards to the study aspect, and not that. I didn't study before and I wasn't I didn't skip class, I didn't do any of those things because I was paying for my own college. So, you know, it was my investment at that point and so, but when I called and I told my parents, and they said, finally, we knew you would get to get here, but we just didn't know when it was going to happen, because my parents weren't ones that, you know, there was structure right, get a job or go to college, but it wasn't go to college major in this do these things, that was Just never, you know, we were encouraged to be ourselves and do what we wanted, you know, to pursue at that point. And so I loved college, but I graduated, and I had no desire to ever come back after my undergrad, you know, got married, moved to the city, and then about an hour, year and a half in, decided we wanted to make a change. My husband accepted a job back at Fort Hays State, and I decided it was time to maybe get a master's degree. But because I'm all about the investment in a planner, I decided I would take what I perceived to be the most difficult class in the program, first in the summer. So if I was going to fail out of grad school, it was going to be in the beginning, and I wasn't going to be wasting a lot of money. So did that class in the summer. It went well. And so, you know, stayed did the program. I started my research that very first summer, because that course was based on statistics, data, analyzation and research and and so I decided, why know what my project is. I'm going for it because I don't want to be at the last minute trying to finish. So I finished a year after I had started my research. I was done, so I didn't have to worry about it at all. My last year, my master's program and I had been offered a teaching position and had accepted. And then in May of that year, two weeks before graduation, the Kansas Board of Regents decided he had to have the terminal degree in a content area to hold a teaching position. And I did not have a PhD, and it existed in my program, and so I no longer have a job. And so from a perspective, left higher end for two years, worked in banking when I prepared myself for something I thought would never happen, and that was to get into a PhD program so that I would have some opportunities that had been laid out for me at the end of that program. And so I ended up picking Kansas State University. I lived there during the week. I taught, and I took classes, and my husband and son stayed in Hayes, and it was very interesting. But, you know, I was just focused. We had an agreement, I would do all my coursework in one year, and that's what I did. Came back, spent 20 hours every week. Once I came back, doing research. Prepping for comprehensive exams, and did that for the allotted two years that we'd agreed to, and completed and finished my PhD. And that summer, I accepted the position, the new position at Fort hay state. That was in 1996 and I'm still here. You know, coming into the position, I met rich Robins, and during my PhD program, I was directed to the Nakata office, which was three rooms, two offices, Diane Mattison and Bobby Flaherty, and a room in between them, which was where the Nakata stuff was stored. And so I had used some of their stuff in my dissertation that was focused on advising, and ACT was David Crockett was kind enough to allow me to use their instrument for free. And so between that and my Nakata support, that was a great thing. And so then when I was finished, you know, joining Nakata, when rich Robin, he was in Kansas at the time, and he's like, man, you should come to NACADA. And so I'm like, Hey, let's try, right? Let's see what else comes from that. And you know, I've kind of been in NACADA junkie ever since.

Ryan Scheckel  
Sure, you know, I there's tons of people who their first interaction with NACADA is going to be, you know, multiple 1000 attendee annual conference. And, you know, huge venue, and I think the perspective of the association from those sort of early stages is really important too. But as I, as I listen to your story, one of the things that I hear is that that theme of sticking with it. You know, whether you call it persistence or grit or or whatever, you know, how do you see the lessons you've learned in your journey influencing your approach to the work that you do today?

Patricia Griffin  
So over time, whether it's consulting, doing professional development here, just networking at conferences, right wherever you are, with other people who have an interest in the Student Success that comes from academic advising. You know, I've always said to people, and we're very lucky in our state that we have a state organization that's always been the kind of affiliated. And so we have a state conference. So you're looking at, depending where it's located, 150 175 people, maybe as the high and so I always people tell people, start there, right? Just, you know, it's a smaller it's a one day conference, right? But it's got all the elements, right? The presentation, just all the things. Then step into the the regional network, or now, which in 96 didn't exist, are the E tutorials, right? Really engaging over social media with a community, and there's just all those opportunities to connect before you ever step into that big annual conference, right? Because if you take a brand new professional and you know, I would say I'm pretty extroverted. I don't have a problem meeting people, but I can tell you, the first time I went, I wasn't sure what to do. I was overwhelmed, and it was a lot, and I had so many ideas, you know, but your first time ever, right? You got all the ideas, and you come home and you put the and you're like, Okay, which 1am I going to do first? And can I do them all? And a year later, now you got all these new ideas, and those ideas aren't done, and it's so overwhelming. And I think if you can think about it, when you go and you have the experience whatever it is, it's a state, it's a region, it's an annual conference, it's through any tutorial. You know, when you step back at the end of each day, at any of those things that you're participating in to say, Okay, what's the one thing from today that I think I could go and do immediately? Because there are always things that are goals and dreams, right? The big, the big, big things. And just knowing that you can come back and make a change for yourself that impacts the people you work with and the students that you're seeing on a regular basis, and I think it's just important. And you know, we all have a bad experience, right? Whether it's on the plane going or the hotel or whatever, but ultimately, when you stop to think about the academic advising, how it contributes to student success, right? And what we do, I think you sometimes you have to peel away the bad layers. It's like, I tell people when they present for the first time, don't focus on the person who said your presentation was terrible. They didn't get anything from it, right? Look at all those other people. And when I first would like pair up with somebody who hadn't presented before, right? And I would always hurry back in the day we picked them up. You know, they were in a manila envelope. You had them in your hand, right? I would try to get there before they did, so they could go through, pull out the bad ones, so they could read through those good ones, right? And talk about and feel that, right. Mm. Because it's horrible when you're feeling it, and then you come to the one, and you're just like, you know, there's always one, right? There's always one. You're not always going to have 100% consistency. And people look for different things, yeah, just inject my population. What's your population? Right? So staying the positive, right? Of look at all these people that appreciated what you shared. Right? It's that point of going. And these people are where you're at, right? These are your people, right?

Ryan Scheckel  
And we, we've talked a little bit about it before, but the just the balancing, the perspective you know, of you can learn from difficulty. But if we're going to persist, if we're going to get through the change, the uncertainty, or whatever it is, that it helps to focus on the positive. It helps to have a plan. It also helps to ground yourself with that community of other folks, your people, as you're saying and and I know in your role as director of academic systems and advisor development, that's part of your approach in balancing, like big picture strategies, institution wide strategies, with the day to day realities that advisors face. And so you tell us a little bit more about your approach in your role right now and in helping your institution and your advisors sort of find that balance.

Patricia Griffin  
Yeah, so I think there's that piece of everybody at the institution does something different, right? And so the academic systems, it like our main student system, okay? And I'm not going to promote or not promote a system, so just say, we have an institution wide system for everything. So HR, business student, right? One shared system in the cloud. And so, you know, we have to think about all the things, right? So if I say, I want to make this one change, right, I have to think more than just about what that does to the advisor, right? If I make a change in a system that makes a decision that now messes up financially, then that messes with student fiscal services because people can't pay because they don't have their aid, right? It's just all the things and so you know, what is the impact? Who does it touch? What does that look like? We talk we oftentimes will sit in, in our group, with the system, and talk about, what could we do, and how would we do that, and does that compete with something else that's out there? And so being able to say, right? Sometimes somebody will say to me, Well, I don't like that. This is the title of this degree or whatever, and I'm like, Well, I can appreciate that you don't care for there are some that I don't care for either, but that's not how they were approved, right through the system. And so that's, you know, we can't just change it because you don't like the name of something, right? And sometimes it feels like it's that simple to people. Sometimes it's a whole department that asking for something, but the system can't do it like I'm trying to figure out a way. What's a way, right? I've been hitting a wall this week myself, and one person on the team who's technical, and I'm not technical, right? I'm just like, This is what I want. This is where it is. Can you make it work to do this right? And feeling really down and thinking, oh my god, right? This afternoon, today, this morning, I'm like, oh my god, I'm going to have to go the advisors and say we thought this would work, and it's not going to work, right? And so today, we're just step by step, from the beginning, right? What's the process? What's it look like? Who's it going to touch? What's it going to change? And we achieve nirvana, in my opinion, right? I'm like, I wanted to high five him through the screen, right? Because I'm like, Oh my God, this makes my whole day better, because I'm not going to go to the podcast dragging that. We're going to have to take this away, right? And then I'm going to an advisor training session. And so everything's going to be better, because together we we solved this problem right when everybody else got out and we could just sit and talk about between the two of us, his technical knowledge, my knowledge of where things are right, and we were able to do that. And so the idea is, how do we fix this? Because this one thing, even though it directly impacts the advisor work. It impacts every student, every one of our new students, and the process for them when they start, right and get that introduction. And so I was just like, oh my god, this is amazing, right? And, and, you know, those are the things, because there are always things that you just want to jump off the cliff with, like, I'm at the end. So thank God people can't see me, because people who know me would have been shocked, but yesterday, I felt like I was walking dead. So went to my hair person, I said, just pick a color and make my hair that color, right? So my hair color is very drastically different than it has been, and it's been very interesting to watch people this morning that's like, sometimes you just have to make some. Of change, right? That's going to make a difference for you. It's like my mom says, If you'd wake up every day and make your bed, your day would just go better. And I'm like, No, it wouldn't, right? I'm 60, almost one years old, and I still don't make my bed because I don't live in my mother's house. And, you know, that's just me. I don't mess up the bed. I could just lay it back up, but it's just the idea of, you know, so what's that one thing for you I get, I wake up, I wish my friends happy birthday. They have a birthday that day, and I get to see these faces, and I think about these people, and that just brings a different kind of joy to my life. Not my grand not my grandchildren bring me. But, you know, it's still, because I think of all those people in all these places, right, all over the globe, you know, that I get to see and I appreciate what they bring or have brought to my life. Sometimes there's just the ear. I can talk the problem, you know, they're not at my school. We can talk about a problem, and it's just a different perspective, right? Because they're not in it, yeah. And they can say, Patty, get a clue, right? And that's, I mean, that's what you want to do. You want to make it possible for these people to work together, right? You are not your college, right? The discipline of the students, right? You're, you're 40 state here, we're part of a bigger thing, and that's advising all over the place, sure.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, and you mentioned the idea that you know the value of seeing the perspective of everyone, they see the institution from a different point of view, and their point of view can really enrich yours. And you know, I'm always curious about folks academic background, the the things that they've learned through their education and you teach in Communication Studies is, is there a favorite concept or approach, or maybe a skill that you apply to your work in academic advising that comes from that communication studies background?

Patricia Griffin  
Definitely, and so for the last, I don't know, 20 years, maybe it's been I've taught pretty much online, just because of the demands of every day is different. I don't have the same schedule every day as though I were a faculty member. And so I've been teaching a class each academic period. So I teach listening in the fall, and I teach nonverbal codes in the spring. Those are upper division courses. So the typical student that would be in my class would be a junior or senior or graduate student. And so it doesn't matter what the concept is, if you were teaching comm 100 introduction to public speaking. The thing for me, and that's this is not what every communication person would say, but for me, is about the listening. If you can't listen to the other person or people, positive communication is not happening here, and listening means acknowledging I can listen to a person without sound happening for me, right? In my nonverbal class, we just got through an exercise about the eyebrow flash. And do you use it? Do you recognize that you use it? What do you use it for? Culture, across cultural research, it's different in all these places, right? And you're not saying a word, that that person can be saying something to you, and you need to receive that. And I know that's not the sound of listening, which is hearing, but there's a lot of different ways to listen, and I just think that that is the biggest thing. Sometimes people are like, you know, this is horrible. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. I need more information than that. Can you be more specific? What are we talking about? This degree is messed up. Which degree right? Like I need to attend to the communication you're giving me and I'm trying to listen that if I'm not getting the right information right, I have to engage in a way to tell you, I need more. I need I need something else. And that's the same I think, you know, when I sat on the board with Nakata, and you know, we don't all come from the same perspective. We don't all have the same opinions, right? And that's the uniqueness of the board, and it should be very diverse, and representation of everybody in our membership, right? And, you know, there are days with anything like, if I do a conflict resolution thing, sometimes I'm just like, is anybody going to stop talking and listen like, and, you know, you get the stick, right? If you have the stick, you can speak. But I'm like, when you don't have the stick, you need to listen and not be forming your response to what you think they're saying, because none of us are going to advance anything anywhere. And so, like, I love the aspect of listening and what it does, and how personal that can be, and how much it can change an advising interaction. You know, we can be conceptual, we can be informational, right? We can do all those things, but if we can't be relational, how are we really engaging in establishing anything with a student, with our colleagues, right? W

Ryan Scheckel  
There's definitely the difference in my experience between undergrad and grad school, I had multiple faculty members when I was in my graduate coursework say, I know you're thinking something, because I can see it on your face, and it makes me think about how little I must have been thinking in class in undergrad that it wasn't evident that I was making faces all the time. But, but, yeah, you know, we we have a chance in the work that we do, whether it's advising students, you know, individually or virtually or in groups. But you know, even as administrators, campus leaders, colleagues to sort of set a standard. And I like that, that the, the favorite concept you teach is listening, you know, I'm I'm curious. You mentioned you're going to be going to a professional development opportunity. Tell me a little bit more about the approach that you take with professional development at your institution and in your role.

Patricia Griffin  
So across our institution, each of our so our undergraduate students are advised by professional advisors, and so they are coordinated, I shouldn't say coordinated. They're housed by a college, right? So they have people that do what they do like them, but not every college. Everybody does the exact same majors, right? So some it's just across the college by alphabet. Some it's by program of study, you know, just a variety of different things. But so every year we reorganize our three committees that we have, and so one of those is the Professional Development Committee, and those people represent their college. So there's somebody from every college represented, right? Instead of us sitting in a huge room trying to move so we talk about things, they go back, get feedback, they come back. And so talking a lot about, where are we at? So our institution was originally faculty based advising system, except for exploratory students. And the people originally, who were doing exploratory students didn't even have training, right? They basically talked about Gen, Ed and registration and nothing else. And so when we moved to a to completely professional based advising, that change of what do people need, right? Because when you're doing professional advisor development training for faculty. It is a very different system of how you're doing it with professional advisors, whose job is to be advisor, not a percentage of their teaching responsibility as a faculty. And so allowing for more talking more through like the Nevada competencies, right? And what does that look like based on where you were, right? So in the beginning, we had a larger group that came because we were changing all these things, right? But now, I mean, turnover is much slower, and so it's not big groups. But we meet together twice every month, and on a Thursday, the second Thursday and the fourth Thursday of the month, and we have a professional development calendar. Some things are based on need, right? So in the last five years, the board of we've had six different general education programs, because things get dictated down, right? And so there's just a lot, so that took a lot, because we have students who have started at different times, right? And so where are they, and which is their gen ed, and how does this work, and could they have the opportunity to move to one that came after them, right? What do those things look like? And so there are times that you know EAB training. Maybe we're just somebody's coming in from EAB getting trained. So today, we are meeting with the Chair of math, the chair of English, the chair of the general education program, and the person who directs the credit for prior learning program. So they usually come in February, because we'll start registering students in March. And so the idea is, what has changed, right? We have a document. I send it out to them a month, and I say, hey, any changes you want to make to this. And then when you come so like math will present, then English will present, and Edward will present. Cpl advisors are all in the room. They have the opportunity to ask the questions, and so they can get the answers. Or the chairs sometimes say, so what kind of problems do you see that this might cause? Right? Because they really listen for their feedback, because these are the people working with students who are going to be in their classes, and math and English have the most prerequisite that runs across across the campus to be able to get into any of their classes. That's. Very different than, you know, I'm just in this major in this sequence matters. This is this matters across the whole institution. And so we just look at all different. And then we do the NACADA webinars as well. So, you know, we have, we host them live people who can't come. When I get the download and the stuff, right? I put it in our blackboard shell, because we have a professional development Blackboard Shell. I put it there so they can access it. I tell them what day it's going to expire, so they make sure they're doing it by then, right? And and just looking at different things that come along, and what do they really feel like they're missing? Like when they evaluate themselves and they look at the competencies, you know, we'll look at people and say, people are like, I don't have a clue on this, right? And we go with the ones that are the highest, right, trying to work through that. And, of course, waiting for what the PDC at Mercat is working on, which will be able to provide some other structure that will be amazing for everybody. But you know, what do we need? We have affiliates to technical schools who have become affiliates of our institution, so they have pathways. So last summer, we had an affiliate day, a whole day, and it was just advisors, right? We'll do that again this year with advisors, and this year we're going to talk about, what about the people that go back like they're here, but need to go there, right? As opposed to last year was all about them coming here, here's the pathway, here's how it's going to work, here's who you talk to, right? So really addressing the things that change, because there are things that change all the time. Some things stay status quo, and you don't need to revisit them, but there are other things that do.

Ryan Scheckel  
there's, there's definitely lots of change and and I know that one of the advantages of being in a place for a long time is not just our maybe ability have perspective during those changes, but but also to give them context and meaning and and perhaps identify their significance. Tell me about the role that you know Fort Hays State and Hayes Kansas has played in your life.

Patricia Griffin  
So growing up, my dad was a minister, and so we moved a lot, right? So, like, I started kindergarten, we moved halfway through the year, and so I didn't get to finish kindergarten, because the state we moved to, you had to sign up when you were born, because it wasn't public. And so just a variety of change, change, change. And my husband and I met here, and, you know, the funny thing he always says is people say, Why did you go to Fort Hays? And goes, well, you know, my dad graduated from there. But that's really not it. It was the furthest I could get away from home without paying out of state tuition. Isn't that an idea, you know, go to college or get a job? That's me, and he's like, get as far away as you can, but don't pay out of state tuition. And so, you know, we met here, but we have very different backgrounds. My husband's parents still live in the house they lived moved to when he was three, you know. And I can't say that, you know, and that is something. I met a lot of people, and I think that's why it's very easy for me to meet other people. I can make a friend in an airport, right? I can like because I've done it. Had to do it so many times, and we didn't have social media, right? There was no social media when I was a kid and we moved. You had to write a real letter or call in and pay a lot of money for a long distance phone call, right? And so for me, I wanted my children to be able to start school and in school in the same school district, and to be able to make the friends that truly become lifelong because they've known you for forever, and you know, my husband's like, did that really matter? And, you know, I watch and it does, because my youngest brother, who is eight years younger than me, where my parents moved me in high school, he started school there, and he went K 12. And the people and his connections to those people are very different, right? They're deeper, and deeper is hard when you don't have that time. And I just, I didn't want my my kids, to experience change all the time. I wanted them, you know, it brought me good things, right? Because I know a lot of different people, I've experienced a lot of things that maybe other people haven't, and that brings a richness, that it brought a perspective for me that I just wanted my kids to come here. My oldest did not go to school at Fort Hays, but my youngest did. He's a teacher, and so we have a great teaching program and great math program, and but my kids identify with this institution, even my son, who didn't graduate from here, he married a girl who did, but he dated her in high school, right? He knew her, you know, they went away, they came back together, but and I love my grandkids excitement when they know that they get to come and see the Tigers and that Mimi's gonna get them new Tiger clothes, because they don't fit anymore. And. And and Hayes is just it's been a really good place for our family. And, you know, I'm a part of a community, a local community that really is my community. I didn't come here for two years to move again and not get vested, if that makes sense. You know, because sometimes, you know, my brother, who was K 12, the whole time, he has made so many different higher ed moves, tons of them, and that's fine for him. You know, my parents would go, why don't you want to do that? I don't want the movement like that. I don't want that for my children, and not that. Some days I don't think, man, wouldn't it be nice to just start all over at some institution where you don't know anything, so people don't ask you questions, right? You're just the person showing up, doing the job, right? Sure, because nobody says, Hey, do you remember back in 1990 when we were in this class of so and so taught, right? And people say things like that to me, right? Because they know I remember, because growing up, I moved so much, so I want time together. Like, I'm really good at time games, right? Like, what year did this happen? Oh, let me tell you, right? Because I know where I lived, right? And now, so at this institution I am now in my 18th office. I have moved 18 times, and so a lot of times, I just have to think, Okay, I was in this office when that happened, so that would have been this time span, right? So then I know where I'm going to look for a policy or whatever it is, right? But, you know, somebody said in the 80s, when they changed the gen ed, when was that? And I said, Well, I graduated in 87 and I wasn't on the new gen ed, but the guy who graduated the year after me was so that means like 83,84.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, that has one of those two years right to navigate the the context of things. And your first annual conference for NACADA was in 1997 mine was in 2003 Have you seen the association grow and change? And have you seen advising change since you first started dipping your toe in these waters?

Patricia Griffin  
So about the time that you came, we changed the region structure, cuz I remember that was in Dallas, so it was probably about 2002 2003 and I was a region chair, incoming. Region chair, right? And so we had these massive meetings to talk through all these things about NACADA. And I love the fluidity of how we look at things, and we pay attention to the growth, and where's the growth, and who are we, not including there. I mean, I just think about how, how big I thought that first conference was, but it's nothing. What, like what I go to today, right? It's just nothing. We weren't global. And I remember back in the early 2000s the global that we had came from small islands, like somebody would have sent somebody there, and they connected somehow, right, to this little island of St Thomas or St Michael's or whatever that was in Canada, right? So Canada was in from the beginning, right? I don't remember there not being Canada. My first summer institute, one of the girls in my group was from Canada and but it was, it was pretty much North America, right. And now to look and see and, you know, I visit Nakata, and in 2016 when I was the chair of the region conference for Region seven, and we decided to come to Manhattan, because at that time, there were a lot of people complaining about a variety of different things. And why doesn't NACADA do this. And, you know, we don't lobby like NASA, and we don't have cherry wood offices, and, like, it's very, very different. But I think people didn't really realize, like, you walk through institutional effectiveness at this old Insurance building, you walk through their office space, so you can get to Nakata, right? And it was not what people thought. And we had tours, right? So you'd get on the bus at the convention center, and you'd go to NACADA, and you'd see what Nakata was and the conversation, right? And now it's very different, because, of course, that building is not owned by the university anymore. They've moved into Bluemont Hall, into the college of ed but, you know, there's just been so much change. And you know, K State was always instrumental in giving NACADA a home, but K state also has gained benefit from that, and having deans, Deb Mercer, obviously extremely supported Nakata, Michael Hone before that extremely, extremely great in that point. And I think for him, that probably was like 1993 that he became the dean, because the Dean prior to that didn't really care much for NACADA. And so that that change in that commitment in the space, and being able to lobby for space and gain from the. Is three rooms, two offices in the storage Plaza, right? And to see what it's become in people's involvement. And for an organization that is our size, when you think about that, and people are like, there are so many staff, but you know, we've had membership between 14 and 15,000 people. Like, do you know what it takes to run that? I mean, think about a university that size. How many people are running that right? And we're doing a lot of things. There are a lot of things that we are doing, and I do believe there's probably some things we need to maybe stop doing, because technology has provided us so many opportunities. But there are things, and there is a place right if you want a place as an advising professional, there are places right that will cater to what you want to learn and become better at, you know. And just knowing that connections that come from different things, the new E tutorial, where NACADA has paired up with Janice campaign that came out of our 2016 conference. Craig and Christie's daughter have been gone about eight years. The people that fan founded Janice campaign, and they spoke at our conference, and that was their first connection, really, to Nakata. And then now I'm looking we've got an etutorial, we've had webinars. You know, there's just so many things. And, you know, sometimes it takes a while, you know, because people are like, that's 2016 you know, it's 2026 right now. And I'm like, I get that. But you know, how many ideas are out there, right? And things, just sometimes they come together at the right time. And I think that that is, I mean, I think that's exciting, because there are so many pathways that you can go in advising anymore. And I think a lot of times, it used to always be that people just want to be administrator. Now there are people just want to be rocks they want to be a rock star advisor, right? Because they get so much joy out of the student who goes across the stage at commencement, right? Or who gets into professional school or goes on to do something, comes back, and they're an advisor, right? And they're like, I wanted to be an advisor because of the difference you made in my life. You know, I had amazing advisors. I mean, amazing advisors. And, you know, they did, they make a difference. I mean, I think about Jim Costigan, who was my advisor undergrad and grad here, and James Boyer at K-State. And, you know, they were just amazing people that really brought me in wholeheartedly. They didn't go, my God, I'm saddled with this advisee, right? I mean, Jim would take us, and we would go and do consulting things with him, right? And and it was just so just to see it happening, right? Was amazing. But Jim Boyer was the first African American man to get a PhD in the state of Florida, and he was amazing because I had a person on my committee who didn't believe that women should be allowed to get a PhD. And, you know, he's like, Patty, don't worry. They're not going to wear us down. They are not going to wear us down, right? And they didn't wear us down. And, I mean, he was, he was all in, right? He was all about, I suffer, but people shouldn't have to suffer because I suffered, and I shouldn't be part of inflicting of the suffering, right? I need to make it better for the next person. You know, what does that look like? Isn't isn't that what we want? Yeah, it's just like you want for your kids to have better, right? We want our students maybe to have better if we had a bad experience, right?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, regardless of our experience, I think you know, one of the things that holds the the pieces, together when it feels like everything shifting underneath our feet, is that belief that we are making things better and and I guess as we turn toward the end of our conversation here, I am curious what you see as opportunities for things To get better, or what excites you about the future of academic advising? You mentioned all of the possibilities, but is there anything in particular that you're excited or hopeful for in the coming years in higher education and academic advising?

Patricia Griffin  
You know a lot of times, and I don't know, you know, and it may be just my reference from my state or my part in where I live, but the attack on higher ed is very real. The value of higher ed, you know, there's so many ways to get a message out, and so when people come in, they doubt, right? And what that looks like. But I really believe that there are opportunities for us to make things that change. We have so many students who suffer from a variety of things, whether that's food insecurity, right, mental health issues, housing and higher ed is not maybe the solution, but we are definitely. Definitely part of a solution. And I truly believe, you know, our advisors will work with our case worker. We have a caseworker right here in our health and wellness, like social worker, right? And it doesn't have to be something that the university can provide. She's attached to all kinds of things, right? And we need to take advantage of the opportunities we have to allow somebody to have something that's better than what they currently have, and to see them excel, not because of who they are, but because they have the opportunity. The resources are there. They are connected. And I see that for us, connecting our students to things, right? And I also see that as a profession, that there are a lot of different opportunities. Seeing the the ELP program move from just being at the annual level, when you could only take so many people, right? And there's all these applicants, but we couldn't take them all. And so seeing the regions all step up and start doing theirs to help mentor people along there. There's just so much that can be done to aid in that. And I think we have that opportunity to recognize and the person that's in front of you is that person that's the focus. Where it should be right now is on that person. This is their time. It's like when your kid says, Are you going to stop looking at the phone and hear what I say, right? And you're thinking to yourself, it may not be the phone, right? But what are the other things the webinar that was it two days ago yesterday. Anyway, please, won't you be my advisor, right? And she was talking about, you know, I might have to have the student wait for five minutes, just so I can compose and so I can focus on them and be ready for them, so that they can get the best of me that I have to offer. And I think if we can all come to a place of thinking about, you know, we all have stuff, right, but sometimes you need to stop thinking about your stuff, right? It's like this morning when I thought, Oh, my God, this is not going to work, and it's going to bother me through the podcast. It's going to, I'm going to have to share with the advisors, right? And then Nirvana happens. And, you know, the world is great, and that's such a small thing, but it can influence so much for us. And I think being able to look forward be positive, you know? What, if you were sitting in that chair not paying attention to you, right? What? What did that feel like for you when you're talking to somebody who never makes eye contact, doesn't look at you, doesn't even like recognize you're in the space and you're the only ones there. You know, do I just go out? Has? Do you get a supper? You know, your best friend, which fast, you know, we sat down at this table by somebody who used to work for my husband last weekend, and he's like, oh, so what are you guys doing here? And I go, we're just gonna sit here and look at our phones when they until they bring us our food, you know, just kind of being, you know, because in the techie world that you know, if I go to a conference with my husband and he's like, Oh, I'm sure there'll be a spouse through this fun, right? Tried that with Oprah tickets one time, right? Well, and I'm down there and I'm like, Oh, my God, these are tech people with tech people, and that's not me, right? So I walked outside the hotel, and there's a lay stand there and and the guy said, Where are you going? She said to Harpo studios, that's where I was going. I said, Hey, you want to share a cap? She goes, Yeah, I'm hoping I can get a ticket. I go, you don't have to get a ticket. I have an extra one, right? I mean, you just sometimes it just happens. They have to recognize it, right? You got to be willing to put it out there, be aware of where you are, because when you don't know those things, like we could have both paid for a cab right back in the day there was a cab right instead of Uber. Look, but, you know, it's just very different. I think you just have to look at that opportunity. If you don't like how things are happening, what can change? Right? What can change, and how do you take part in that? Is it just something that needs to change with you, or you bring it up with the team, and we have to work through it right? 

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, that's one of the things that I've enjoyed with our conversation today. Is just the the evidence that is part of your story and your journey and your personality, and what you bring to academic advising to your institution, is that willingness to connect and share and and think about the better possibilities. So Patty Griffin, thanks so much for being on the podcast.