May + June 2020Discussion Guide

horizontal_imageWelcome to the Talking Stick discussion guide.
ACUHO-I and the Talking Stick exist to share knowledge resources, affect change, and meet the evolving needs of your institutions, your teams, and your students. We are excited to unveil a new resource to help you and your staff maximize the information contained within each issue of Talking Stick magazine. Last year ACUHO-I surveyed the Talking Stick readership, and hundreds of you responded. Along with delivering a professional development guide to all who completed the survey, we learned much about how you use the magazine to strengthen individual and departmental professional development efforts. Inspired by the reports of how many of you share articles with your staff or who want to add the Talking Stick to the professional development repertoire, each issue now will include a collection of discussion prompts for different articles. These questions will be included in print format, available online, and also integrated into the ACUHO-I online community. We are excited by the opportunities this will provide.We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity. Please feel free to email talkingstick@acuho-i.org to let us know how this is working for you and any other ideas you may want to share. Happy learning!
Thin RuleQuestioning Why The question of renovating or building new should be preceded by an even bigger question. Why do you provide housing in the first place?
CORE COMPETENCIES in this article: Facilities Management: Develop goals regarding the quantity and type of housing desired to support the departmental and institutional missions.
Questions:

How would you summarize the ways in which your housing supports the campus’s mission?

What are three renovations you would make to your existing housing to better support the student experience?

What renovations might you imagine being made to your campus residence halls in light of lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic??

Thin Rule-1577737487Rewriting History Renovations are difficult enough. But when it’s a historic building that’s receiving the facelift, the story gets even more complicated.
CORE COMPETENCIES in this article: Facilities Management: Develop standards for renewal and replacement of facilities and components reflecting institutional priorities, policies, and governmental law.
Questions:

Is preserving the history of your campus halls important to your department? Would the department be willing to take on additional costs to preserve it?

Where on your campus does the decision lie about preserving historic features?

What are the ways that your department partners with vendors to find solutions to challenges? Are there ways that you could do so more effectively?

Thin Rule-1577737490Pick and Choose
Getting a roommate is one of the first milestones of a student’s campus experience. Is there a best way to manage this process and support students of color?
CORE COMPETENCIES in this article: Occupancy: Establish a process for roommate matching based on established criteria.
Questions:

How could your roommate assignment process better support cross-cultural awareness and interactions within your residence halls?

How can you support the well-being of students of color while promoting cross-cultural awareness in your residence halls?

With research showing that students of color thrive better in their residence halls if they select their own roommates, how can your roommate assignment process better encourage that selection process?

Thin Rule-1577737492Leading in Volatile Times Whether it is an enrollment cliff or a global pandemic, integrated planning restores balance when a campus needs it most.
CORE COMPETENCIES in this article: Leadership: Create and nurture a culture of planning and use available information to help navigate change.
Questions:

How can you better facilitate cross-campus relationships between departments at your institution so that you can begin to build an integrated plan for various crises?

How can you bring staff and campus partners together to process the seven dimensions of good planning for your campus’s plan?

How can you bring the complementary factors of collaborative governance and affirmation of the institution’s mission and values into your process to move your integrated planning forward?

Thin Rule-1577737493Comfort Spaces Student customization of residence hall spaces means much more than aesthetics.
CORE COMPETENCIES in this article: Foundations: Understand and help meet student accommodation needs.
Questions:

After learning about how individuals prioritize their senses and how aligning them in their own unique pattern can bring them more comfort in a new environment, how could your campus revise its list of suggestions for what students need to bring to live on campus?

The transition from living at home to living in a residence hall can be stressful for many students. How can residence life staff work with students to help them incorporate their sensory preferences into their environment?

How can student housing professionals work to incorporate sensory preferences into plans for renovation or new construction?

Thin Rule-1577737536Good Bones Architects sound off on why campuses ask them for renovation plans versus new builds.
CORE COMPETENCIES in this article: Facilities Management: Develop standards for renewal and replacement of facilities and components reflecting institutional priorities, policies, and governmental law.
Questions:

If you were part of a renovation project on your campus, what was your driving factor to choose that approach over a rebuild?

Would you consider your campus halls as having a unified aesthetic? How does this contribute to your campus or department’s image, reputation, brand, or history? Is it worth preserving?Would your department be willing to undertake a renovation project to improve possibly outdated systems related to sustainability or information technology?

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