by Ryan Moore, Jackie Weisenfelder, and Vicka Bell-Robinson
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aybe it’s the holdover from the COVID years. Maybe it’s a generational shift. But student participation in residential leadership development and staff time devoted to mentoring and developing student leaders definitely seems to have faded in recent years. Still, developing meaningful residential student leadership experiences remains an important part of the work done in housing and residence life: helping students build confidence, become acclimated to campus, and find connection and belonging, all of which encourages their persistence to graduation. Strategies drawn from student development theory (not surprisingly) and contemporary business management (surprisingly), though, can help housing departments better attract, maintain, and maximize opportunities to develop leadership qualities within students.
It is generally only in hindsight that students connect their overall happiness and success in college with the organizations and people they connected with during that time. Student affairs administrators, well versed in theories like Alexander Astin’s insights into student involvement, development, and success, know that even almost 40 years later these ideas still remain true. According to Astin, student learning and growth are maximized when students are engaged on campus. The involvement theory is about more than just being present on campus; it includes the level of energy and focus given to the activities that are being performed. It is the difference between being on a roster of a student organization and being an active member of the organization. What can be done to get students to reach that level of engagement?
Students get involved in campus organizations for a variety of reasons, each of which is meaningful and important to the students who are engaged in these activities. For example, involvement in a cultural organization might stem from a student wanting to learn more about their background or seeking familiarity while away from home. Involvement in a curricular-based organization can give them an opportunity to make connections that will help them land a future job. And engaging in residential organizations can help them get to know the people in their facility while enhancing the community experience.
In the face of increases in retention rates, ignited passions, and genuine joy, student affairs professionals can recognize the impact that student organizational involvements have. These organizations offer opportunities for students to have mentors and to be mentors in a way that extends beyond the parameters of the organization. Student organizations, such as a residence hall association, the National Residence Hall Honorary, and community councils, all provide students with the unique opportunity to build a community for themselves in the place where they are spending a large amount of their time: in the residence halls.
The good news is that many students come to campus already interested in getting involved, and their residence halls are an easy entry to involvement and connection. Once students have become involved, advisers have to work to ensure that the experience is meaningful so that they stay engaged. This is where student affairs can take a page from business books, specifically Patrick Lencioni’s The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and Their Employees).
According to Lencioni, the three primary signs of misery – anonymity, irrelevance, and what he calls immeasurement – may provide insight into factors that make it more difficult to keep students engaged in residential leadership experiences. If students feel unknown, invisible, or unacknowledged (anonymity); are unclear about how their work connects to meaningful outcomes (irrelevance); or lack the ability to measure or identify what it means to be successful in the endeavor (immeasurement), their engagement will suffer. Fortunately, there are ways to determine if these factors are present within a student organization and what can be done to combat them.
Given the myriad of annual ceremonies and awards, it can be difficult at first glance to understand how and why student leaders may feel anonymous. However, Lencioni is not discussing formal recognition when he describes the experience of being anonymous. Rather, he asserts that being known and understood as an individual on a team is what counts, and this is an important factor in retention. The person who can have the greatest influence on an individual’s sense of belonging is a manager or, in the case of a student organization, an advisor. To ensure that student leaders do not feel anonymous, staff must take a genuine interest in the students that they advise.
Those who enjoy their experience and feel supported and welcome in their involvements are more likely to shoulder tap others to get involved, thus bearing some of the responsibility for sustaining their organizations for years to come.
Taking an interest in the lives of our students does not necessarily mean picking up their hobbies or watching the same media, which might seem superficial. Lencioni encourages leaders simply to take a genuine interest in their lives; getting to know student leaders requires empathy and curiosity. If staff can learn what motivates them and who they are, then they can learn how to support them as individuals and ensure that they do not feel anonymous.
One strategy is to provide ample opportunities to engage with student leaders at the beginning of their leadership terms, or before if possible. This can be done within a group setting or at an individual level. Other strategies may be to have students fill out a survey about what is important and relevant to them and use that to guide conversations, to assist students with professional or personal development, and to focus one-on-one meeting times on them as people rather than on the tasks they are performing.
Student leaders are busy. They’re not going to choose to dedicate their time to anything they’re not getting something from. Professional staff should be able to explain the benefits of student leadership and involvement that go far beyond simply having something fun to participate in during their free time. Students should be shown the longitudinal benefits of their involvement experiences. Transferable skills are often defined as skills that are applicable across multiple disciplines or fields of employment. Involvement in student organizations allows students to develop skills, qualities, and experiences that will benefit them in whatever lies ahead for them following the completion of their undergraduate education. Residential student organizations allow them to add skills such as problem solving, collaborative thinking, and effective communication to their personal toolkits.
For advisors, it is important to have conversations with students about what they are hoping to get out of their involvement and why it matters to them, which makes it easier for advisors and other support personnel to intentionally develop experiences that students will benefit from in ways that matter both to the students themselves and to the university community.
Lencioni coined the term immeasurement to clarify how employees “need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves” and thus must have “a tangible means for assessing success or failure.” As the author puts it, immeasurement can result in ambiguity and a sense of dependence on the subjective judgment of the achievements of employees (or, in this case, student leaders). While this subjective judgment may be present in many instances, it is necessary to identify what areas and experiences a student leader can directly impact and ensure that specific measurements – whether quantitative, qualitative, or intrinsic – are connected to the work they do. This involves more than simple evaluations and feedback forms, which do little to help students feel fulfilled. When student leaders do not see a link between the work they are doing and what they are being measured against, the leadership position can feel hollow and unfulfilling. While advisors and student affairs leaders see the macro experience and cycle of student leadership, that perspective may not translate to student leaders who are in their roles for only a year or two.
Advisors should discuss what student leaders’ success looks like at the beginning of (and throughout) their terms – not just at the conclusion. Not all measures of success will be the same for every student leader. Advisors should guide each student through the process of identifying what they aspire to achieve or gain during their experience and then support them to actualize those goals, explore what success looks like, and define how to assess it.
Recruiting student leaders is currently one of the greatest challenges facing housing and residence life professionals, but simply focusing on recruiting for the upcoming term or year creates a cycle of constant deficit. Developing strategies to retain the leaders who are already involved and engaged provides continuity of experience and allows them to become effective recruitment tools. Those who enjoy their experience and feel supported and welcome in their involvements are more likely to shoulder tap others to get involved, thus bearing some of the responsibility for sustaining their organizations for years to come. Invested students are also more likely to return to their organizations in future years, decreasing the amount of recruitment that needs to be done from year to year. Ultimately, our best tool for effective recruitment is working to retain students who have already chosen to get involved. Implementing organizational advising strategies that ensure that students feel known, understand how their work is relevant, and comprehend how their contributions have led to success is a way to keep them engaged in organizations.
Ryan Moore is a graduate assistant, Jackie Weisenfelder is a resident director, and Vicka Bell-Robinson is the director for residence life at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.