Experts describe how trauma-informed leadership is far more than a one-person job.
Interview by James A. Baumann
“Trauma” is a loaded term. It may be too loosely tossed around by some and wrongly downplayed by others. It can stem from a specific incident as well as systemic factors. But regardless of whether one is talking about small- or capital-T trauma, it is a word and a concept receiving greater attention from scholars and practitioners across a variety of fields.
It would be easy to attribute that increased focus to living in a post-pandemic world, but the professional implications of trauma (and related concepts such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary or vicarious trauma) have been studied for decades, primarily in what could be called the caring professions such as the medical field and first responders. If there has been an evolution, it is the transition from focusing on strategies for individuals to manage and address their trauma to a broader and more holistic approach that explores organizational health. And sitting at the head of that (hopefully) healthier organization are the advocates of what has come to be known as trauma-informed leadership.
To learn more about how trauma-informed leadership could impact the campus housing profession, the Talking Stick gathered four scholars and practitioners who have focused their work on individual stressors, occupational pressures, and other forces that can be detrimental to organizational health, as well as strategies and recommendations to overcome them. Jason Lynch is an assistant professor of higher education at Appalachian State University; Molly Mistretta is an assistant professor and the chair of the Department of Counseling and Development at Slippery Rock University; Jamarco Clark is the vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Illinois Springfield; and Erik Sorensen is the associate director of residence life at Washington State University.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To start off with, I would like you all to share your personal, layperson definition of trauma-informed leadership.
Jason Lynch: For me, a trauma-informed leader is one who is knowledgeable of the various and nuanced ways that trauma intersects with the day-to-day human experience. They honor that within their leadership styles and try to create workplace environments that recognize the outcomes of trauma. Jamarco Clark: To me it is this idea that, as a leader, we put the person ahead of the professional. I talk to my staff a lot about that. I am very invested in you as a professional, but for me to be able to help you thrive as a professional, I need to know that person.
As Jason said, it is understanding that everyone is always carrying something, so how do we help them navigate what they are carrying when, in our work, they are asked to carry the stuff of others? It is handling people with care even when it is hard to. And it is really trying to understand why, if a person is being impacted by a situation, they are responding that way. Trauma-informed leadership is having the mindset to do those things but also actively engaging in the process.
Molly Mistretta: My definition would align a lot with Jason’s. The other piece, for me, is the bias toward action. A lot of people are talking about trauma, and people are sincerely trying to move the needle toward creating systems and conditions for housing professionals that are sensitive to the trauma they experience in the profession. But trauma-informed leadership means that there has to be – I am just going to say it – a radical change in how we think about and do this work. Too often, I just see some tinkering around the edges rather than making radical changes in how we think about the profession.
Erik Sorensen: Those are certainly all great definitions. I think another way to say it is to start with the assumption that people are more likely to have experienced trauma than not. And the more broadly we define trauma, the more likely that is true. Trauma-informed leaders should consider how they can create an environment that feels comfortable and welcoming to all as much as possible.
In the world of campus housing, where staff are routinely asked to respond to crisis situations, mediate conflicts big and small, and potentially trauma-inducing situations are part of the job, how do you incorporate that idea of trauma-informed leadership? Obviously, it is something people are aware of and want to be empathetic to, but those experiences are also so ingrained in the job.
Clark: I think it is like Molly said. Who is going to take that bold approach and be radical about it? In my research, I looked at Black male student affairs professionals who help students in crisis. What I heard was if, for example, there was a student death in a residence hall, the hall director (or whoever would be impacted by those situations) never got to step away because there was a report that needed to be done, and they still had to contact the student’s family. Oftentimes, we forget about taking care of ourselves, and then we are more impacted because we haven't had time to step away and really face what the situation means. For that to happen, yes, it is a balancing act.
Where is that balance? Again, we know that the report does need to get done. You know those parents do need to be contacted. But is there an opportunity for us to wait until the next morning to do that report? Can that report happen two days later? Those are all things where our profession is told that it is “now, now, now, now.” Is there an opportunity, though, to have it another way? That change isn't super radical, but it is going to take a building-block approach to get to where we need to be.
Sorensen: I think a lot about exactly what you're talking about. I can’t take those incidents away. I can’t make it so it is not part of the job. If I have someone in crisis, I need someone to respond. Now, could that be someone who's not in residence life? Sure, but someone is still responding. And so building resilience is a lot of the training and work I try to do to educate people on the topic. I say, “We know trauma is a thing. I want you to understand this thing, know what to look for in terms of symptoms, and know if it is starting to affect you in a negative way.”
I think people are able to deal with it successfully at varying levels as well. In building resilience, it is not saying that you shouldn't experience trauma. I am saying you are going to experience trauma. What do you do with it? How do you take care of yourself? I have started to shift a lot more into conversations around self-care and how to manage work differently. How do you manage your own experiences differently so that you can take care of yourself in these situations? How do we take care of each other in these situations, and how do we take care of each other as a community? If someone has to deal with a student’s death, can someone else make that phone call? When it happens in a person’s building, can someone else take over their duty for the night? These are all little things that we can do that still do help.
When I first got into this work, even as an RA, like so many of us I wanted to do it because I wanted to help people. Suicide intervention was one of my big specialties because I had a counseling background.
So when someone was suicidal on campus, they called me, and I had a lot of those conversations. While those were hard, I also was able to walk away feeling like I had meaningfully helped somebody. I find a lot of fulfillment and compassion satisfaction from helping other people. So where I can jump in and help, it doesn't hit me the same way, partly because of my experience and partly because of my training. So how do I help impart that in some way to others?
Lynch: When you first asked the question, I had two reactions. One was that I do not want to be the gatekeeper of trauma. Also, there is the importance of being able to differentiate stress from trauma. I think that answering an angry parent is not trauma-inducing for most people. I wouldn't say it isn't for everybody, but if it is trauma-inducing for a person, there is probably some sort of more complex history. For the average residence life professional, it might just be stressful.
But for things like responding to students experiencing suicide and these emergencies, that comes from this “other duties as assigned” job function that seems to describe every residence life job at this point. There is the academic partnership stuff, the finance stuff, the residential curriculum stuff, and now there is the health and wellness stuff. I think that the calls to be everything to everyone at all times just do not leave the capacity for resilience building.
Residence life needs to get back to its roots in community building or social and emotional development with students. Maybe this is my sense after becoming a faculty member, but I do not think students’ academic development is residence life’s responsibility. And when you actually look at the research, none of it shows a direct correlation between residence life programming and grade point average and things like that. Whereas if we are actually focusing on what the purpose is and what we could be good at in residence life, it is those skill-building things around wellness, independent living, and community living. Like Erik was saying, I wanted to go into this because I wanted to help people. There is something like a value proposition that we use to recruit people into the field and then do a bait-and-switch around how they want to help people, but we are not going to really prepare them to do it.
I think the other part is that we keep blaming it on the new generation, like they are just too young to do this work. But, when you think about it, whenever I have gone to the hospital for an emergency, a 23-year-old nurse is working on me. That person is the same age as our resident directors. The differences are their training and background and skill development. Not their age.
Mistretta: I am glad you brought that up, Jason, because that is the piece that interests me. The effects of trauma on the individual are compounded if they are also experiencing burnout. When I talk about radical change in the field, I think we missed an opportunity during the pandemic to step back and say, “What is our core reason for being in residence life and housing, and how do we recalibrate what it is that we focus on?” Being all things to all people is what drives burnout and what is driving folks out of the field. I mourn the loss of great housing professionals who have left just because they do not view the field as a sustainable profession anymore. That is a shame.
Lynch: I am doing a study right now on how organizations within residence life become traumatized. One of the things that keeps coming up is this idea of turnover, which Molly was just talking about. I have been mulling on this. When I entered into residence life, it was in that transition between when being a residence director, if you wanted it to, could be a long-term career versus this switch to short-term contracts. I really do think that it has been a tipping point.
When you think about it there is this funnel, and the farther you move up, the fewer positions there are, so people have to leave the field under these contracts. What I noticed is that my colleagues who had been doing the work for a number of years as resident directors had a completely different mindset, ability to set boundaries, and ability to protect themselves against burnout versus new professionals. As a new professional, I learned from them how to do all those things, but the colleagues who were coming in after me under these contracts didn't have that exposure to people who had been doing this job for a long time. They were the ones that burnt out super quick. They didn't have people checking them in those ways and asking if they really need to be in the office so early in the morning.
I think that the original idea was to keep fresh blood in the residence halls and keep the generations close to each other, but I think this has backfired and created a whole host of unexpected issues.
When I was reading up on trauma-informed leadership, one of the traits that came up a lot was authenticity. This led me to wonder if this is something where you can fake it until you make it.
Sorensen: My first reaction to that is that, absolutely, authenticity is important. It is better if you're good at it, obviously, and you then have more of a toolkit, so if it doesn't go quite the way you expect and the conversation is not going where you hope it does, you can respond and react.
I do think there are markers of things you can do that help lead towards trauma-informed care. I do not like the fake it until you make it idea anyway; I can train staff to do certain things that will help even though it may not be as robust as sitting down with someone who really understands this in depth. I think there is an in-between somewhere.
Clark: I agree with that. I also think that I didn't always have this tool; it wasn't until I had the traumatic experience of finding a student who passed away. I didn't even know I was experiencing secondary trauma until I started doing research. The key (which I do think people can develop) is emotional intelligence; you can develop leadership in people if they have emotional intelligence.
I talked about being able to handle people with care. That is probably one of the most important things because a lot of times – specifically with young professionals, which I still can tell you as one myself – they do not know what they are going through. So, as a leader, you've got to be able to see it and recognize that they’ve got something going on. I may not know what it is, but I see something. I see that something is changing you, and I want to be able to help you out.
Yesterday, we were talking about literature coming out about how Millennial supervisors lack emotional intelligence, and I said, “Well, when you think about that age group, a lot of their upbringing – not in all cases – was about survival.” And when you're in the space of survival, you're really only caring about yourself. You've got to make sure you're taking care of yourself first. So, they haven't expanded to think about how their actions impact others. But at the core emotional intelligence is what's important. If you fake it to make it, you may hurt more people in the process.
Mistretta: Emotional intelligence and authenticity are key ingredients in good supervision. We are losing a lot of good supervision in the field, and a lot of external pressures have created that. We are not as robustly staffed as we used to be, so there is just not enough time in the day to provide the type of supervision that some of us who are older got and were mentored into the field with. I see that even with students and faculty in our student affairs preparation program. When we send students out on internships, we have to reach out to the partners and remind them what we need from them in terms of the supervision of these students. They are not getting it as interns, and then they are going out in the field and they are not getting it as new professionals either.
Sorensen: Yeah, and while we are on the topic of supervision, another challenge with trauma-informed leadership is how good your supervisees are at supervising others with it. Where does your bottleneck appear? Who needs to be better at it, and where are you losing it? You, of course, want everybody to approach this in the same way for the betterment of the student, but that is a challenge, too. I have all this great information. I know the research and have these great conversations, but am I able to impart that to my staff?
Lynch: I think the idea of authenticity gets thrown about and it is a very ambiguous term. I do not want to bring my authentic self to every place that I am in. Sometimes I am super inappropriate and funny and things like that with my partner and friends, and I would never be that way at work. I think the “me” at work is just as authentic as my goofy, weird self at home, but it is situational.
One other thing I would add, maybe as a step for emotional intelligence, is reflection, emotional maturity, and life understanding. I think one of these key components is missing, particularly around trauma-informed leadership, as people do not particularly reflect on how they have come to understand themselves as leaders. They will come back from professional development and be like, “I am a servant leader” or “I am a transformational leader” or this and that. But what they think of themselves as a leader comes from a textbook or from a class.
I gave this presentation at a conference a few months ago, and I looked at social learning theory. Not to get too deep into it, but it is essentially that you learn by watching what other people do. That is a lot of how we do leadership. We see our supervisor’s experience and think we want to imitate that or, no, we want to avoid that at all costs. That is how we end up being developed as leaders. So, when we are talking about trauma-informed leadership, there is this intersection of an entire life we have lived up until we are in a position of leadership that impacts how we view the world and how we understand our interactions with people. Trauma can really impact that. If you experience a lot of neglect as a kid, maybe a lot of emotional abuse or neglect, maybe you're a really cut-off person with rigid boundaries for protection. That is a good thing that helped you survive, but in a leadership capacity that could come off as cold or isolating. If that person never reflected on the mechanism they've used for survival and how it is coming off in a leadership context, then they might be doing harm without realizing it.
On the other hand, I have seen a lot of leaders, particularly in residence life, who have super open boundaries. So maybe when growing up or during their trauma experience or whatever it might be, that mechanism of wanting to be open and helpful and be seen and validated through helping others may be leading them to burn out. So I think really understanding and taking time to reflect on who we are and how we come to be how we are is a missing component in all of this. It is key to being a trauma-informed leader because if you do not know yourself and your own triggers, then you can't be intentional about your actions or your interactions with others.
Maybe “fake it until you make it” wasn't the phrase I should have used. I was thinking more about how there is this idea of trauma-informed care and trauma-informed leadership that comes from inside and, in many ways, is intangible. But are there some practical exercises that one can do to better develop that skill so it manifests in a tangible way? What are those effective exercises to help develop one’s capacity for trauma-informed leadership?
Clark: In my research, my recommendations were really about practicing what you preach. I try to make sure my staff take care of themselves, and I point out that I engage in counseling myself. When we are handling so much heavy stuff from others, it is important to have that person who you can go to as well. I think that is the opportunity to stay grounded, to stay centered so that you can continue to do the work you're doing and take care of people.
The other thing is my community of scholars. I think it is important to have others who are also doing the work and engaging in this subject. I will give Jason a shout-out as he's been that for me, and I appreciate that.
Sorensen: Something I have done is to have staff fill out inventories that help measure their trauma. There are a number of resources out there in this area. I was using the professional quality of life scale because that is what I used in my dissertation. I have staff fill out inventories that measure their secondary traumatic stress burnout in some of these areas, and then if that score surprises them, we talk about it. We reflect.
What I like about the inventories is that you can go back and look at the specific items that got you there, and then you can say, “Oh, that is a place I need to work on. That is an area where, maybe, my boundaries are not where I need them.” So you start to get some very concrete, tangible elements. We can then do individualized accountability plans. If I can personalize what kinds of things to work on to be better for this one person, I think it is even more powerful.
Lynch: I do not think you can be a trauma-informed leader and not understand the basics of what it is. You need to know the current definitions or boundaries of it and be aware of how trauma impacts the body. If you do not understand what you're talking about as far as just the basic side of trauma, then I do not think you could call yourself a leader. Depending on how you understand those things, you start to view it in a different way and start to align your actions with that.
You can also build a sense of safety with the people that you lead because that is the foundation upon which everything else gets built. In the research I am working on, the number one predictor of workplace satisfaction is psychological safety – and, within that, the number one thing is if people are asking for help. If people are not freely talking about their needs and things like that in your department, chances are you are not creating a sense of psychological safety. Everybody needs help. None of us are perfect. None of us are superheroes. There is always going to be a challenge.
Mistretta: As I have been listening to people talk, I definitely agree with the intellectual curiosity about trauma. You're going to have to advocate around this issue for your staff and for your department, which is scary for some people. It is important to exercise or expand your knowledge and skills in terms of being able to assess and tell a story, gathering resources, and supporting your institution to function in a trauma-informed way. I do not think the rest of the institution understands this because right now most institutions are concerned about enrollment, and it is really hard to attach dollars and cents to this discussion.
Lynch: While I have been conducting all these interviews with various levels of leaders about organizational trauma and well-being, I have noticed a divide amongst senior leaders. Some are in the camp where they consider themselves to be a part of the senior administration and those are the people that they are beholden to, so they have a top-down kind of leadership approach. Then there are the leaders, like Molly was saying, who collect data from the inside, tell a story, and advocate up. Then, whenever it is not the outcome that they want, they try to negotiate and find the best-case scenario. The ones who champion their staff create more thriving in those organizations. I think Molly hit the spot there.
We have always known that communication is important in terms of style and understanding what approach or topic may or may not be triggering to somebody else. But now professional conversations are so different, and so much happens through email or Slack or Zoom instead of a phone call or face-to-face. What are some communication strategies that are present within a successful trauma-informed leader?
Sorensen: I think that being open and honest is really important, as we have talked about. This goes back to trust. I want you to know that we are going to have a fine conversation and that even if there is a problem and I am calling you in to talk to you as your supervisor, you think that is probably going to go okay. We'll figure it out together. We are all part of the same team. I think it is a big part of people feeling safe. I always like to tell people as much as I can and give them an idea of what we want to talk about and find a good time for us to do so, being as open and flexible as possible so they get to make some decisions too, which is empowering.
Mistretta: Openness, transparency, and people feeling psychological safety come when you lead from a perspective of support. What your staff needs to know is that no matter how badly they might have screwed something up, we operate from a growth mindset and we are here to support you.
Clark: I totally agree. I ask two questions at the end of every meeting, no matter if it is with a direct report or with the chancellor. “What do you need from me, and what can I do for you?” Sometimes it is nothing. Sometimes, it opens up the box of what people need. And I should probably ask the question at an earlier point of the meeting because if it opens the box late, we run out of time. It has proved to be very impactful because I get to know what my team needs – and, again, when I talk about emotional intelligence, I usually know what they need ahead of time. But I still ask the question in case there is something else. Most people are not keen to just dump on you. You sometimes have to give them that open door.
Lynch: One piece I would also add is this idea of dignity. When you look at Teddy McGlynn-Wright and Leslie Briner’s framework for trauma and practice, dignity is one of the big parts of it. Whenever we feel like our dignity or sense of worth in the world as a human being is challenged, particularly within communication, that is when we start to shut down.
There seems to be almost a bifurcation in leadership, particularly in housing, where you have some folks who think, “Well, I am just not an emotional person, I am direct, and people just need to suck it up and stop being so sensitive.” And I always want to ask them, “Well, how's that working for you?” Because, at the end of the day, you might be the one who needs to change. If your words and your way of being create a sense of unsafety for your staff, then that is only going to do a disservice to you at the end of the day.
You can have empathy with directness. I know all of you, and I would not say that any of you are passive-aggressive or indirect. You’re always direct, but you're always warm and empathetic in your actions. If you do not have time to take care of communication, then you do not have time to be a leader. That is a base-level thing for me.
Sorensen: That is a really good point. It is something that came into my mind, too, as Jamarco was saying that there has to be consistency. Your words and your actions need to align. Anyone could add to the end of their meeting, “What do you need?” but there needs to be that sincerity. There needs to be follow-up. There needs to be care. Jamarco does all that other good work, too, in a way that the little things you're doing all come from that value. Adding the little pieces really should connect back to this core value of care and support.
It has been interesting to hear you talk about finding that balance between being empathetic and providing trauma-informed leadership where you are aware of what your staff or your colleagues are going through. But then, in the end, the work has to get done. We’ve all heard some variation of the story of a graduate hall director or someone who has had some rough incidents and wants a week off to regroup but is asking right before training or move-in. Again, how does a leader find that balance between providing them what they need and also making sure they get the work done?
Lynch: Like we said earlier, it is a staffing issue. We shouldn't have staffing models that rely on one person. It takes me back almost to the origin of why I study this topic. I had an interaction with a student who had attempted suicide. It was a really graphic and awful ordeal. I also was in charge of the summer move-out season, summer move-in, all the interns, and all this stuff. I asked for a couple of flex days and was basically told, “This is the work, stop whining and get back to it.” And I was like, “Okay. Well, you won’t be seeing me anymore.” I say this in jest, but as a Scorpio, a lot of my research agenda falls into being scorned by the profession.
I figured I couldn’t be the only one experiencing this. We are not robots. We are not in a profession that works with conveyor belts and producing goods. This is a human profession. So people need those days, and if your staffing model doesn't allow for that, they need to figure something out because it is not sustainable. It is inhumane. I do not operate that way.
Sorensen: Yeah, and it is a culture thing, too. It is an organizational culture thing that maybe is not as much in line with the culture of our field, but we are trying to get there. Maybe it could become the culture of our own organizations where we ask, “Why are you not taking that flex day?” You've got to explain to me why you do not need it if you just dealt with something like that. Sometimes it is a matter of “What can you give today? What is 100% in this moment, and can you give me 100% of whatever is available?” Of course work still needs to get done. There may be really important meetings, but can you ask what can be accomplished that day and have a real conversation about that? If the person says, “I can’t do these meetings today, I need time,” we have to honor that.
And, like what Jason was saying, we need to have backup. We need to have help. That was one of the big things I wrote about in my recommendations back in my dissertation: RAs on duty need to know who can help them. If there is a hard call, who takes the phone next? Let's have a system that is better than what we have now. No one should ever feel trapped.
Mistretta: That is part of being a leader. In our responsibility as leaders we talk a lot about developing community. Well, when the rubber hits the road, have our staff developed community? Are they able to recognize when colleagues are in distress and shift and support? Our role as a leader is to ensure that community is being developed.
Also our role as a leader is to help our staff prioritize and help our organizations prioritize. Because you're right, stuff might not get done today, but understand what the most important thing is that we need to get done, and let's concentrate on that.
Lynch: I would echo Molly, and the literature reflects this idea of social support. Whether you’re talking about PTSD or burnout or whatever, the importance of community and a social support network is one of the most common themes that you'll find. When you're talking about actionable steps, and particularly for new professionals, one of the things that is important in residence life is to help them widen their community.
So, yes, the team needs community, but they also need community off campus: people who have nothing to do with housing or higher ed. I reflect on my own experience and seeing others in the field as new professionals; you get so wrapped up in living where you work, and your teammates become your friends. I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and hardly ever went anywhere outside of campus because that was my entire community. I really regretted this, and it created these additional layers of trauma and more burnout whenever the entire world seemed to be within a couple thousand square feet. Supervisors really need to help build that capacity to go join a club or organization off campus and really get involved.
A lot of people who come into campus housing were student leaders. When I was a student leader, all my time was structured. I was told when to show up for social events or when I could do this or that. I never developed the skills to do that on my own, so I fell into the same routines as an adult. Now that I am a little older and I do have friends outside of higher ed, I feel so much more balanced as a human being.
Clark: In my research recommendations I talk about better professional socialization for graduate students and new professionals. Jason, I think you hit it on the head. We have got to get them outside of their student affairs discipline and outside of higher education. Find that other person on campus, but also find stuff outside of the work. The profession leads young professionals to think that they are their role when they are so much more than a hall director. They need to have that when they must step away from something that may be tough.
Mistretta: One of the things I am really heartened by when teaching in a student affairs preparation program is that the students we have coming in are much more attuned to what good mental health looks like. They are establishing those boundaries early. Jason, you're right that some of us were socialized that this is the life. This is our life. My job is my life. I love that people who are coming into the profession now are not necessarily seeing it that way. And that is pushing the organizations to not lean on them so hard in terms of expectations. It is going to force us to do this work differently.
Clark: Molly, I love that. I am a young professional, and I try to help colleagues understand that these new professionals are not lazy. They are understanding their work better now. They are understanding what it really means. We have got to continue to push senior administration to understand that, no, they are not lazy. They do want to work. They also have their boundaries. And that is something I will continue to drive all my team to push because when we talk about radical change, that is the mindset we've got to have. So it is great to hear that you get students who are placing that on the forefront because I think that is so important.
Lynch: As we are talking about trauma-informed leadership, we have focused on being internal and the supervisor managing down, but we also need to use that framework for up above. I think that this is a really tough time for vice presidents and senior leadership, with the politics and all this other stuff going on – even at the presidents' level. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a college president right now.
When talking about the body's response to trauma, one response is a lack of empathy because your body is so stressed out, and you're in survival mode. Being empathetic is not going to help you in your survival. So whenever I see VPs or whoever is in that mindset, I wonder, “How stressed are you that you are unable to access that part of yourself?” That is why self-reflection and boundary setting are so important because if you let yourself get to that point, then it is going to trickle down to everybody else.
I will say, wrapping things up, that when I started digging into preparation for this call, I was thinking about it very much in a one-on-one mode or in terms of supervisor-supervisee. But my big takeaway from this conversation really is that true trauma-informed leadership is something that looks at not only personal behavior, but also the policies and practices around it and then also the structure. If just one of those elements is present, then it is not going to succeed unless the others fall in line in some way or another.
Mistretta: I spend a lot of time telling people that what they are feeling is not their fault. Not only are they experiencing the fallout of the trauma that they deal with, but also the systems that they are in. They do not support resiliency, and until those systems change, I do not think we are going to move that needle very far.
I have been brought in to do workshops on burnout and secondary traumatic stress. But one workshop for staff is not going to do anything if the structures in which these people work do not change.
Lynch: I completely agree with all of what Molly says. I think it is also a societal issue. Our work culture is about grinding up people in the workforce, and then, whenever they are ground up, we have a fresh crop ready to take their place. The university, and residence life in particular, is just the microcosm of that sort of greater expectation.
I try to remain hopeful, too, because for me, part of what higher education is about is taking that observation of broader society and changing it in our own spheres of influence, so hopefully we can make a difference externally. That is a big mission for a smaller functional area all right, but I still think we have our role to play in all of that.
Sorensen: Yeah, I agree. I think you hit the nail on the head that it is a matter of all the pieces coming together. Every piece matters, and I think my colleagues have said that very well.
Clark: All the pieces are important. And if one of the pieces is weak, how do we make it stronger? That is how you do this thing and try to do it well.
James A. Baumann is editor of Talking Stick.
