I started my college education off at the local community college where I grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan. After I finished my two years and graduated with dual associate degrees, I transferred to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo to continue my education. I didn’t know very much about the campus aside from driving by growing up and was not sure what to expect when I moved in. I applied to live in one of their transfer student communities and moved in that fall. From the moment I walked into my residence hall, I knew I belonged there. The RAs for our community had also been transfer students to Western and knew what issues we would face in our first days and weeks on campus. The guidance and honest compassion from my two RAs that year are the only reasons I was able to succeed and graduate.
Our grad assistant for the building made sure to talk to us about how our experience was going, and our complex director did the same. The care and compassion shown by the entire staff drove me to apply to be an RA for that same community. I knew I needed to help future transfer students make the transition to campus and make sure they had all the resources to be successful. I was able to serve as an RA for the transfer community for a year and watch my residents succeed not just at Western but in their professional careers. Seeing the impact I was able to have on my residents planted the seed that brought me back to residence life a decade later.
The biggest challenge in my job is having to quickly adapt to changes brought about by the current pandemic. We have had to quickly create surveys in our housing portal with little planning to get information from our students, adapt our occupancy plans once they are set in motion to adjust for new guidelines, and increase our flexibility with timelines for projects that are being impacted by moving target dates.
The must-have item in my office is a weather vane I got as a gift when I graduated from Western. It has their mascot on top, and I made sure it is actually facing north. Every time I get overwhelmed or face a hard decision, I look at it and remember that no matter how many times the wind may change direction, I know what my true north is and why I am here.
Indiana State sits right in the heart of downtown Terre Haute. As soon as you walk through a gate or arch onto campus, you are transported to another place. We have tons of green space where students and staff can walk, read books, or just relax on a lunch break. We are a Tree Campus USA, which provides beautiful scenes all year long. Students string up hammocks between trees in the spring and summer on the quad, and fall colors on campus are amazing. There is a fountain in the middle of campus that signals spring is here when it is turned on for the first time each year. It is one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever been on.
The tradition I have been part of is our March Through the Arch. Every fall (pre-pandemic), first-year students attend a huge welcome celebration in our arena and then march as a class through the main arch on the edge of campus. Faculty and staff line the route and high five every student as they walk by, and campus leadership greets them as they cross the university seal under the arch. It is just an amazing experience for everyone involved each year.
The most amazing thing I have learned this past year about our profession is the amount of cooperation and compassion that exists between institutions. There have been a few times I have reached out to colleagues or posted questions in forums during the pandemic about issues I was having, not sure if I would get a response or what that response would be. But people in the same boat as we are or that had already faced our issue quickly responded, providing guidance and support without judgment. I have never worked in a profession in which your place of employment didn’t matter; there are no rivals. Knowing that we will only make it through this pandemic as a community, not as individuals, just goes to show how much we all care not just about our students, but about our profession as a whole.
Knowing that what I do every day will impact our students’ experience on campus. Whether it is completely breaking apart and rebuilding an entire application process on our housing portal to make it a smoother experience for students or working with our team to create a method to collect data to track student persistence through event participation in our programs, I can see my impact every day – sometimes literally seeing the impact in report numbers as an application opens, but also in the calls and emails we get from parents and students about their experience.
Ha, that is a good one. I think the ability to slow down time around me would be great! I could still get my regular work done and get to work on those little projects that we never seem to have time to do.
David Kachman is the occupancy specialist at Indiana State University. Have a colleague you think others should get to know? Please share with us at talkingstick@acuho-i.org and you may see them in a future issue of the magazine.