The Talking Stick Discussion Guide supports individual and departmental professional development efforts. These discussion questions, crafted by campus housing professionals, help readers to make meaning of the content and best identify ways the information applies to individual practices and institutions. Some suggestions for how to incorporate them into a professional development curriculum include the following:
building discussions into departmental meetings;
delegating articles to staff and asking them to lead discussions;
reading articles that address topics outside of normal day-to-day responsibilities to broaden knowledge of different campus housing aspects or aspirational positions;
incorporating articles into class discussions for graduate students;
assigning articles to graduate classes and coordinating opportunities to discuss readings and how they would apply to future careers.
Download this guide as a PDF worksheet.
Hand in Glove
As higher education enrollment becomes more challenging to predict, creating a stronger relationship between housing and admissions becomes more critical. Here’s how some campuses are making it work.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Occupancy: Exchange information with other campus units whose work impacts occupancy. Employ strategies for making mid-course adjustments to impact occupancy.
How does your institution's housing department collaborate with the admissions office, and what challenges do you face in maintaining this collaboration?
Does your institution have a housing ambassador program? If so, what roles do the ambassadors play, and how does the program contribute to student recruitment?
In what ways does your institution promote cross-training and partnership between housing and admissions staff?
The Generation Bridge
Being age-blind to the differences within an organization doesn’t help anyone. Rather, recognizing and celebrating them can become your superpower.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Human Resources: Support the professional development of all staff in creating and sustaining healthy and effective supervisor/supervisee relationships.
Take a moment out of your day to reflect on the different generations of coworkers you interact with. Then sit down with your team and reflect on the same thing. What did you learn as an individual and as a group about how these interactions have worked to replace the generational stereotypes you’ve learned?
Gerhardt explains what she means when she says she uses a comma instead of a period. It’s her way of acknowledging that people from the same generation can have different experiences that don’t fit the defining experiences of a certain generation. How do you make room for all the layers of someone’s identity in your interactions or relationships with them?
How can you and your team use this knowledge about what Gerhardt calls Gentelligence to make your workplace function better? Think about how you and your team can work toward better communication skills with your coworkers. As a director or supervisor, how can you manage your team so they see the different values and opinions of generations other than theirs? How would you use the tools to dial down tension or adjust the lens that Gerhardt mentions?
Thinking Outside the Checkbox
Incorporating inclusive design principles to create spaces where students can thrive
CORE COMPETENCIES
Facilities Management: Participate in the acceptance and/or commissioning of new systems and facilities. Align processes with departmental and institutional mission.
How would you work to assemble a project team with diverse voices? How could you shape a training about unconscious bias to support this effort?
Think about your next project. Who would you invite to be part of a user group that could help bring diverse ideas and details to the work?
You have your project team and user group in place. How would you leverage their expertise and experience to connect with local businesses and community organizations to expand the reach of the values of the project?
Moving from Taboo to Commonplace
Making space for religious, secular, and spiritual identities
CORE COMPETENCIES
Inclusion and Equity: Implement policies and procedures that support the needs and interests of a diverse community of students.
Take a moment to sit with your thoughts about religion. Use this opportunity to identify your religious biases. How can you work to release these biases?
Think about how you can build your religious literacy and capacity. How can you incorporate someone’s lived experiences with their beliefs into your learning? As a director or supervisor, how can you help staff build their religious literacy and capacity?
Think about how religion can be intertwined with a person’s identity. How does that affect your communication in the workplace or your creation of physical space, programming, or making accommodations for students?
Finding Home Away from Home
Elevating an existing program adds strength to a campus’s belonging initiatives.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Resident Educational Services: Create environments and programs that support student development. Create environments and programs that support student leadership.
Bring your team together and review the belonging initiatives on your campus. Which programs need to be updated entirely? Which programs have only certain parts that need to be updated?
Who are the campus partners at your college or university that you could reach out to for input and support for updating and sustaining your belonging initiatives?
Do you have resident assistants leading programming for belonging initiatives? If so, what could you add to their training to help them develop more meaningful programming? Or what additional training would help them in delivering the programming?
The Beat Goes On
Let’s talk about conference services.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Conference Services: Establish operational priorities regarding conference services in relation to other departmental functions and needs.
As you put your camps and conferences housing plan together, is there anyone new you would consider adding to your team? Is there a new department you would consider reaching out to that would bring more helpful information into your plan?
How do you keep communication flowing on your team? What tools could you implement to facilitate better communication that would keep all staff up to date with the plan?
How do you check that the current plan is running smoothly? What tools or practices could you use to do this?
What is your strategy for assessing your plan? How would you gather information to inform your plan for next year’s camps and conferences season?