Concurrent Session I
February 1 | 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
218 SSB
Latinx Leadership Development: How to Support Our Latinx Students
Jane Rodriguez, Florida State University
Maritza Torres, Florida State University
This session focuses on the development of Latinx student leaders on campus and how to support their growth and development. We will have conversations centered around how to advocate for this student population, encourage their growth and development, discourage imposter syndrome, and foster environments where they are able to thrive as student leaders.
214 SSB
Digital Neighborhoods & Neighbors: Learning Leadership Online
Vivechkanand Chunoo, Florida State University
Connor Jones, Florida State University
This session will ask the questions, “Can a college or university be a neighbor? And, how can universities most wisely and effectively engage their institutional ethos toward fulfillment of the neighbor-love mandate?”
208 SSB
Fostering Compassionate Engagement across Difference: Lessons Emerging from a Mixed-Methods Study of Interfaith Diversity in College
Shauna Morin, North Carolina State University
Zak Foste, The Ohio State University
Kevin Singer, North Carolina State University
Matthew Mayhew, The Ohio State University
Alyssa Rockenbach, North Carolina State University
Engaging students in meaningful diversity experiences is central to the work of higher education professionals, and it is critically important in today’s climate that such experiences encompass worldview diversity. Efforts to promote appreciation of different religious, spiritual, or non-religious identities on campus may be enhanced by findings from an ongoing mixed-methods study of interfaith experiences and attitudes in college. In this session, presenters will discuss what the study has revealed thus far about current college students' characteristics, dispositions toward worldview diversity, and interfaith encounters in and out of the classroom. Particular attention will be given to the ways that qualitative data collected in different institutional contexts during Fall 2017 have provided a nuanced understanding of findings from a nationally-administered quantitative survey, and practical implications of the research will be discussed.
Concurrent Session II
February 1 | 1:40 PM – 2:40 PM
218 SSB
Building Community on Campus: Planning for Reflective Spaces
Jillian Volpe White, Florida State University
Mark Bertolami, Florida State University
Often confused with a maze, which is a puzzle to be solved, a labyrinth is a path to be followed. It is a winding path moving in turns toward a center point for reflection. Labyrinths have been used around the world for over 3,500 years. Walking the labyrinth provides an opportunity to reflect, think critically about a question or problem, connect with your physical self, reduce stress, experience gratitude, inspire creativity, or grieve. The FSU Labyrinth, which opened in fall 2017, was developed through a collaborative partnership focused on creating a sense of place and being inclusive of all participants. In this session, learn about the process of planning a space on campus where people can engage with one another in reflection and meaning making as well as considerations for developing reflective spaces.
214 SSB
The Importance of Building 'With': Erasing the Us vs. Them Mentality in Service
Darrell Deas, Florida State University
Courtney Durbin, Florida State University
Community service is something we heavily encourage our students to engage in as soon as they step foot on our campus. Over time, the value of service has become non-existent and instead, seen as a box to check off on college applications. How has the purpose of service gotten muddled to the extent it has today? Is there a problem with participating in community service? The short answer, no. Volunteerism and service-learning are growing fields on college campuses with a breadth of opportunity to foster student development. In a time of high tensions, we must find a way to educate our faculty, staff, and students on the importance of erasing the "us vs. them" mentality when serving with the community. This presentation will shed light on best practices when engaging in the complicated mess we call community service. During this session, we will review the newest research on participating in service and how to educate others on the proper approach to serving with, not for, communities.
208 SSB
WHO before DO: An Identity Approach to Loving Our Neighbor Even if We Disagree
Jennifer Fonseca, Palm Beach Atlantic University
Identities vs Labels. It makes a difference which of these two we choose to operate out of within our institutions. Labels are tags which we attach to things and provide information, for example political parties. Identity however, is the fact of being WHO or what one is. This workshop suggests that colleges and universities who leverage their institutional identities will engage civil dialog, encourage diversity, empower individuals and campus groups, and educate holistically. When institutions of higher learning allow labels to supersede identity, it erodes the ethos of the school and undermines the collective and common good of its community. Labels incite protest; identity invites permission to walk in authority. Labels often lead to vitriol and violence; identity liberates respect and love. We can react to heated campus and cultural climates by choosing to partner with divisiveness and labels, or we can respond by choosing to partner with unity through a shared institutional identity.
Concurrent Session III
February 1 | 2:50 PM – 3:50 PM
218 SSB
Spirituality as a Tool for Leadership Learning and Cross-Cultural Acceptance
Carlo Morante, Florida State University
Christiana Akins, Florida State University
Gabrielle Garrard, Florida State University
As our communities become more diverse and tensions seem to rise between “Us" and “Them," colleges and universities have the responsibility to promote cross-cultural understanding and foster the personal development of faculty, staff, and students. In many cases, spirituality may be seen as the root cause for cultural division, but there is danger in not acknowledging the power of spirituality in creating inclusive values and environments. This interactive session will explore the spiritual concept of Ecumenical Worldview and how it relates to the ACPA/NASPA competencies of leadership, social justice and inclusion, and ethical and personal foundations.
214 SSB
Checking More Than One Box
Madeline Peña, Florida State University
Briana Edwards, Florida State University
The theme of "us vs them" can be conflicting for those that identify as “we." Multi-cultural groups and biracial students continually struggle with identity and the development of what they are. Finding a balance between two or more cultures can be demanding on one's own personal values and decisions. Changing the question of "what are you?" to "what is your story?” is crucial. This presentation will discover the answer to this question.
208 SSB
The Humanities: Where Strangers Become Neighbors
Tim Herrmann, Taylor University
In a world filled with need and dysfunction, a culture in which news sources are often chosen because they tell us only what we want to hear, where we are overwhelmed with information and challenged to separate truth from fiction, identification and care for "the other" is often badly compromised. This program proposes the humanities, an increasingly neglected realm of higher education, as a means though which the human condition can be explored, where human needs can be examined in a manner that does not summon defensiveness and through which people may better understand their common humanity.
Wendell Berry once identified the purpose of the university as "making humanity." While making humanity is not a simple end, and while there are legitimate competing notions of higher education, it is unquestionable that in both ancient and modern conceptions of higher education this purpose is present. Thus, this program will attempt to explore the purpose of higher education, the meaning, components, and importance of “whole-person education" and the humanities as a critical element of accomplishing the sort of whole-person education that nurtures care and responsibility for one’s neighbors.
Concurrent Session IV
February 2 | 9:15 AM – 10:15 AM
218 SSB
Reuniting "U.S.": Building Solidarity through the Interfaith Assessment Academy
Janett I Cordoves, Interfaith Youth Core
JT Snipes, Interfaith Youth Core
In the summer of 2017, Interfaith Youth Core launched a new initiative called the Interfaith Assessment Academy. The program brought together 10 higher education professionals from around the country to create an intentional space for learning and application of assessment theory and practice. This session will highlight the curriculum developed for the Academy, the on-going process of peer support and education, as well as lessons learned to build hybrid communities that exist both online and face-to-face.
214 SSB
Strategies for Student Free Speech Education and Its Importance
Tim Shiell, University of Wisconsin – Stout
Katherine Sermersheim, Purdue University
As controversy about campus free speech rages across the country and surveys over many years reveal widespread student ignorance about free speech, it is imperative for universities and colleges to do a better job educating students about the nature and value of free speech and its complex relationships to civility and diversity. In this session, Dean Katherine Sermersheim and Professor Tim Shiell discuss efforts at their public universities to promote and protect free speech principles and practices while also encouraging civility and inclusivity. Sermershiem will speak from the perspective of a campus with an institutional program providing free speech training to new students the past two years. Shiell addresses the issue from the perspective of a campus recently mandated by its Board of Regents to begin such training.
208 SSB
Fostering Cultural Humility on the College Campus: Training Student Leaders in a Divided World
Gina Frieden, Vanderbilt University
Rachel Eskridge, Vanderbilt University
Cultural humility incorporates learning that takes the learner to the edge of their own knowing while honoring the spirit of openness and self-examination. This presentation will discuss ways to integrate cultural humility in programs for student leaders on college campuses. How might the tensions of care and compassion be balanced with the need for social justice and how is each value defined? Who dictates the norms for what is normal? We propose that learning is enhanced when students are invited to both reconsider their own beliefs and assumptions and invite the space for an examination of their values as serving the greater good.
Concurrent Session V
February 2 | 10:25 AM – 11:25 AM
218 SSB
Living into the "Solidarity of the Vulnerable": What Higher Education Can Learn about Neighboring from Slovaj Zizek and Johnny Cash
Jeff Bouman, Calvin College
In a 2005 essay for the book entitled, “The Neighbor,” Slovenian sociologist Slavoj Zizek compares Judaism and Christianity in the terms of neighbor-love, pointing out that the commandment originally came to the Jews. With the lyrics of the Johnny Cash song, “The Man Comes Around,” Zizek demonstrates his thesis that God has essentially two characters, one showing unconditional love and the other capricious and outside the Law. One of the most honest-sounding phrases Zizek develops is his articulation of the mystery of the Other, ‘to recognize the Other is thus not primarily or ultimately to recognize the Other in a certain well-defined capacity¦ but to recognize you in the abyss of your very impenetrability and opacity. This mutual recognition of limitation thus opens up a space of sociality that is the solidarity of the vulnerable” (139). We are united in our vulnerability “to misunderstand the other, to transgress the Law to love our neighbors, and to responsibility for each other in ways we cannot fully understand.
214 SSB
The Marginalized vs. The Privileged: How Campus Narratives Can Create Enemies of Neighbors
Kevin Singer, North Carolina State University
Elijah Jeong, Baylor University
Why is it that students perceived as being privileged on campus frequently report feeling marginalized? Why is there such a significant gap in perceptions? The answers are hidden in the stories that are often told, like the model minority myth about Asian Americans, and the stories that are not being heard, like the ideological diversity that exists among White religious conservatives. In this session, common narratives that arise on campuses will be critiqued for their capacity to heal or exacerbate the polarization that often exists between groups perceived as privileged and those that are marginalized. Could new narratives be developed that are reconciliatory and empowering, in line with stated values like respect, compassion, and inclusion? In addition to enjoying a highly interactive presentation, participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and entertain new possibilities in small groups.
208 SSB
Transforming Campus Culture on Integrity: An In-Depth Look at Perspective-Taking
Laila McCloud, University of Iowa
Students' perceptions of their ability to engage in perspective taking is an important piece of understanding how colleges and universities can promote inclusive, compassionate, and respectful campuses. This session utilizes quantitative and qualitative data from an ongoing longitudinal study to examine how college campuses can implement campus-wide integrity focused initiatives.
201 SSB
Who Stays, Who Goes, How Can We Tell Their Stories? A Research-Practitioner Partnership on Needs Insecurity and Student Withdrawal
Lara Perez-Felkner, Florida State University
Alan Acosta, Florida State University
Vicki Dobiyanski, Florida State University
Jillian White, Florida State University
Higher Education M.S. 2nd Year Cohort, Florida State University
What is sampling bias? This is what happens when there are meaningful patterns in who we do not see – who’s missing. These invisible students may be too tired from working thirty hour shifts off-campus to respond to survey request emails. They may not consistently present or engaged in class for the same reasons. They may not be easy to drop in on and chat with in the residence and dining hall because they cannot afford the associated costs. They may have too much frustration, shame, chronic sickness, or purposeful dedication to academics alone to spend time developing their identity at the student union, engaging in the arts, going to the gym, or even building relationships and community at the campus food pantry. They may be caring and providing for loved ones. They may be student leaders. Past research suggests they are particularly likely to be missing from survey responses and less connected to campus.
The importance of basic needs in shaping social inequality as well as student success has tended to be taken for granted in higher education and social science scholarship. Higher education was originally designed for elites and remains plagued by inequality in educational access to quality institutions, despite a narrative of expanded opportunity (Alon, 2009; Stevens, Armstrong, & Arum, 2008). In recent years, federal and state financial aid has shifted focus on affordability to middle and upper-middle class families, rather than those with the highest need (Long & Riley, 2007). Corresponding to this shift towards merit grants over need-based aid (Heller & Marin, 2004), debates on the cost of college have tended to fix their focus on tuition and the price of college (Archibald & Feldman, 2014; Martin & Lehren, 2012). This problem risks missing the importance of college students’ basic needs – essential for students to learn and flourish (Maslow, 1943) – and how those needs are being insufficiently met by state and federal financial aid, if they successfully navigate the financial aid system at all (Goldrick-Rab, 2016).
Concurrent Session VI
February 2 | 12:40 PM – 1:40 PM
218 SSB
Award Winner: Best Practice
The Civil Rights Trip: Working towards the Beloved Community
Felicia Case, Taylor University
Julia Vandermolen, Taylor University
Scott Moeschburger, Taylor University
214 SSB
In a Time of Crisis: Community Engagement and Volunteer Programming in Disaster Response Situations
Connor Jones, Florida State University
A recent spate of natural disasters has directly affected the United States and the people who live there. The flooding of Hurricane Harvey was responsible for over 80 deaths and billions of dollars in damage and Hurricane Irma caused even more death and damage here in Florida. A common refrain from Student Affairs and Higher Education professionals (especially among those in the area of Community Engagement) in the immediate aftermath of these disasters is How do we help? This program is designed to pull together research and information from different university disciplines to craft a common thread of understanding when it comes to how to react in these situations. This program will also provide time for discussion and airing of ideas to help participants gain a more thorough and thoughtful understanding of how they can react in the most positive way possible in the aftermath of these situations.
208 SSB
Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Pillars for a More Inclusive Campus
Jenny Small, Boston College
J. Cody Nielson, Convergence
What are the policies and practices needed by a university to holistically address the lives of religious, secular, and spiritual students on campus? How can student affairs professionals create a more inclusive environment for worldview-diverse students? How can an institution bring chaplains and campus ministry professionals into campus life? The presenters will focus on national research related to four pillars of policy and practice that can change the overall campus climate related to this critical area of diversity.
Concurrent Session VII
February 2 | 2:40 PM – 3:40 PM
218 SSB
Award Winner: Dissertation of the Year
At the Intersection of Institutional Religious Identity and Worldview Diversity: Exploring Students’ Sense of Belonging at a Catholic University
Dr. Shauna Morin, North Carolina State University
214 SSB
Ethics, values, and decision making: How we prepared high achieving students to facilitate to their peers
Michaela Shenberger, Florida State University
Jacob Ellis, Florida State University
Between unauthorized group work, the occasional google search to ensure the correct answer before submitting, and opportunities for underage drinking; our students constantly faced a wide range of decisions minute to minute basis. In the Florida State University Honors Program, all first semester honors students in fall of 2017 shared the experience of Honors Colloquium. This course which was in part shaped by upperclassmen facilitators, Colloquium Leaders, considered a wide scope of variables in the decision-making process for college students. Our decision to have Colloquium Leaders was simple, we wanted peers speaking to peers on these matters, from their experiences. The final Colloquium Leader designed and facilitated class meeting was in the theme of ethical and values-based decision-making, a very large topic to grapple with.
As a program, we wanted to prepare and empower our students as much as possible leading up to this facilitation. We partnered with the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities to create a workshop designed for personal exploration, reflection, as well as skills and knowledge growth.
During this program, you will hear from our facilitators on the collaboration, creation, and implementation of the workshop, and the complicated value and ethical dilemmas high achieving students find themselves in, you will also hear from a Colloquium Leader on their experience in the workshop as well as their facilitation experience.
208 SSB
Who is my Neighbor? Utilizing Social Identity Activities to Build Community in the Classroom and Beyond
Lindsey Dippold, Arizona State University
Nancy Friedman, Florida State University
Building community within the classroom leads to increased levels of self-reported satisfaction and learning, as well as increased retention and graduation rates. But how? How do we approach sensitive subjects involving identity and cultural capital with our students who may not have mastered interpersonal communication skills yet? Beyond icebreakers, there are interdisciplinary activities that can build connections between students and help participants recognize how their collegiate experience may differ from their fellow classmates.
This presentation uses Bourdieu’s social theory as conceptual foundation with a framework built from recent empirical research on social class and its implications for today’s college students. After a brief theoretical background, presenters will lead participants through a social identity activity, with guidance on how to replicate in classrooms and student-worker trainings, with the ultimate goal of enhancing ALL students’ educational experiences and outcomes. Additional sample activities are highlighted and participants will have the opportunity to share best practices from personal experience.
Concurrent Session VIII
February 3 | 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
218 SSB
Paper Session
214 SSB
Being Good Neighbors through Leadership and Involvement on Campus
Sally R. Watkins, Florida State University
V. Chunoo, Florida State University
On many American college campuses, we can all be considered “neighbors” across multiple intersecting communities. Leading scholars in the field report the quality of these communities is reciprocally determined by students and personnel engaged across our campuses (Astin & Astin 1984, 1999), whose impacts ultimately affect the campus climate. Furthermore, when campus communities are constructed along values associated with the Social Change Model of Leadership Development (HERI, 1996), students should experience gains in group values such as collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility, and the social value of citizenship. This grant-funded study is an effort to explore how campus community and a sense of responsibility for our neighbors can be cultivated through leadership and involvement. Our session delves into the relationships between student involvement on campus and the development of socially responsible leadership as measured by the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale.
208 SSB
Do the Effects of College Last? A Service-Learning Case Study
Andrew F. Haggerty, Calvin College
Isabelle Selles, Calvin College
Professionals continue to enhance their capacity to measure the effects of programs through assessment and evaluation immediately after completion, but fewer practitioners and researchers have focused their efforts on measuring whether those effects last after graduation. Utilizing a current research project, this session will explore one attempt at measuring the effects of service-learning on alumni 5-15 years post-graduation, including significant discussion among attendees about the merits and pitfalls of this and other attempts, both in service-learning and other functional areas.