Navigating Ethics and Inclusion in Student Affairs with Michelle Boettcher

SA Voices From the Field

Exploring Institutional Intelligence and Student-Centric Approaches

In the latest episode of NASPA's SA Voices From the Field, Dr. Jill Creighton welcomed Dr. Michelle Boettcher, an associate professor at Clemson University, to discuss a range of pertinent topics in higher education. With a rich background spanning nearly 20 years in residence life, various administrative roles, and extensive academic experience, Boettcher brings a wealth of knowledge to the conversation. This episode, delves into the nuances of institutional intelligence, ethical considerations, and the essential focus on student-centric practices in higher education.

Bridging Law and Ethics: The Minimum Baseline

Dr. Boettcher emphasizes a crucial distinction between meeting legal standards and upholding higher ethical standards. In one illuminating example, she discusses an accessibility issue where a building at Clemson University housed both office space and an honors residential community on the first floor. Although the building was ADA-compliant, the arrangement limited accessibility accommodations to honors students only. Boettcher argues that this situation, while legally acceptable, raised significant ethical concerns. She underscores that legal frameworks should serve as a foundational baseline, and institutions should strive to go beyond mere compliance to embrace more inclusive and ethical practices.

Unpacking Institutional Intelligence: A Framework for Change

One of the key highlights of the episode is the exploration of "institutional intelligence," a framework co-developed by Boettcher and Salinas in their new book Law and Ethics in Academic and Student Affairs Developing an Institutional Intelligence Approach, and is designed to understand campus culture and decision-making comprehensively. This approach integrates three main components: law and ethics, the institutional environment, and decision-making processes. Boettcher elaborates on how this model assists practitioners in navigating institutional culture, underpinning decisions with historical context, and fostering positive institutional change. By employing reporter-like questions—who, what, where, when, why, and how—this method helps gather and analyze vital information, ensuring well-informed decision-making.

The Core of Ethical Practice: Human-Centered Policies

Boettcher's commitment to student-centric approaches shines through as she emphasizes the importance of keeping students at the center of all institutional efforts. Drawing inspiration from Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dynamic view of law, she illustrates the need for adaptability and responsiveness in student affairs. Boettcher's approach is grounded in balancing control and care, aiming to build more collaborative and engaging environments for students. She also highlights the increasing recognition of student affairs professionals and their critical role in managing various campus scenarios, from everyday operations to crisis situations.

Practical Applications and Reflective Practices

Throughout the conversation, Boettcher stresses the significance of practical applications and reflective practices. Whether it’s onboarding new staff, managing crises, or implementing change, the institutional intelligence framework serves as a guiding tool. Boettcher also touches on the importance of taking time to pause and reflect, referencing mindfulness practices as a metaphor for the long-term benefits of reflection in professional settings.

Merging Law, Ethics, and Practicality

This episode of NASPA's SA Voices From the Field underscores the intricate balance between legal obligations and ethical responsibilities in higher education. Dr. Michelle Boettcher's insights remind us that effective student affairs work hinges on understanding and navigating institutional culture, centering student needs, and committing to continuous reflection and improvement. Her practical, human-centered approach offers valuable guidance for educators and institutions aiming to foster more inclusive and ethical academic environments.

Listeners are encouraged to provide feedback, suggest topics, and leave reviews to help SA Voices From the Field continue reaching a wider audience with such impactful discussions.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:00]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices From the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts. Brought to you by NASPA, we curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed pros wherever you happen to be. This is season 11, the past, present, and future of student affairs, and I'm doctor Jill Creighton, she, her, hers, your essay voices from the field host. Today on Essay Voices, we're welcoming doctor Michelle l Batcher, sheherhers. Doctor Batcher studies the overlap of student affairs and higher education practice with policy, law, and ethics. She examines how these areas intersect in the areas of career decisions, diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and belonging, popular culture, residence life, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and work environments. After working for nearly 20 years in residence life and student conduct, she's now an associate professor at Clemson University in the student affairs and higher education graduate program. She has a great job, enjoys life as well as work, and is the luckiest person she knows.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:00]: Michelle, welcome to SA Voices.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:01:02]: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and have some conversation today.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:06]: And while we are here primarily to talk about your new ish book, which is Law and Ethics in Academic and Student Affairs Developing an Institutional Intelligence Approach, which you coauthored with doctor Christabel Salinas junior, we always wanna start our shows by getting to know our guests. So can you tell us how you landed in your current seat at Clemson?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:01:25]: Absolutely. So I'll go back to undergrad. I was an RA. And when I graduated, I said I would never live in a residence hall again. Then I went to grad school, and I worked in housing for almost 20 years. So just don't say never. I did that, worked different places. My undergrad's Iowa State.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:01:47]: My master's was University of Arkansas. I was at the University of Cincinnati. I took a year and well, first after that I was at Ohio University and then I took a year. Because when you work in housing, you don't always have time to think about, do I wanna stay in this work because you're just busy all the time? And I worked at a public radio station for a year in California, which was very fun. And then decided, yeah, higher ed is my thing. I was at Dartmouth for a semester and then moved back to Iowa, which is where I'm from. Went back to Iowa State for a practice interview and was there for 12 years. So I was there for 5 more years in housing and then right before my current position, I was an assistant dean of students and director of student conduct.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:02:35]: And I love that job. It's not for everybody, but I really enjoyed it. While I was doing that, I finished my PhD and started to look at faculty positions. Got the interview at Clemson and came and just really enjoyed the people, both the faculty and the students. And that's what I do now. I just am finishing up 10 years at Clemson, which is mind boggling to me, but I love it. It's the right job for me. It's a good mix of working on my own and then getting to spend really great time with students.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:03:09]: So, yeah, that's a condensed version of my journey.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:11]: I love that you've gone from that practitioner perspective to that kind of researcher perspective and and scholar practitioner because it really, I think, informs your position in your research about how you're going to be approaching challenges and those intractable problems that we're looking at in higher ed. I know a lot of faculty members have gone straight through that faculty track, and a lot of practitioners have never been in that scholar track. So giving those two perspectives some voice, how does that change how you approach your work?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:03:39]: Oh, I love that question. So I think first and foremost, I'm always looking to partner with practitioners. I'm a faculty member. I will always be a practitioner at heart. And I worry sometimes that as faculty, we can get really excited about questions that may not be as pressing and relevant to practitioners as those questions that we can come up with when we're partnering with them. And I'll sort of reference the book in this too. When Chris and I were working on the book, it was really important to us to have practitioner voices in the text. And so almost every critical scenario, we coauthored with practitioners.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:04:22]: And then there are introductory quotes for the functional area chapters and the same thing. We did bring in some other faculty and academic and administrative leaders, but we really wanted this to be rooted in the day to day doing the work kind of thinking. So I love working with practitioners as co authors or supporting them because the people doing that face to face work with students and with incidents on campus, they're the ones who really know what the most important topics are. I very quickly, to my students, became just a faculty member, but at my core, I'm always, I think, gonna be a student affairs practitioner.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:02]: Leading into the book, how did you decide this was the topic for now?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:05:06]: So I did not set out to write this book. I set out to find this book. I get to teach law and ethics every fall, and it is definitely one of my favorite courses to teach. And I don't know that it's the course every student looks forward to. And my coursework was very much studying case law and understanding how case law and policy inform what we do. And that's important, and that's part of the sort of context section of our textbook. But for me, I wanted, how do you think about it? How do you plan for things? And I also wanted an ethical component. Because while a lot of the decisions we make on a daily basis might have legal implications, it's the ethics.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:05:53]: That's, like, almost every decision we make. There's some sort of ethical piece informing that. So I looked and I just couldn't find the book that I wanted. And Chris and I had worked together on a different book related to hazing. And so I reached out to him and said, hey, I wanna put a proposal together. I know that we write well together. He also had practitioner experiences in areas that I have not worked in. And so I thought we make a pretty good team and he was really good.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:06:25]: But his first question was, are you sure I'm the person you wanna write this with? And because he said, I haven't done that work. I said, oh, but you have. You know, you you make those decisions. And he had the academic, like, advising and and mentoring experience, and I just haven't had that. And so that's where it came from. I was looking for a book for class, and I couldn't find the book that I wanted. And so then I was like, okay. I think at the time it was like, we'll just write it.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:06:56]: Yeah. So that just it's a bigger project than, just, but but that's how it came to be. And like I said, I love the topic, and I'm really interested in it. And I want it to be approachable for people. So that's where it came from.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:08]: I would also consider myself a bit of a case law nerd and definitely a policy nerd. One of the things that I've been doing with NASPA for many terms now is sitting on the public policy division and kind of looking at the lens of what are we doing in terms of policy information for practitioners, and there's the intersection of law and policy. And ethics is an interesting place to introduce that topic for aspiring student affairs practitioners. Why at Clemson and for your class in particular, do you choose to pair those 2 subjects together?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:07:37]: So that predates me. That's how the course was set up. But I once I got into it and was working with it, like, it's never even entered my mind to separate them. Mhmm. Because I think we it kinda comes down to just because it's legal doesn't always mean that that's the answer to the question. And I'll give an example. My last residence hall that I worked in as a hall director, I was in a a brand new building, which is an experience unto itself. And if you're listening and you've had that experience, you know, everybody thinks everything's gonna work on move in day and it doesn't really.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:08:18]: There are tweaks still to come. Well, one of the things in this particular building, the first floor, half of it was office and meeting space and half of it was a residential community. And it was an honors community, which meant if you had needs around accessibility, unless you were an honors student, you could not live on the 1st floor. The building was up to code in terms of ADA and all of that. There were lots of really good spaces, but not on the 1st floor, again, unless you were an honor student. So during that 1st year, we had conversations about, can we move the honors floor? And our honors community was one where students tend to tended to stay for a couple of years, and students were not excited about moving until we were able to work with the honors program and expand the community. So the upper floors were full floors, so it was twice as much space. So that was kind of how we were able to make that change.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:09:19]: And it didn't mean that every student with an accessibility issue chose to live on the 1st floor because we have one student who was living on the 3rd floor, and he liked his community there. He didn't wanna move down to 1st floor. But for me, ethically, to not even have that as an option in the newest building on campus was problematic. So I think our our ethics and our laws, like the legal standard is the lowest standard. It's not what we aspire to. And so for me, that's where ethics come as comes in is how do we do the legal thing as well as we possibly can do it? Does that answer the question?

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:09:58]: Yeah. I think we say the similar thing with policy, which is the policy is the floor, not the ceiling, meaning that the policy is the baseline expectation of how we are fundamentally providing access for someone or how we are looking at equity in other learning opportunities or what we expect from our students from a behavioral perspective. I think you and I both grew up in the conduct perspective. That conduct code isn't telling us what we can do. It's telling us what we can't do, and we see that all over the place. And so thinking about the book that you wanted to create for your class, you and Chris invented a framework called the institutional intelligence approach. And when we think about this season of our podcast theme, the past, present, and future of student affairs, this institutional intelligence approach to me frames the questions we have been asking in the past, examines the challenges of the present, and gives us a framework to look towards institutional decision making in the future. So can you talk to us a little bit about what is institutional intelligence? Do you and Chris have framed it in your work?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:10:58]: And I love the way that you put that in terms of past, present, and future. I'm working with students right now on a project using it around the job search, which is future oriented. But absolutely, it's really, I think, a pretty simple model. And so institutional intelligence is at the center. And it's always in flux because there's change all the time on campuses. So it's never that you reach the now I know everything about my institution. It's a growing, evolving kind of thing. And the model, it's 3 pieces.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:11:35]: So on on one end, you have law and ethics. And I would put policy in there. I would put procedure can be part of that as well. But that's sort of the guide. Those are the guidelines. And then in terms of the law and policy piece, the ethics is how do we enact that. And so those help to set the stage for what's the culture on campus. The other side is the who, what, where, why, when, how questions.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:12:04]: And using those, the way that we talk about them in the book is as you navigate institutional culture, how can you build your awareness or your intelligence about a given campus? It could work for another organization. It could work in another context, but you can go through. So just thinking of who's your supervisor. Right? So who are they? What is your relationship with them? How long have they been on campus? How long have you been on campus? You just can go through the questions to kind of anticipate or reflect or again to your point in the moment when you're dealing with something, who needs to know about this? A student just shared something with me. Who else needs to be informed? What's our process for communicating that? When do I need to make sure other people are aware of this situation? And so it really is and it was not a starting point for the book. It came up as we were talking through other things, and it's like this could really be helpful. And again, coming from housing and conduct where there is a lot of crisis, you can get so overwhelmed with whoever is right in front of you in the moment that you can miss other things. And so this model is meant to sort of give you a moment to think about it.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:13:21]: And that moment may come it might come during the event, but it might come after the event. So you're using it to look back and reflect on what did we do? What would we wanna do differently? How did we communicate with the community about this? And it might be used to look forward in terms of changes that we might wanna make in case this situation comes up again. But I think a lot of people use at least parts of it intuitively. We want to understand the place where we are or the situations that we're in. And so we just put a little more detail to it and a little more formality and structure to what a lot of us do instinctively, I think.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:14:01]: Let's back up a minute. And can you define institutional intelligence as you and Chris use it in your book?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:14:06]: Yeah. So the idea of institutional intelligence is really being aware of the culture of the place and understanding how does it work. I would say at the core, institutional intelligence is knowing your place in the larger picture. And it's understanding, again, policy history is really important. When I teach law and ethics, I talk about the idea of the random campus policy. Every campus has this weird policy that you've never heard of anywhere else. It's almost always the result of a thing that happened, right? There's a story behind those and sometimes we can get to those stories and other times It's so far gone that the story is lost, but the policy remains So it's about awareness. It's about just understanding how things work in an effort to understand how to make things happen, how to create change, or how to sort of engage in ongoing improvement, things like that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:15:10]: And when we move into the framework that the 2 of you have developed, you mentioned that you're looking at what I would call the reporter questions. Maybe when we first learned in early schooling years how to interview someone or how to ask a question or how to write an article for something, we're looking at that who, what, where, when, why, how, the 5 w's plus how questions. Tell us about how you arrived at these questions, which are well known in American journalistic culture, but transitioning them into a higher ed context.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:15:39]: It's hard not to think of these questions because, like you said, they're just so embedded. We use them, like you said, in reporting. We use them in writing. We use them in understanding, and everybody kind of knows them. And so I think that was part of the appeal. You know, we weren't looking to make something that was unapproachable because the harder it is to understand, the less utility it has. And so using them in our context, it really is just a little bit of a reframe. In a way, a reporter uses them to gather information for the story, which is their work.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:16:16]: In our thinking, we use them to gather information for student affairs work. So asking who within the context of higher ed. We grouped why, when, and how together because those are a little bit more about action. Why is sort of the bridge. Right? It's the bridge between what's happening, what should happen, and how to make it happen, and when and how is putting it into it being whatever it might be. It could be a policy. It could be a crisis response. It could be a supervision strategy.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:16:53]: But those are more the task things and why bridges between the information gathering and the putting into action. And it's again, the comfort that I think a lot of people have with it just made it very appealing. We found ourselves asking those questions as we were building the book and especially as we were writing the critical scenarios. They just kept coming up and over and over again. And so that was sort of the seed that grew into the model.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:17:22]: You've already mentioned that you're using this model with your current students in the job search in terms of application. You've put some examples in the book around kind of deconstructing university responses to freedom of expression components. How would you envision a practitioner taking this model and applying it to their work? And when does that happen? And what do you hope the outcomes will be?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:17:42]: So I'm a big fan of the model. I think that there is utility for it in so many different ways. The first thing that comes to mind for me is onboarding. Helping someone understand and I would say this doesn't have to be a person new to an institution, but particularly in that case, it could be really helpful. But it could be I'm moving to a new functional area on the same campus. It could be I'm getting a new supervisor. There are lots of different ways, but it is a great tool for adaptation and acclimation. So navigating change or planning to navigate change for implementation as we're doing this and as we're going through whatever the process might be.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:18:28]: I tend toward crisis just because my work experience involve that a lot, but it could be rolling out a new mission statement. Who do we want involved? Who should have input? How do we wanna build the process to move forward? When do we wanna do this? When does it make sense? I also think a really valuable and I would say based on my own experience. So this is, anecdotal, not research driven. But where we miss the opportunity to learn the most is in that reflective stage. We're so busy and there are so many things happening all the time. We don't always carve out time to reflect after. And again, it could be after a crisis, but it could be after, say, you're moving to a cluster higher model in your area. Reflecting on what worked, what didn't, who's involved in that reflection, when do we do it? Do you do it right away? Do you wait 6 months? Do you do it more than once? So I think it works in really the big aspects.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:19:34]: So the creation, ideation, visualization stages of things. It works in supervision, group dynamics, team development sorts of things, and it works in looking ahead and planning, anticipating. It's just an easy model that has pieces that fit into all of the different sorts of activities and conversations and planning that we do and beyond higher ed. But I'm focused on higher ed because that's where I wanna be.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:20:07]: In the book, there is a table that I like called the ultimate cheat sheet for critical thinking using this model. And so we've talked about kind of the big buckets of the who, what, where, when, why, how. But what I like about the cheat sheet is that it breaks down into more specific subquestions that could be used. I'm just gonna share some of them with our listeners. So if you wanna go pick up the book, you can kind of understand a little bit more about what these buckets might represent in practice. So in the who or whom question, you might ask, who made a decision or decided about the situation, or has anyone else faced the situation? In the what bucket, we might have what are the strengths and weaknesses of those who were involved or effective, or what's another perspective or alternative to the situation in the way that it was managed. In the where, we're looking at things like where's the most need for a specific resource or support in the situation, or, where can we get more information is a is a great question we should always be asking. In the when we have, when did it occur, when's the best time to act? And That's a great reflection question for practitioners who are looking to implement change or even make a response to something that could have been a crisis on your campus.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:21:15]: In the why, we have why is this situation a problem or a challenge? And I don't think we stopped to ask that question a lot. The why is this happening, why now? Because as responders in student affairs, we're often looking at, okay, what should we be doing? And I think the impetus for the why question can help us actually solve the problem because we might be getting to the root a little differently. And then finally, in the how bucket, how will we approach this situation safely? How does this response or decision harm us or others? So I think it just gives us a nice framing of, hey, let's pause. And one thing we don't do in student affairs a lot is pause. Yeah. So thank you for giving us some of those questions that I think you're right. We're already doing, but we don't necessarily put in one place.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:21:58]: And the idea of the pause, I'm so glad that you brought that up. There's a story that I like about this man and he goes to a teacher and asks, I'm really busy, but I know I need to meditate. How long do I need to meditate? And the teacher says, about an hour every day. And the man says, I don't have that kind of time. I can't do it for an hour every day. And the teacher says, okay. Then 2 hours a day. And I think about that in terms of what you were just sharing because that pause, it does take away time in the moment, but the time that it saves down the road and the clarity that it can bring, it's an investment forward.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:22:37]: And, yeah, it takes some time in the moment. But if you don't reflect, you end up doing the same things over and over again that may or may not be in the best interest, not only of the students involved or the faculty or staff involved, but in terms of your own team and your own I don't wanna say productivity, but your own rootedness in the work. Because more committed and energized and understanding ways instead of that's just the way that it is.

Lora Phelps [00:23:13]: What are the other major takeaways that you're hoping readers of the book will keep with them?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:23:18]: So I will share that one of the things and Chris and I definitely wanna acknowledge doctors Mimi Benjamin and Jody Joseph Banger who worked with us and supported us through the development and the submission of the book. One of the things for me is I use humor a lot, and I use it in my teaching. And I wanted this to be as enjoyable as this kind of a book can be. So there is some humor in there. Chris came up with this great concept of the onion. And to understand what issues are, you have to get to the core of the onion and an onion is layered. And I think we even have in there sometimes it will make you cry a little bit. But we tried to use examples like that.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:24:05]: You know, we use real life examples. And again, the partnering with practitioners was really important to us. But there are ways to make scholarship approachable and enjoyable. And there are also scholars who write and use language that creates barriers and hierarchy. And we did not wanna do that. We really wanted this in the hands of practitioners, people using it in classes, and providing students a way of engaging with what can be really challenging. The issues that our students and our higher education communities are facing are heavy, and they're challenging. And there can be joy, and there can be laughter in the work as well.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:24:48]: So I think that's one of the things I'm most proud about. Again, thanks to Mimi and Jody. There were a few things in there that they're like, yeah. It's funny, but I don't think you really want this in the book. And I would then go to Chris and say, it is funny. And he would say, yeah, but I think they're right. So it's, I think, an appropriate amount of humor. But I do think that in the end, we're human beings, and we're navigating our lives and building our stories.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:25:15]: And for me, humor and love go hand in hand. And so that's part of what underscores the book is I hope that people receive it as a book of care, not as a directions or I don't want it to be rigid because policy is really not rigid. It can look that way on paper, but when it comes to implementation and meaning making, it is more malleable. And if we don't bring care, we can shape it in ways that do harm rather than in ways that ultimately it should be something that supports healthy communities and places where people can thrive and grow.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:25:56]: Michelle, we're gonna transition into our theme questions for the season. So first, I'm going to talk to you about the past, which is what's one component of the history of student affairs that you think we should continue to carry forward or alternatively let go of?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:26:11]: So I would say something that we should carry forward is centering students. And I say that because while I think for the most part we do that, where we are right now, and one of my go to people or one of the people I admire very, very much is justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And she talked about law as a pendulum. And it's not static. It's always in motion. And sometimes it's a little more where we want it to be, and sometimes it's a little more where we would rather it not be. And there are people at either ends of that. And so we're all comfortable at times, and we're all uncomfortable at times.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:26:55]: And so I say centering students moving forward because we are in, I feel like right now, a place where I worry that we are being pushed to center law, policy, and politics rather than centering students. And this is not the first time we've been here. I know it for me, it can feel very scary at times. But if you look back over the history of higher education, this is common and it's where the pendulum is in the moment. I want us to carry that forward and I don't really have a fear that we won't. I think the people who are drawn to this work are drawn to this work because of the experiences they had, the experiences they didn't have, and what they want to create for other people as they're going through their higher ed experiences. So we can get pressured or it can get easy to get caught up in other things. But in student affairs, if at some point in whatever our process is, we're asking, is this what's best for students? I think we're gonna be okay.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:28:01]: And sometimes we have to compromise on that a little bit because things we don't always get to be the boss of all the decisions. But that's something that I would say, while it originally probably started over controlling students, the way that this work has emerged has really been about caring for students more than controlling. But again, we go back and forth on this and but that's something I would really like for us to hold on to. And I'm happy and proud to say I know lots of people who are doing exactly that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:28:31]: Moving into the present, what's happening in the field right now that's going well for student affairs?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:28:35]: I think that student affairs is I don't know if rising in prestige is the right way to say it, but I think because of different things that have happened and are happening, I think people understand we need student affairs because a lot of times college presidents, particularly at 4 year institutions, come from the faculty route or more and more they're coming from a business route. And while those leaders bring certain strengths, they don't bring the strengths of dealing with student behavior. And stop it is generally not gonna work with students. And so I think that the role of divisions of student affairs and the functional areas that are really student facing, I think people are understanding we need people with that kind of expertise to navigate not just when things go poorly, but when things go well. We need to understand and I'll use just because it just happened when the Vanderbilt football victory. They're walking the goalpost 3 miles to the river. Well, sure, there's law enforcement involved with that. There's policy and things like that.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:29:57]: But in terms of communicating to students and balancing the celebration with the responsibility, we're the ones who know how to do that. I worked for a vice president at one point and his philosophy was we do the things other people don't wanna do. Well, I think that's true to an extent. I think now people are understanding we do the things other people can't do. And so it's faculty matter, administrators and leaders matter, but student affairs people, they're the ones who really are dealing with some of those really big issues, whether it's the recent hurricanes on campus or celebrations or whatever it might be. So and I can be naive, and maybe that's not exactly true. But I see more examples of consultation rather than direction from the top down in terms of working with student affairs practitioners.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:30:51]: And looking towards the future in an ideal world, what does the field need to do to thrive towards our future?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:30:57]: We have got to tell the story of what we do And whether that's assessment, whether that is more practitioners in public media, there's the joke of you can't really explain what student affairs is. That's true. It's a weird kind of thing that most people don't understand, but you can tell the stories of specific things that we have done and the way that we make a difference. And we do that in partnership with students, but any chance that someone has to share information about what we're doing and the difference that we make, that's just gotta continue. And I'm I'm a storyteller at heart, so there are lots of different ways to do that. Could be being on a podcast. It could be writing for a publication. It's great to do things at conferences.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:31:46]: It's important to do that. And could you do something like that for your city council? Could you do something like that for maybe even local schools talking about transition. And we do that in the practice of the function of our work. But the more that we can get out and tell the stories of how we make a difference. And it's not just about preserving roles on campus, but it's really about letting families and students and communities know about the resources that we have. It always hurts to find out a student has been struggling for weeks or months when we have the people, the places and the things that could have helped them through whatever it is they're navigating. But that storytelling, I just can't stress it enough. It's really essential and we've all got the stories.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:32:36]: We don't have to come up with things. We all carry those with us every day.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:32:40]: It's time to take a quick break and toss it over to producer Chris to learn what's going on in the NASPA world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:46]: Thanks so much, Jill. So excited to be back in the NASPA world, and there's a ton of things happening in NASPA. The 2024 Leadership Educators Institute is happening December 9th through December 11th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is a partnership between NASPA, ACPA College Student Educators International, and the National Clearing House for Leadership Programs. LEI provides a unique opportunity for all professional levels within our field to engage in critical dialogue to promote positive, sustainable change on their campuses. We all know that leadership is an integral competency for our profession. The leadership development of students is an important and ongoing process that requires commitment from both students and staff. Student affairs professionals and other university administrators play an essential role in coordinating, shaping and evaluating the leadership development of students by designing leadership courses and programs, creating co curricular opportunities and utilizing emerging technologies.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:47]: The Leadership Educators Institute has a rich history of convening professionals committed to leadership development for nearly 17 years. This Institute creates a space for student affairs administrators, scholars, and practitioners to discuss and advance current leadership topics. As mentioned, the conference is from December 9th through December 11th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Registration is still open with regular registration deadline coming on November 11th. Get more information on the NASPA website. The 2024 Women's Leadership Institute is coming up also in December, December 10th through 13th in San Diego, California. The Women's Leadership Institute is the premier professional development program for women who aspire to be senior leaders in higher education. The Women's Leadership Institute provides an experience that offers strategies for women to succeed in the higher education profession.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:35]: Participants include women from facilities and operations, administration, auxiliary services, student affairs, recreation, and libraries who share a passion for the profession and plan to lead with lasting impact. You can be a part of a special program for women seeking to become leaders in higher education administration and student affairs. This institute is co produced by several higher education associations and is a unique program that will bring together administrators from across campus functions to help you hone your leadership skills for working in a rapidly changing environment, develop a better understanding of the campus as a workplace and culture, share experiences with others about how campuses are adapting and adjusting to the new reality and create new personal networks and networking skills to better tap the higher education community. Registration is still open and you can find out more on the NASPA website. The 2024 Red Ribbon Week Campus Video PSA Contest is currently open. This annual contest aims to promote the importance of living a drug free lifestyle. Just recently, NASPA announced that through the campus drug prevention dot gov website, your campus can submit a campus video PSA to promote the importance of preventing illicit drug use and legal drug misuse among college students. If your campus wishes to do this, you would create a 30 to 60 second video PSA showcasing your campus' commitment to a healthy drug free lifestyle.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:36:05]: You can submit your entries until November 4th and there's some great prizes for the winners, including a first prize of $5,000 to to support the winning campuses, the winning campuses efforts to prevent drug misuse among their students and a recognition plaque. Beyond this, it's a great opportunity to be able to bring your whole campus community together for a common goal. Find out more at campus drugprevention dot gov. Every week, we're going to be sharing some amazing things that are happening within the association. So we are going to be able to try and keep you up to date on everything that's happening and allow for you to be able to get involved in different ways, because the association is as strong as its members. And for all of us, we have to find our place within the association, whether it be getting involved with a knowledge community, giving back within one of the the centers or the divisions of the association. And as you're doing that, it's important to be able to identify for yourself, where do you fit? Where do you wanna give back? Each week, we're hoping that we will share some things that might encourage you, might allow for you to be able to get some ideas that will provide you with an opportunity to be able to say, Hey, I see myself in that knowledge community. I see myself doing something like that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:37:27]: Or encourage you in other ways that allow for you to be able to think beyond what's available right now, to offer other things to the association, to bring your gifts, your talents to the association and to all of the members within the association. Because through doing that, all of us are stronger and the association is better. Tune in again next week as we find out more about what is happening in NASPA.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:37:55]: Chris, thank you again for all of the work that you do to keep us informed on what's going on in and around NASPA. And, Michelle, we have reached our lightning round. So I have 7 questions for you. 90 seconds. Ready to rock?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:08]: I'm ready.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:08]: Okay. Number 1. If you were a conference keynote speaker, what would your entrance music be?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:13]: It would be I don't know that this puts me in a positive light, but I love Apex Predator from the Mean Girls soundtrack. So I would go with that.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:22]: Number 2, when you were 5 years old, what did you wanna be when you grew up?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:26]: A writer.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:26]: Number 3, who's your most influential professional mentor?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:29]: Frank Robinson.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:30]: Number 4, your essential student affairs read.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:32]: Oh, well, my book.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:35]: Number 5, the best TV show you've been binging lately.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:38]: I am watching right now the Gotham series, which I haven't decided if I like it or not, but I love Batman. So that's what I'm watching.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:47]: Number 6, the podcast you've spent the most hours listening to in the last year.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:51]: Criminal.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:38:51]: And finally, number 7, any shout outs you'd like to give personal or professional?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:38:55]: Yes. Absolutely. Shout out to Chris Salinas. Thank you for everything. And to my partner, Leslie, who endured the process of me writing the book as well.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:05]: Like a second dissertation all over again. Exactly. Well, Michelle, it's been wonderful to get to know you today and learn more about your and Chris's work on institutional intelligence. If anyone would like to follow-up with you after the show, how can they find you?

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:39:17]: Yeah. So the best way to reach me is through email. I my email is my to do list, and I'm very good at keeping up with that. That's m as in Michelle, and then the first part of my last name, [e-mail]

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:35]: dotedu. Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your voice and your institutional intelligence with us today.

Dr. Michelle Boettcher [00:39:42]: Jill, thank you for the invitation. This has really been a pleasure, and you have a great demeanor. You made this very easy and very pleasant, and all the best moving forward. But thank you again for your time.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:39:57]: This has been an episode of SA Voices from the Field brought to you by NASPA. This show is made possible because of you, the listeners. We continue to be grateful that you choose to spend your time with us. If you'd like to reach the show, you can email us at sa voices at naspa.org or find me on LinkedIn by searching for doctor Jill l Creighton. We welcome your feedback and your topic and guest suggestions. We'd love it if you take a moment to tell a colleague about the show and leave us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now. It truly does help other student affairs pros find the show and helps us to become more visible in the larger podcasting community. This episode was produced and hosted by doctor Jill Creighton, that's me, produced and audio engineered by doctor Chris Lewis.

Dr. Jill Creighton [00:40:39]: Special thanks to the University of Michigan- Flint for your support as we create this project. Catch you next time.