Student Life Professional Development Conference 2018 - Identity, Wellness, & Work: Exploring Well-being in our Work

This session will explore the assessment cycle and provide opportunities for you to build and strengthen your gather, analyze, report, and utilize muscles to continuously improve the health of our programs and units. We will explore issues such as the importance of assessment, different approaches to assessment, and how to ask good questions. This interactive session will include opportunities for you to reflect on past practices and bulk up your assessment muscles.

Participants will gain knowledge and skills to explore and expand partnerships that serve our students and build our organizational capacity. Come prepared to challenge traditional notions of impermeable silos and boundaries in our work. 

Student Life is committed to a culture of well-being for its staff, and community. Our most basic task is helping students get the most out of their experiences. We pride ourselves in being student-centered and in holding a high level of care in working with students. Framing around these values and using the model of wellness, this session aims to engage staff in reflection around the eight key dimensions of personal well-being. Using Restorative Practices and the power of the circle process, staff will share stories of well-being to enhance and continue our best work in supporting students.

Graduate & professional students will be the focus on this extended learning session. There is a commonly held misconception graduate and professional students are too focused on their academic experience to invest in their learning and experience outside of the classroom. This session will provide an overview of academic research and assessment data demonstrating the specific needs of graduate and professional students including community development, access to resources, health and wellness, and career preparedness. Residence Education and the Center for Campus Involvement will share how they are addressing these needs and enhancing the graduate and professional student experience. A panel of graduate and professional students will be available to answer questions about their needs and how Student Life can engage this population in meaningful and supportive ways. Attendees will have the opportunity to dialogue with colleagues and reflect on how to serve graduate and professional students holistically. 

Full Speaker List Includes:

Devon Degraffenreed

Michael Rupert

Lindsay Stefanski

Kiana Daniels

Tim Reardanz

Christine Asidao

Carl LoConte

Todd D. Sevig

Nick Smith

Patty Griffin 

You do not need to have a background in IT to use technology to support the work of your office. This session will explore how two Hall Directors (with differing degrees of comfort in using technology) have implemented the use of several programs with student staff and their graduate and family apartment community. In addition to learning some functions of programs that are accessible to all members of the UM community, participants will be able to brainstorm how to incorporate new technologies to maximize efficiency and effectiveness in their role.

A current conversation in the landscape of DEI work is how do we create inclusive physical environments or spaces. University Housing has been exploring this question often due to our commitment to renovating all of the multicultural spaces in Housing by Fall 2021. The multicultural lounge program in Housing was originally created due to student activism in the 1970’s to provide an environment of support, solidarity, and sharing for underrepresented students. Over 45 years later, University of Housing is still committed to these multicultural spaces and the student position that came from this activism. Participants of this workshop will learn about the focus of inclusive spaces in Housing and will spend time reflecting and discussing how to create inclusive environments in their own work environment and the importance of students and staff seeing themselves in the spaces around them.

George Scott Baker is on a mission to teach people how to be the most average you that you can be while living a purposeful life. Learn how to utilize your resources, commit 100%, and the importance of now. Even if you used to be an overachiever, there is still hope for YOU!

Taking from the legend of the unicorn, former stand-up comic Andy Boehnlein offers a twist on the typical development presentation. Relaying a tongue in cheek message, all is rooted in the skills necessary for one to succeed in the real world while being okay with being you.

In this presentation, I will share the results of my dissertation research examining how religious students negotiate secular university spaces. To collect data, I spent a year conducting interviews and focus groups with 45 Christian, Muslim and Jewish U-M students. These interviews covered a range of topics, including how students’ religious identities impacted their experiences and choices throughout college life. I pay particular attention to how other aspects of identity (race, gender, ethnicity, etc.) influenced their experiences as religious students at Michigan.

Our identities show up in a variety of ways in the workplace, but one place it shows up that we don't often discuss is in supervision. Being a socially just supervisor can be difficult, especially because supervision is beyond the day to day interactions and one one ones. This session will explore the supervision relationship and how to infuse an awareness of identity into individual conversations and in noticing and managing group dynamics. Participants will spend time discussing scenarios and experiences they have had to explore the role of identity in this work.

This session will address the idea that "self-care" can sometimes be privileged, idealized, and over-simplified in a culture that applauds busy-ness and individualistic definitions of well-being. The term self-care also suggests that caring for ourselves is something that we do alone. Presenters will facilitate a discussion that allows for new ways of thinking about the topic, including mindfullness and stress relief.  

Through reflective exercizes and activities (roughly 10% awareness building (info giving), 2~0% social interaction (table discussion, share out) and ~70% practice (activities to simulate the on the job/real world application) foster a connection to Student Learning outcomes with the way we supervise our student employees, with focus in modeling inclusive leadership behaviors that recognize the impact of our social identities/culture/personal preferences on the relationship between employee/supervisor. 

The participants will follow the process for international students from the point of admission to their arrival on campus. Participants will also learn about challenges international students face, ways to support them, and the resources available at the International Center. 

Hunger on the college campus is something that students have known for years and now the research and data is catching up. Learn about food-insecurity work and research happening locally and nationally, including what students at UM face daily and which students are disproportionately affected by the issue of food insecurity.

The idea of resonant leadership comes from Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Resonant leadership is concerned with aligning personal values with work practices. By doing this leaders can overcome vicious and destructive cycles of stress and self-sacrifice. This session will place the foundational concepts of resonant leadership in the context of student affairs work, and will provide practical strategies for leveraging hope, mindfulness, and compassion in order to create effective and sustainable leadership practice.