education

Conference – Day 3: Innovate

I am a day late posting about Day 3 (Tuesday) of the NASPA Conference. The truth is, Tuesday was so full of content that when I left the final session at 4:30 p.m. I just couldn’t process it. In fact, I had been in back to back sessions all day, with no break or sustenance  (even the water bubblers at the convention center were empty), so the first order of  business was a large bottle of water, followed by a brisk walk through the Walnut & Chestnut shopping district. Then, a burger and fries at the Hard Rock, and coma – on the bed in my room by 7:00 p.m.

The sessions I attended Tuesday ranged from the politics of advocacy, to legal issues, to creative listening, to using technology both in direct work with students and in connecting with other professionals in student affairs. While I found something of interest (and ideas to return to my campus with) in every session, the most mind-blowing sessions were the technology ones. Hands down.

The fact that the tech sessions were actually called “Un-sessions” leant them an air of informality that I really appreciated. Also, unlike most professional settings, you were not sneered at for having your smart phone in your hands and using it! I think the assumption was that you were tweeting session content, and the Microsoft-sponsored technology room was equipped with projectors and screens so that a running twitter feed could be displayed while the “un-session” leaders both shared their prepared thoughts and ideas, and responded to the real-time tweets.

Twitter was ubiquitous at the conference, and I found it almost humorous to watch. One young star and proponent of technology in our work with students received an almost rock-star response – every gem he shared with the group was tweeted and retweeted so many times it was comical to follow his session via tweets (I finally learned exactly how to use hash tags!). Beyond the “kids with new toys” quality of these sessions, there was real information – on resources for professional development (blogs, on-line communities, live twitter chats, etc.); on creating transformative moments for students using new technologies; on how to begin a dialogue via twitter or Facebook then use it to develop IRL/face-to-face relationships with, between and among students and staff on our campuses.

I know that I was not the only person soaking things in like a sponge. I may be coming late to the technology party, but I’m catching up fast. One person tweeted that she was sick of all the technology sessions and wanted to know what had happened to the usual conference fare. Well, here’s my thought about those day-to-day issues, such as budgets and supervision and conduct and _________ (fill in the blank): they will always be with us. And they will always make up the agenda for regional conferences or state professional gatherings. But for those professionals, like me, whose resources only allow irregular opportunities to attend national conferences, the NASPA Conference 2011 was exactly what it should have been. Challenging. Forward looking. Energizing. And exhausting! My one regret? My flight left too early and I was unable to see the final keynote speaker, Robert Kennedy, Jr. That would have been the cherry on top of a very rich experience.

Next Generation

Today, I spent two hours interviewing high school seniors who were competing for top scholarships at the university I work for. Prior to meeting them, I had a chance to review lists of the activities in which they have been involved throughout the four years of high school. Each young person’s list was more than a page in length, meaning that the activities for each numbered in the high teens through the twenties. Band, sports, community service, church-sponsored activities, peer mentoring. The lists were impressive.

However, when asked to tell us about an issue in her community or the world about which she felt passionate, one student told us that she is concerned about how stressed high school students are these days. They have pressures from family, from friends, from teachers, the community and the colleges competing for their enrollment. She felt that more attention should be given to helping students develop a sense of self-worth and self-determination, rather than so much effort expended in making them marketable.

According to the National Survey of Freshmen, the entering college class of 2010 is the least emotionally healthy class ever. And for the first time, anxiety has overtaken depression as the leading mental health issue reported by students.

Taken together, the student’s words and the survey results give me pause to reconsider the activity lists submitted to us. Were they impressive? Or an example of our society’s desire to put form ahead of substance?

These days, students arrive on the steps of our institutions of higher learning carrying some pretty heavy baggage (both literally and figuratively). They come with plenty of self-focus but very little self-knowledge; having dabbled in many things, often without developing true passion for any one activity; expecting to face difficulties, but with very little resilience when problems arise. Perhaps the root of this is the very idea that our role as the adults in their world is to help them see themselves as a commodity to be groomed for the market – whether that is the college scholarship market or the job market.

Working with college students has been both my career and my vocation. I am not afraid that today’s young people are any more likely to screw up the world than previous generations. I am, however, very concerned that we are likely to screw them up in lasting ways. I recently listened to a TED lecture by Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution! in which he talks about the absurdity of three year olds being interviewed for pre-school. He goes on to make a case for a revolution in education, as opposed to reform. I believe that if such a revolution is to occur, there will need to be a concurrent revolution in the way parents and communities talk about and model what it means to be a mature human being. Otherwise, our adolescents will continue to be stressed, and we will never move beyond this Age of Anxiety in which we are living.