ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú

President Greg Crawford
Want to do a sound check? 123, ready. Alright. Hello. I'm Greg Crawford, president of ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University, and welcome to "In Such a Place," the podcast where we explore the future of higher education and the vital role colleges and universities play in shaping our world. College campuses are more than classrooms. They are vibrant communities that shape the leaders, the innovators and the citizens of tomorrow. So with us today are ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University's Vice President for Student Life, Dr. Jayne Brownell and Dean of Students, Dr. BaShaun Smith, to talk about how belonging and campus engagement impact the personal success of our students as well as the well being and resilience of our society. Welcome Jayne and BaShaun,

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Thanks for having us.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Thank you.

President Greg Crawford
What does student life look like in 2025, and you've both been at it for a long time, so why don't you reflect back 5, 10, 15, 20, years and tell us how it's changed, and maybe what new pressures students face today?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
That's a really interesting question. I've actually been in the field even longer than that, and it is a completely different field now than the one that I entered. When I entered student affairs, it was a place that you really could focus your entire career on community building and leadership and student growth and just kind of the fun of the relationships of college. And now, no matter what job you have across the division, you cannot ignore student mental health and well being. You cannot ignore student retention and success. You cannot ignore basic student needs that there's no longer the ability to just come in and plan parties and concerts and move on. It's actually thinking much more deeply about the whole student and what they need to succeed and thrive during college.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
And just to piggyback off of that, in the past, we were always known as the fluff, you know, organization, the fluff division. But if you're looking at things that we're doing, like, we're really focusing on, like, data, you know, informed practices, like within Residence Life, like within our fraternity and sorority life. So we're really, like, looking at, you know, what are some things that we can do to better, improve the student experience as well.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, the one other thing that I'll also add is how different our relationship is with parents. If you look back 20 years ago, 10 years ago, you would occasionally have a conversation with a parent, but the primary relationship was always with students. Now, especially post-pandemic, parents are much more involved in their students college experience. They don't actually want you to talk to their students and have them solve the problems. They want you to talk to them directly. And very interestingly, students are good with that. When I was in college, I don't think I could have paid my dad to call my university, and I would have been mortified if he had. Where now, the relationship with parents is, in ways, every bit as important as relationship with students when we're thinking about their out of class experiences.

President Greg Crawford
Let me follow up with that real quick. If you think about the parents' role today, and you think about the importance of students maturing and becoming their new self, their own self, as they mature through college, et cetera, how do you handle that? Do you engage and pull the students into the conversation, or do you solely just speak to the parents and you know, kind of wrap up what they're worried about or what their concerns are, or do you pull in those students?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, so I said earlier that the relationship with parents is incredibly important, and it is, but still, the primary relationship is with that student. And what we want is for them to grow in their skills and be able to leave here as self advocates and practice the things that they're going to need to do for themselves as adults. So we try never to cut them out of the conversation unless there's a really, really good health or safety reason to do so. So we will usually talk to the parents, but make sure that the student is aware that we're having those conversations, and we try to pull them in as much as possible. BaShaun, do you want to add?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Yeah, and like, just so Jane mentioned that how parents are more engaged. And like, what we've seen is that students want them to be engaged, which is kind of shocking. So we get an email, students are concerned about the email, then you're on the phone call, like, with the student, then you're talking, then, like, Hey, is that what's what's that in the background? Oh, that's my mom. I have her on speaker phone, like, Oh, do you want to set up a zoom call, you know, so we can have this conversation, kind of in person. So they're really embracing that experience. And I think we do a good job, not just in student life, but on campus as well. As far as, like, setting parents and students up for success during orientation. We talk about this relationship, we talk about what it looks like, and we know that students' number one reason for making a college decision is because, like, their parents are encouraging them to come to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú or other schools. So we try to embrace that as much as we can.

President Greg Crawford
I've been at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú for 10 years, and I think what you do in student life is just phenomenal, from the standpoint of how you address the whole student, the holistic education and the holistic experience. And so we're grateful for all that you do, and it's a part of the special, special uniqueness of ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú is what we do around student life. Now next question is around the most significant challenges that students face today, and also maybe follow on question for that would be, how does ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú in particular, your unit Student Life, lead in this area?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
One of the biggest things that's happening in our field right now is the ever changing landscape of higher education. I don't think you can turn on the news, look at a paper, or walk your dog like without seeing like the changes that are happening in higher education. So our main job is to how do we support the student and all their needs, you know, present, past and future, but also, you know, being current and compliant like with any laws you know, on the state, local or on the federal side. So that's one of the biggest challenges that we're facing. How do we navigate that? But because students are still wanting that same top notch service that we provided in the past.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
I think that when you're looking at students, one of the issues that's going to come up for them again and again is the issue of mental health. That this is not something that students talked a lot about, even 10 years ago, and I think that the pandemic changed all of it, and I think that that is a great thing, that people are now open to talking about their mental health and the challenges that they face. But part of the challenge for us is not only meeting the service that they need in terms of counseling and treatment, but helping them understand the entire range of kind of normal human emotion that a bad day or a day that you are sad doesn't mean that it's depression, a day that you feel nervous or anxious, doesn't mean a diagnosis of anxiety. So it is a challenge in a environment where students are so much more open to talking about mental health, how do we help them think about mental health and emotional well being and take the steps they need to ride those waves of the normal emotions that you're going to experience as a human being, and be okay with that, and know that you can make it through it, and know when you need to seek out professional help for that. So we have to take it from education and prevention through treatment and follow up.

President Greg Crawford
What are some examples of what students concerns or anxieties or things that you hear in the office regularly or more often than others?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
So we're over the care team like within a Dean of Students Office. So we get the suicidality, the suicide ideations, the pressure, you know, from family, the pressure from professors, depression, anxiety, food insecurity. We get a spectrum of different things that are going on that students are facing while they're trying to navigate this transition to college. Then they have all this other stuff that they're either bringing or they're learning about, you know, as they enter into ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Also, these students have faced a different time than any other teenagers or adolescents have faced. So we hear a lot about covid and how students were at home and they didn't necessarily get the same socialization as previous generations. They didn't get the freedoms to go out and test their limits and grow up a bit. But equally as important, it's also a generation that has spent more time on a screen, on a phone, playing video games. So we also are finding students that sometimes it is a bigger issue of depression or anxiety, sometimes it's awkwardness of not knowing how to be in a social environment and talk to each other and confront challenges. So in the past, you had two roommates, and they would talk out the fact that someone never took out the trash or stayed out too late. Now they want their RAs or a professional staff member to negotiate that because they don't feel comfortable confronting each other with issues that are skills that they're going to have to have in the future.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
And piggybacking on the technology part, we told students at orientation that they are having relationships like with AI and they don't know. So if someone's partner sends them a text message, "I'm upset with you, you never respond back to me." Instead of responding back to them, they're asking Chat GPT like, "hey, my girlfriend's upset with me. How do I respond back in a way that I don't seem like a jerk? "Do, do, do, do, copy paste. "Hey, I know you're upset. I promise I won't do that again." They don't know how to have those interpersonal relationships. And like, we're trying, like in student life, to kind of broker some of those relationships.

President Greg Crawford
Oh my gosh. We're talking about this for a long time for sure. Let's pivot to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú's residential life and community life. If you've been to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú and you're a student here, you have all kinds of opportunities afforded to you, from clubs to leadership opportunities to service in our communities and so forth. What does meaningful involvement look like today with our students?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
I think the main thing is kind of reframing that. So what I always tell people is that when you look at say, like the average, like fraternity guy, like, "Oh, he's not involved. He's not involved." And when we sit down and have conversations with those students, they can list 10 different things that they're doing on campus, and that's extreme involvement they may not be involved in, like different programs or activities that we want them to be involved in. So what we're looking at is, how do we get more student voice at the table? As far as you know, what are you interested in? You know? What will students come to? You know? What are some late night things? What are some early morning things that students are really willing to engage in as best as possible?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
We also have to make sure that we're meeting the needs of every student. So it used to be that we could offer these large scale programs, and all students would go to them, and it was great. Now there are students that feel much more comfortable with just a few students at a smaller program. Some still want that bigger experience, so we offer things in a smaller format. We offer large scale programming, we offer more niche programming that a student could find anything within the 600 student organizations that's going to be a fit for them. So it is allowing them to identify and define what they are looking for as engagement. What we want to make sure is that every student has some level of engagement, whatever that looks like to them.

President Greg Crawford
That's great, and with so much that you can do, do you find students that are trying to do too much? And what advice do you give them when they come back and they're in a whole bunch of clubs, they're doing all kinds of service. Do you do you give them advice to narrow it down or to pick and choose a bit more, especially in their first year?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, absolutely. They walk into mega fair, the first week of classes, and they see 4 or 500 tables set up of choices of things that they could get involved in. And a lot of students will sign up for a lot of different clubs. Over time, they usually will find the things that they just have their name on a list versus the things that they really care about and will invest in. But every year of my career, you have seen student leaders that are putting their academic success at jeopardy because they are majoring in their student organization, and so we have a lot of conversations as a staff of learning to balance and learning to prioritize and picking what are the most meaningful opportunities and how those will benefit students.

President Greg Crawford
So how can universities better prepare students for the realities of life beyond our campus and also while still supporting their personal growth during their college

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Well, if you look at our division, the Division of Student Life, employs more than 600 students in our different offices. Everything from Resident Assistants to tutors to peer educators, those are students that are all building skills and developing leadership. So you have that basis first, then you have another 600 clubs and organizations that students could join. I mean, there are countless opportunities for students to prepare for life after college. The challenge is helping them recognize that that's what this is, that it isn't just fun, that it isn't just a way to keep busy, but that they are actually building skills that employers want. So we have to help them translate that language into a resume and interview points that they're going to take forward. So for instance, in ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú THRIVE, we're talking about this whole idea of a hallmark experience. Helping students realize that while they are here, that they could choose and identify an activity that they've invested substantial time in and that has been done in community, and that, as I reflect on it, it's been meaningful, memorable and impactful on their learning and growth. A lot of times, you don't realize that until after college, and you look back, we want students to realize now that there are these incredibly meaningful opportunities that they are taking advantage of that they could talk about when they go out into the real world. I will say that a lot of times, students don't realize quite what they're learning. So BaShaun and I were talking earlier today, that I will look at a resume of an RA. It will say I was an RA on a floor of 50 people, and I was on duty. Well, then you sit and you talk to them. You're like but wait a minute. You learned how to build community. You learned how to plan programs. You manage budgets. You have conflict management. You had communication skills...

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Crisis management.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Crisis management. I mean, oh my gosh, you are so underselling yourself when you go out in the world. So part of it is providing the experience, and part of it is reflecting on that experience to figure out the learning that you're actually taking away.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
And a really cool thing about ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú as well is that, again, we have to realize that this is a learning lab for students. It's an opportunity. They have an opportunity to experiment, you know, to try new things, to try different things. You know, to fall, to fail. And how do you learn? How do you grow from that? How do you not make the same mistakes, you know, twice? And that's what's going to happen in life, you know, they're going to have successes, they're going to have failures. And I think we do a really great job, like in student life, you know, preparing them for that.

President Greg Crawford
And I think your RA example is terrific, because the the whole laundry list of skill sets that you just mentioned and mindsets extrapolate into the first job, certainly a graduate school or a professional school, and it really will serve our students well.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, that it doesn't matter what field they're going in. I mean, our RAs come from every major across the university. We have 250 RAs, but the skill set that they're walking out with, you could apply to any field.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah. Let's talk about finances of students. The cost of college is expensive. The cost of living away from home is very expensive. And I'm just curious on your viewpoint from student life, how those rising costs and the expense of college and living away from home are shaping student experiences, both academically and socially and also, what creative solutions are kind of emerging in higher ed right now.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
I love this question because there's a lot of assumption about ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú students. Like, if you go to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University in Oxford, Ohio, you can afford everything. You can afford, you know where you're going to eat, where you going to sleep, you know your clothes, your you know, basic needs. But what I've learned in my short time here is that that's not always the case. We're having an increased amount of students who are, you know, applying for the student emergency resource fund, looking for basic needs, for food, housing, clothing, everything you know that students don't think about sometimes, or even some of us don't think about. So I think we do a really good job of you know that coordinating care, like with our friends over in a enrollment management and student services, like they have a food pantry, like in their office, we get an email within the Dean of Students Office, we have the care team. We're promoting that as much as possible. If we know about students, we can resource them more. So we get those reports in, then we send them to our campus partners and figure it out. What can we do for them, not just on like the food side, but on the financial aid sides as well?

President Greg Crawford
Jane, this one's for you. In the past, you've talked about building a culture of care across students, faculty and staff. What innovative steps is ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú taking to foster that community wide culture.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, this is something that I've been really passionate about for years, because it has been a passion area of mine for so long. In 2022 I was able to co-chair the task force that you formed that was about the mental health and well being of faculty, staff, and students. And a lot of these exist across the country, but this one was really special, because very few of those task forces look at all of the campus community together, that most are just focused on either students or on employees, but we know that this is a system that is dependent on everybody's well being. So the task force came up with 56 different recommendations in the areas of systems, education, communication and culture that could improve the well being of all different populations on campus, that then moved into a permanent mental health committee for the university that is co-chaired by Dr. Steve Large in our office and Dr. John Ward, and that is looking at these recommendations and how we can move them forward. This year, using a grant from the state of Ohio, we were able to put together a really great. Comprehensive website that pulls all of the wellness resources together for all populations, and we developed a Navigator tool so that if it is two o'clock in the morning and you're feeling anxious, you could go on that site and find resources for that moment and for the next day and know what you need. We were able to do other great things that benefit everyone too. We were able to create more sensory spaces on campus so you could find a quiet place to study or pause. We are more focused on peer education. We added mental health peer educators to our program. We normalized asking for help and expanded who could put in reports to the care team. So we're starting to reinforce that message of we are a caring community that looks out for each other and takes care of each other, and I think that's just going to continue to build over time.

President Greg Crawford
I remember when we had your committee over to Lewis Place after the recommendations came out, it was the most enthusiastic, engaged group I think. I couldn't have been more impressed with all that you did, and also how every single person on that committee was so engaged in the process. So really great.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, it is a group that definitely cares about ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú as a whole, and every member of the group, so it's a special group to work with.

President Greg Crawford
Well, Jane, another question for you. Let's talk about math. So

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Okay.

President Greg Crawford
We live in a data world today, and it's just everywhere we look, and it really impacts leadership in so many ways. We do data inspired decisions, and we also have to be data skeptics and sometimes challenge what the data is telling us to make sure it's correct and accurate and truthful. Can you tell us how data is impacting student life and your organization and how you're embracing it?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Sure, I think a lot of people assume that student affairs is just a touchy feely organization that you know, we are very focused on human development and well being and those kinds of things, but everything we do is actually backed up by data. We have an assessment committee within the division that comes up with a plan for assessment all year long. We cannot assume that students now need what I needed when I was a student. In fact, I could guarantee that they don't. So we have to hear the voices of students every year. Some of the projects we do every year, we do a new student transition survey asking how students are transitioning, both socially and academically, and we use that both for individual follow up, if they give us permission to do that, or to change the kinds of programming that we're offering as we go through the year, we have an annual ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú health survey. We survey all of the residents in the residence halls about their experience. So there's all of that, but we also use KPIs in the division, and have for a decade. So every division, I'm sorry, every department in the division, identifies what are the things that will help them make decisions about where they put their resources and their energy. I always use Student Counseling Service as the gold standard of this. We have 10 years of data of how many students have sought out individual counseling, month by month, group counseling, crisis, and we have used that to make decisions to manage a waitlist. So in 2015 we had a waitlist in October that went to January. Now they use that data to know when to bring in per diem or daily therapists so that we can meet peak demand without having full time employees year round. Last fall, we had no wait list at all. It is just amazing what you could use data to guide work that is caring in nature, but is still very intentional.

President Greg Crawford
Well, that's great. Well, I'm gonna ask BaShaun a question here. You've been with us for a few years here at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University, and the word on the street is that you love building relationships with students.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Ah, yes.

President Greg Crawford
We hear the positivity from students, from your leadership and how you engage with them. Tell us a little bit about that. Why you place so much importance on building those relationships, one on one, with our students?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Thank you. Relationships is the key to everything that we do. If you're looking at across the country, the students are bread and butter. There are the backbone of our institution. And you want to make sure that students are going to have, like, a positive experience at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, and we're understanding that, you know, when they come in, they're coming in with so much. And if you can present to them, Hey, I'm the Dean of Students, I guess I'm the rural person you know for campus. And. All that good stuff, but at the same time, I'm a person. I'm a show that I'm a person by showing up for you, by showing up when you don't ask they have a different game going on, or an anime club popping up there. And sometimes I bring my kids because they like anime as well. I think showing students that you are a person that helps form relationships as well. And, you know, popping up in a dining hall like because students always, Oh, you don't know about the dining hall food. I'm like, I love the food here on campus, my kids love it. It's a top five restaurant in Oxford. For them, they absolutely love it. Western dining, throwing it out there. Great place to eat, but really just showing up and fostering those relationships. You know, takes time, and it takes trust. And I will show every student you know at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú that they can trust me, and if they need something to come by my office. If I'm not there, we have amazing staff members that can assist them as well.

President Greg Crawford
That's great. You do a great job with the relationship building. And I think ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú students, they value, they like, they may even love the personal touch that student life offers them. And so how do you turn that into actionable programs and initiatives to broaden it or to make it more of a macro level?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
So I always say one of my favorite moves is, Remember the Titans attitude reflects leadership, you know. So during my interview process, seeing my boss, you know, to my left right now, Dr. Jayne Brownell, had a student on my search committee, and I can tell you, I applied for many different positions, you know, outside of, like, resident director, social director, whatever it might be, and they never have me meet with students. So I'm like, we're in student affairs. We're in student life why am I not meeting with students. So we're actually, my boss actually practiced what she preached in the sense of that high touch. And you can't get more high touch than a student being on your search committee and engaging and asking you hard questions, really difficult questions, about, you know, what are you going to bring to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú? How are you going to bring it? And how we take that, you know, within the Dean of Students Office is, again, how can we apply that personal touch, but also figure out, you know, the timing and what students want. So I'm a big cornball. I love corniness. So when I came to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, we start doing a thing called breaking bread with BaShaun, because we love alliteration in higher education, and it is just like it sounds like we meet with various student organizations or students and asking them about their experience. Tell me about the highs. Tell me about the lows. How can we help you in the Dean of Students Office? How can we help you in student life to have, you know, more success, to get your name out there. And we collaborated with students in the past. Other programs, random pop ups throughout campus, you know, walking tacos, tabling in Armstrong with our swag items, and again, eating in the dining halls. And my personal favorite is our Valentine's Day Program because I absolutely love Valentine's Day, like I love love, so we throw it out there, like, you don't need anyone to be in a relationship, but we care about you in the Dean of Students Office. And here's a ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú cookie that everybody's obsessed with.

President Greg Crawford
I'm gonna have to ask this. So this breaking bread with BaShaun, what do you do? Is that dry bread?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Yeah. Yeah.

President Greg Crawford
Do you put stuff on it? What do you do?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Yeah. So it's so it's a it's a theme. And the culture of breaking bread is when we're right now, we're in a circle right now, like we're sitting down, and everyone has a voice at the table, you know? So we're sitting down, we're breaking bread. We're sharing a meal with each other. We're sharing a meal with the organization and like, tell me about your experience. You know, Dean of Students to student, tell me what's going on, and you get some really raw answers as far of it. And we try to make sure, too, if we're if we're feeling some conflicts on campus, we want to bring students to the table. So last year we had a breaking bread with the College Democrats and the College Republicans, and it went really well, you know, everybody was nervous, you know, but our students are so tasteful and trustful, and they see each other and they respect each other. And so we had a meal. We discussed, you know, some concerns that they had, and we left there, everyone's shaking hand and hanging out with each other afterwards.

President Greg Crawford
That's fantastic. This brings up a question I think, you know, a lot of people may have and they may read a lot about this in the newspapers, but whether universities are one sided or not, and then that one example that you gave me, where you brought together the College Dems and the College Republicans, I've always found ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú to really have a really great balance, constructive dialog. Maybe you can both talk a little bit about that, because I'd love to get your perspective. You've been at multiple places throughout your career, and things have changed over the years, of course, but tell me of how you evaluate that on ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú's campus. Do you feel that we're doing a great job, a good job? Do we have to improve? Or how are we doing with that balance?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
Wow, yeah, so what I always tell people when they get upset as public servants, you know, like I at the will of President Crawford and like my boss to my left and Governor DeWine, he's not here, but hopefully he's listening. But I'm an at-will employee. I don't get paid for an opinion, like, at all. Like I get paid to serve the mission of the institution. And I think, you know what we're struggling with, you know, some of our young professionals, you know, rather left, right, or my personal favorite, in the middle, but I have opinion about everything. They struggle with that. So what I see at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú is that, you know, here are the expectations, you know, like, yes, you know, we have freedom of expression, and we talk about it in orientation. And I was, like, really excited, and it's a lot in orientation and other schools kind of shy away, you know, from like, the freedom of expression, but we're like, Hey, we're a public institution. We have these conversations, and when we have different things that come up, we can go back to that, hey, remember during orientation, like we talked about this, like that person said this, we want you to respectfully, you know, engage with that person as well. So I think that we're doing a really great job, because people are willing to engage with each other, and students are not afraid of having those tough conversations, even when those tough conversations are uncomfortable, and what we tell them like uncomfortable means that you care, and means that you care enough not to say something so disrespectful, so hurtful. You want to engage like with student life, like, hey, help me facilitate this dialog. So I think that we're doing a good job compared to other places where I talk to my colleagues.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
I'm gonna both agree and disagree. I would say that whenever I think about ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú or any college campus, but ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú has 20,000 students. Every single thing that happens in the world, good and bad happens at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, because we are of the world. We are getting students who have absorbed for 18 years messages from their families, from their communities, from the media. And so I think that as Americans have had a harder time talking to each other across difference. Our students bring that challenge with them, so I think that we have a lot of students who are willing to have that conversation. But if you've ever heard that phrase, it's hard to hate up close. It is a lot easier when they stay on social media, or when they are not face to face with people, to still get into conflict, and some of the name calling and other things that we see in the country is at large, but when you could get them to sit down together in a room, when you could remind them that we're all ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉúans. So these are your classmates, these are the people in your student organizations. But it's not always easy, but once we could get them talking, they're usually willing to talk. So I think that we have a group of students that is living in the time that we are and having a hard time with that, but when we could get them together, then they end up being able to talk and have great things to move forward.

President Greg Crawford
I think it's also there's elements of what we do here, whether it's democracy or constructive dialog, et cetera. But then there's just the residential hall experience, yes, and that's the neat thing about being on a residential campus is that those conversations can happen, and you really can be with somebody very different and talk it out, and it's just really fantastic to watch and see them mature in that way.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there were some disagreements in Student Senate last year, and Scott Walter is their advisor, and he kind of pulled some of them aside and said, Wait a minute, you know each other like, you're actually friends with each other. Why aren't you talking to each other? And it was a moment of like, oh, yeah, wait a minute. We are and got them talking, and they were able to move through that. So sometimes that is where our mentoring and our advising and the relationships that we have with students can help advance a conversation as well.

President Greg Crawford
I have another question for you, and I know our listeners are going to be really curious about the student life perspective on this. And if you look out and look at our alums, they're leading companies, they're entrepreneurs, they're military officers. They do all kinds of things, run not-for-profits. They're great coaches in the NFL! They do all kinds of leadership, and they rise to the top. And then you look at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú's ranking in leadership, of course, in the Time Magazine, and it's really high, and we do really well there, and I've always found at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, in my last decade of service here, that when I meet the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú students, they're special. They shake your hand, they pat you on the back, write you thank you notes. There's a lot of intangible skills that they bring. And I know we start off with great raw material of students coming to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, but just curious from the leadership perspective and then from the student life perspective, what are some of your ideas on why we create great leaders, and how does that student life experience while they're here contribute to their future?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah. I've thought about this a whole lot over the years, because leadership is another one of those things that I pay a lot of attention to. And this is my seventh institution, so I've seen a lot of different ways of doing this work. And one thing that I think is unique about ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú is a lot of other places staff create Student Life for students. Here it is the students creating that student life. So we have a relatively small team that they get to know the students. They listen to what they want, they empower them, they coach them, they mentor them to take on the leadership, to do the programs that other places staff are putting on themselves. So we trust our students. We empower them, as beshawn said earlier, we help them when they fall or make mistakes, but we invest in them to practice in this learning lab and don't do the work for them, but allow them to lead and figure it out with guidance.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
And I think some of it too. If you look at all those alumni, you know, that's doing great things, ask them their involvement on campus, you know, what were you involved in? The number one thing is going to be Fraternity and Sorority Life. Then you have, you know, the random clubs that happen, whether they took a president or a treasurer or a vice president, you know, leadership position, or they were a member of that organization, they contributed, you know, somehow. And I think like in student life, we provide all these opportunities, you know, for students to be involved, to be engaged. Like, I'm interested in this. I'm interested in that. Oh, we have 600 student organizations. Let me dip a toe in that. And like finding out that is their true passion area. And they graduate with, you know, enter whatever degree or whatever it might be, but they're following their passion, you know, from all the opportunities that they received, like on campus, specifically within Student Life.

President Greg Crawford
Let's follow up a little bit on the Greek life and the sorority fraternities you just mentioned that BaShaun and you know, when we speak to alumni, they often talk about that experience, which led into leadership roles and all kinds of great skill sets that developed, you know, living with or collaborating with their sororities or fraternities. Can you talk about leadership and then, because sororities, fraternities are under your purview in student life, but tell us about leadership and then the role they play in shaping students?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
So on for Fraternity and Sorority Life, Scott Walter, Kim Vance and her team, they do a fantastic job about building up, you know, students for success here, we have A ton of student organizations, specifically as far as around fraternity, sorority life, and they give them those opportunities, and they lead a lot of this, like education. So we're talking about anti hazing. You know, it's most of the time, it's students who are presenting those cases, like we had a huge mental health AJ Brown came and that was a huge success on campus, and that was one of our fraternity members that also happened to be the ASG, like President. So they the fraternities, sorority life, they take on those leadership opportunities because they see that it is one, it's a need. If you talk to a lot of the presidents, like, why did you become a president? Well, I was tapped on, you know, I was asked because I was sophomore, I was going to be here, but they saw potential in them, and I think that they don't get enough credit for within Fraternity and Sorority Life, of finding and tapping on those leaders and giving them opportunities to be leaders in that community. And they work with us, you know, to try to hone that as much as possible.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Between chapter leadership and council leadership, there are so many ways for them to advance in their leadership, and then each of their chapters also offers leadership experiences in the summer that they could take on. So we offer leadership experiences and development for emerging leaders, for new leaders, for council leaders, supplemented by what the Nationals do. It is one of these areas that I think has so much potential in 2018 a group of current students, advisors, staff, nationals, all got together to say, what could the fraternity experience in particular be I am not ignoring sororities. They actually went through this process on their own a couple years before that, but this group was looking particularly at fraternities and came up with a whole new plan for ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú that was really unique, that focused on leadership development, on academic success, and then on community building and expectations and standards, and I think that that sets ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú apart in the way that we approach Greek life.

President Greg Crawford
I'm going to keep probing this question, because I really enjoy talking about leadership and also seeing all that our students do. And it's a it's a little bit what you said, Jayne, you let students kind of work things out, and you try to guide them and advise them, but they're going to come up with their own solutions. And I also think that when students come to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University as a student and as an undergraduate, and they can get involved with research. They want to start their first company, they get involved with the entrepreneurship program. If they want to compose their first song, and they're working with our faculty to create that. So it is a place where you can do things as a student you know long before you may otherwise do them in a graduate school setting or in a profession. And then, along with the residential life experience and student life experience, for as you mentioned, you'll kind of let them work it out on their own, and you guide and help them. But if you're thinking about recruiting students to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú and like, what would be a good fit that you would suggest, if somebody was thinking about coming to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, about this role that students play in their lives, and all they can do, can you talk to us a little bit about the type of student that would be a great fit here for this kind of environment?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
What I will say is, this is that ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú is a place, I see it as a buffet, in the sense of, we have different things, but it's a fancy buffet, not, you know, like a cheap buffet. It is a fancy buffet where we have many options, you know, for students, you know. So when I when I think of fit, I think about, how can a student come here, from Ohio, from Illinois, from Texas, wherever it might be, and how can they positively contribute, you know, to the community? How can they find their niche in the community? How can they, if we don't have a student organization that they want, how can they take lead in that and we provide those opportunities and work with them like, hey, this is how you build a constitution. This is how you do this, XYZ. You know, we provide those opportunities. So for me, the type of students that will be successful at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú is a student that wants to be challenged. Inside the classroom are faculty members. They do a fantastic job. But also, outside of the classroom, things are going to you're going to have highs and lows when you're in college, and we're going to help you navigate those highs and lows. ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú is not going to be easy place. If you want to be challenged, if you want to thrive, you're going to come to ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
During orientation each year, when I give the orientation welcome, the first two themes of my welcome, the first is always think about what kind of student you want to be while you're here. How do you want to grow? What do you want to learn? And I challenge them to say, you know, don't just let college happen to you. Choose how you're going to go through this. But then the second thing I always say is reminding them about this phrase I am ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, and that I am ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú means that you have both privileges and responsibilities by joining this community, and one of those responsibilities is to leave ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú better than you found it. So my second challenge to them is to think about what you're going to contribute while you're here. So I think the students that we want to attract are the students who want to come and find out more about themselves. Think about how they could grow. Think about not being passive, but jumping in to the experience and getting the most that you can out of it, but at the same time being eager to make a difference and being eager to contribute and to think about their impact on the community as a whole, and how they can leave ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú better than they're finding it. So I think when you find that combination of people who want personal growth and contributing to the growth and well being of others, you have found the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú students you want.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, I feel always impressed with their ambition and their independence and, you know, ready to roll up their sleeves and tackle a big problem, you know, all while being an undergraduate. And I do remember one time in a career fair a company talking about why they like to recruit at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, and the recruiter told me he's like, You know what they do? ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉúans always raise their hand, and they volunteer. When there's a job that needs to be done, they're like, I'll do it. And I really find that with our student populations, even before they graduate and go work in a career. But they are, you know, volunteering to do things, and they're raising their hand, which is really inspiring as administrators and leaders on campus. Yeah, it is. So why does the well being and success of college students matter to communities and society at large beyond just the campus itself?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Yeah, well, part of why I love working at a public institution is it reinforces the decades of research that had been done about college being a public good. ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú has a mission as a public university to contribute to the public good. And I don't know that people really understand what that means, but we know that college graduates are more likely to not only earn more money over their lifetime, which is going to contribute taxes and other resources, but they're more likely to volunteer in their communities, to vote, to support the arts, to engage in public service at higher rates than people who didn't go to college. They're less likely to be unemployed, they're less likely to commit crimes. They experience better health. College graduates actually live longer than people who didn't go to college. So when you think about college as a public good, everyone needs to be invested in making sure that our students do well and thrive and graduate because they uplift their communities as a whole.

President Greg Crawford
How can investing in student life on campuses contribute to creating more engaged, empathetic, and resilient citizens?

Dr. Jayne Brownell
I think that traditionally, as college students change more in the four years or on a college campus than any other four years of their life, except maybe the first four. During this time of their life, they are figuring out what's important to them, who they want to be, what they value, what they want their lives to look like, and part of how they figure all of that out is by being in community with other people. That does happen in the classroom, but when you look back at college, if you're going to be honest, part of what you remember are the more informal conversations in the middle of the night in the residence halls or in a social setting or at a dining hall that you get into these deep conversations about life, and when you are living and learning with people who have all different backgrounds from your own, who have different perspectives and values and experiences, you start to expand your perspective as well. It clarifies your own views. You're not necessarily going to agree with those people or adopt what they believe, but I think that the more you are exposed to other ideas and ways of living, the more clarity you could bring about what is important to you and how you want to live. So I think that if you are going to invest in student life. You are investing in those opportunities where students are growing and learning together.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
And just what Jayne said earlier. You know, it's hard to basically say bad things in people's faces, but when you're in a residence hall, you may not agree like with everyone, and you're not going to agree with one. That's not the purpose of student life or the purpose of higher education. It is you know, like Jayne said, you know, to expand your horizon. But at the same time, when you're seeing someone going through something challenging, whether it's a financial difficulty, whether it's you know, relationships, you know, problems. Like, you can say like, wow. Like, I can see why that person feels that way. I may not agree with them, but I see them because I just brushed my teeth right next to them, and they told me about their story. They told me about their experience, and it's okay for me to empathize with them and not agree with them at the same time.

President Greg Crawford
That's fantastic. So I'm going to put you both on the spot here. And you've been at multiple places. You've had long and successful careers in student life. And if you could just redesign anything in student life, just one thing in 2025 what would that redesign look like? Or what would it be?

Dr. BaShaun Smith
You want to Paper, Rock, Scissors this one? I'll let you go. I'll let you go.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Well, it actually the one that comes to mind is one that we've already talked about, and it would be the fraternity and sorority experience. It would be Greek life, because I do think that there is such potential in the power of the ideas of brotherhood and sisterhood, that if we could get to those essentials and have that be what Greek life is about, it actually would improve the experience for everyone on campus and after graduation. So if I could redesign what we would do it would actually be to have more staff focused on the needs of fraternity and sorority members. That we could do more about leadership, that we could grow the councils like the NPHC and the multicultural Greek Council, so that they are more attractive to more members, that we could help change the narrative that it is a four year social experience, and get back to the idea that this is actually a lifetime commitment where you are building networks and leadership and values. But to be able to do that, we need enough people with eyes on it to get the continual buy in from each new generation of students moving forward.

President Greg Crawford
You've both been involved. We've had a big strategic planning process for the past 18 months. It was called ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú THRIVE. And I kind of want to end with you describing this neighborhood concept. And maybe you can say a little bit about the Living Learning Community, so all of our listeners are up to speed on what that means, and then what the neighborhood concept means in terms of expanding that and broadening it out in more of a transdisciplinary way. So I love to have you give some highlights on where you think that's all headed, and where you think the campus is headed for that new initiative on our strategic plan ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú THRIVE.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
So thank you, President Crawford, so our live learning communities is a place where we have faculty engagement and students who are engaged on a particular subject matter that are passionate about that particular subject matter. So what we're excited about with a neighborhood model is that we're looking at, okay, here's all of our Living Learning Communities, or LLCs for short, and let's look at themes like, what are the themes in these areas? Like, okay, like, we have health science so, okay, that can be a STEM area. So we're breaking down our neighborhoods. We're going to have eight to nine neighborhoods, and they're going to be LLCs. They're going to be themed. We're going to save the names of those neighborhoods, you know, it's a secret right now, but they're the neighborhoods are named, you know, based off of the LLCs are particular in that area. And with that, we're hoping that students are able to affiliate with a particular Living Learning Community. So if Jayne and I are roommates, and Jayne is super smart, so she was like a math major, and I'm like an artsy guy, not saying arts folks not smart, but I'm more like creative. I want to be her roommate, but we're living in a Living Learning Community, you know, for math. So what I can do now, like with this neighborhood model, is I can affiliate with the arts community, but live in this particular community, so I can still get my passion area, but still get my number one choice is the person I want a room with. So we're looking at, not only how can we increase faculty engagement and involvement in these LLCs, but we're looking at our staffing model as well. One of the things you know that I've read, you know, when I've researched this institution to come here, is that you know, President Crawford, you're really passionate about promoting within, giving people, you know, positions and opportunities for you know, to apply for the next position. And like within this neighborhood model, we are creating promotional opportunities, you know, for some of our seasoned staff members who may be ready for, may not be ready for assistant director role, but here's a medium role where they can take on more leadership responsibility and be prepared for, hopefully at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú or somewhere else.

President Greg Crawford
Yeah, when I was working with you on the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú THRIVE strategic plan, and we kept reviewing the concepts of the committee as this grew and matured as an idea, I just fell in love with it. I thought, wow, this is really bringing together the cross fertilization and breaking down silos that we want so much for all of our students and our disciplines here at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University. And so I'm super excited about the future of that initiative. Well, thank you, Jayne and BaShaun, for sharing your experience on the impact of student engagement. Our students are so fortunate to have you leading their student life experience at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. Thank you for all that you're doing for our students.

Dr. Jayne Brownell
Well, thank you. This was really fun, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the great work that our whole team is doing.

Dr. BaShaun Smith
I love this. Thank you so much for the opportunity and bring us back anytime you want. T

President Greg Crawford
Thank you.Thanks for listening to this episode of in such a place from ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University. Stay tuned for more great episodes with more great guests wherever podcasts are found.