During Spring Break, Housing and Residence Life area coordinators Jeremy Foskitt, Brittany Johnson and Lynell Hodge travelled to Phoenix, AZ for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators annual conference. NASPA is the leading association for the advancement, health and sustainability of the student affairs profession.
The theme of “Ignite Leadership, Influence Change” could not have been more appropriate. Igniting collective leadership means having the courage and flexibility to cross historic, societal and organizational boundaries in service to students, the profession, and the future. Influencing change involves taking risks to construct vital relationship networks that demonstrate the depth of commitment to create significant organizations and socially-relevant lives.
Foskitt presented “The Yearly Checkup: Assessing Residential Learning Communities” at the conference to discuss the implementation strategies, strengths and prospects of effectively assessing the state of living-learning communities.
Hodge commented on her experience, “I enjoyed learning about diversity topics, such as microaggressions and intersections to better facilitate tough conversations . . . which will allow me to be more developmental with students to better identify biases in perspectives – overall, a great experience.”
Foskitt, Johnson, and Hodge all agreed that the 2012 NASPA conference reaffirmed their commitment to student affairs and were inspired to ignite their leadership and influence change in their communities, the department and the university.
The Department of Housing and Residence Life is in the Division of Student Development and Enrollment Services.