My best advice for a new college student... only one thing

I ran into an incoming student and his parents this weekend.  The mother recognized me from the First Step speech and came up to me to ask a few questions about living on campus. All of the questions were easy to answer and after I had responded I asked her son, Ryan, if he was looking forward to starting college. Ryan was quick to say yes and he was ready to move to Cape Girardeau, a city much larger than his hometown. Ryan then commented that he was most excited about moving away from home and “being on his own.”

Whenever I hear a student say, in front of their parents/guardians, they look forward to being on their own, I do two things. First, I watch the face of the parent/guardian to see if they either roll their eyes or make some other expression. Second, I remind the student that they are only sort of on their own and I follow that up with some questions that drive home this point. After I asked Ryan some of these questions about just how “on his own” he really was his mom asked me if I had any advice for Ryan to help him stay out of trouble. I said I did and went on to share what for me is among the best advice I ever received while in college.

Don’t do anything you would not want on the front page of your local newspaper or something you would be embarrassed to have to share as part of a job interview. I use this same advice as part of my role as a fraternity adviser. I am fortunate to be a product of the Greek Life system at Southeast (maybe I should blog about this sometime) and I am lucky to serve as the Alumni fraternity adviser, called the BB, for my home chapter. As part of this responsibility, I work with the chapter on a variety of issues. Among the most important is the issue of risk management. Each semester, I visit this issue with the men of the chapter and I use this example of the front page of the newspaper to drive home this point. College, especially attending college while living on campus, provides you with countless opportunities to make decisions. Sometimes these decisions involve selecting between choices that, if they go wrong, will potentially damage your academic career, your personal life, or both.

Being both a college student and being 18 years of age (or older) is in many ways an entire new life. Things that just months ago might have been minor issues (pun intended in terms of age) are now issues that can have lifelong impacts. Your decisions on what to do, what events/parties to lose control at, the comments you post on Twitter, and thousands of other decisions leave a trail. This trail tells people about the kind of person you are and the level of maturity and critical thinking/decision making skills you have. If you have any doubt about if something is a good decision or not, simply ask yourself: “If I do this or if something goes wrong and my mother had to read this on the front of the newspaper, would I be proud or humiliated?” If your mother would not be proud, then take that extra second and rethink your decision.

How roommates are like Hell's Kitchen

The other night while watching Hell’s Kitchen I began to think about how much this show (which I am a big fan of) was sort of like the roommate experience for some students. For those unfamiliar with the show, it is a reality TV program where 18 aspiring chefs live and work together in hopes of being the one chef left at the end. The winning chef is given $250,000 and a job by Chef Gordon Ramsey.   There are of course many other elements to the show, but the basic drama of the show rests on how complete strangers are thrown into a living and working situation and having to perform in very stressful situations. This stress leads to multiple arguments and lots of drama between the aspiring chefs.  Small things, like how someone looks at another person, or if someone does not answer back fast enough, often lead to name calling and back stabbing. From a rational point of view this is all way over the top, however, I am confident for the people in Hell’s Kitchen these are very real feelings and their decision (and it is a decision) to scream and fight with one another is really the only way they feel they can be heard in this pressure cooker (pun intended) of a reality show.

I can see some striking parallels between this show and how some people react to roommate conflicts. While not all, in fact very few, roommates end up with some kind of major conflict, they do occur. In many cases, just like on Hell’s Kitchen, the issue is more about how someone responded to some action or that person’s perception of being disrespected than the specific action that started the entire problem. This is a major point, because the offending roommate will often claim they don’t understand what the big deal is. For example I worked with roommates who fought when one roommate used the other person’s cell phone to make a call. The roommate whose phone was used was very upset that her roommate had disrespected her by just assuming she could use her phone. The roommate who made the call could not understand (at least that is what she claimed) why this was such a big deal because the call did not cost anything and she did not mean to upset the other roommate. In the end the roommate who made the call failed to grasp the issue was not the phone call at all, it was the assumption by her that she could just use her roommate's stuff without the courtesy of asking first.  Just like Hell’s Kitchen, the roommates were fighting not over the original issue, but over the issue of being respected. This inability to agree on what the conflict was about became the most frustrating part of the conflict for both of them.

If there is any advice I can give people when planning on being roommates, it is to be respectful. This means you have to respect that while you are individuals, just like the 18 chefs in Hell’s Kitchen, you are interdependent with your roommate (suitemates). This interdependence requires you to at times think beyond just yourself and recognize your actions have an impact on someone else. You have the choice of what kind of impact this will be. If you end up in a fight with your roommate, first stop to make sure you are both fighting over the same thing. While you think the issue might be the phone call, your roommate is really upset that you did not respect her enough to ask before using her things. 

Ok James…. Let’s open Hell’s Kitchen.

Greek Alumni Focus Groups Summaries

Meeting Date: May 20th and 21st, 2012

Meeting Locations: Cape Girardeau and Saint Louis

Greek Alumni Focus Groups Summaries

What was your experience in Greek housing?

• Greek community dining hall was a great way to socialize and interact with Greeks
• Everyone enjoyed their experiences in Greek life at Southeast, but are very aware of the changes in Greek culture since then; Now the standards for members, housing, programs, etc. are much higher

What do you think of current Greek housing?

• Location is perfect for recruitment and connections to campus life
• Housing feels institutional and doesn’t create a sense of ownership and connection to camps for alumni
• Facilities appear old, run down, and not sustainable
• Lack of space for alumni events
• Chapters are losing members to newer housing options on campus, don’t have unit types that are appealing to upperclassmen

What should Southeast do to improve Greek housing?

• Detached structures to build a sense of ownership and community among a chapter and to build a connection between generations of students
• Allow for personalization of new houses and use of chapter funds to do so, but need assurance that money used won’t be lost if chapter loses rights to their house (i.e. gets kicked off campus)
• More space for alumni events; to reflect social nature of Greek organizations
• Some fraternity chapters expressed interest in financing the construction of their own chapter house. However, most fraternity and sorority chapters were not interested in, or did not have the ability to finance, the construction of their own chapter houses.
• Include small prep/catering kitchen, chapter meeting space, quiet study space, storage space, conference room for executive board meetings, tech area (computers, printers, etc.)
• Suite-style (private bedroom and bathroom); singles for board members/seniors/ juniors and doubles for new recruits in order to compete with new residence halls on campus
• Increased security of housing: key card access, DPS patrol to site
• Outdoor space: front and rear porch, common quad/green space/pavilion

Two potential sites were identified for future Greek housing – one site located near the Show Me Center (aka “Pig Lot”) and another site located near the intramural fields at the intersection of Sprigg and Bertling streets. What are your thoughts on the proposed site locations for new Greek housing?

• Show Me Center site is preferred because it is perceived to be closer to campus and has existing parking.
• Sprigg and Bertling site is perceived to be too far away. Also, there were concerns about the availability of a dining facility.
• Many like the current Greek Hill location, but see the value in a new location with brand new facilities
• Either location should have a Greek dining facility to facilitate chapter meals and dining needs
• Alumni expressed an understanding that distance is largely based upon perception. Several commented that when Greek Hill was constructed, it was considered to be far from campus.
• Additional expansions to the Cape Girardeau campus will likely move north towards the identified sites.

Would new facilities change the level of participation for alumni?

• Yes, definitely. Alums wish the chapter house was the thread that tied alumni and current members together; this is not the case with current housing
• Some expressed knowledge of housing corporations and willingness to help with this type of program (primarily fraternities)
• Alumni would be more willing to give money if they knew their chapter would have ownership/control of building (fraternities)

What traditions need to be maintained from Greek Hill in a new location?

• ·         The flagpoles and letters of each chapter are important
•        Proximity to other chapters is important to support and maintain the Greek community

  What besides Greek housing could change for the better?

• Support from the administration for Greek life, Greek alumni, and Greek leaders
• Public acknowledgement by administration that Greek life has a positive contribution to campus culture.