CSN Student Affairs News

Growing Pains

Growing pains are sharp, throbbing, intermittent pains that affect 25-40% of people during their developmental years.  These pains often occur in the legs.  Similarly, in Student Affairs, we are in a developmental period and are experiencing sharp, throbbing and intermittent pains.  Our pains may sometimes occur in the neck or in the area just above the legs.

When we expect that growth and development should be smooth, easy and trouble-free, we set ourselves up for very painful growing pains.  Negative emotional responses like frustration, anger and resentment are born from unmet unrealistic expectations.  More realistic expectations, those which anticipate some intermittent pain and plan to cope with it, typically lead to more successful growth and change.

Realistic expectations for Student Affairs can include the following:

• MyCSN will get better and better.  Like a new baseball or softball glove, it started out stiff and difficult to use, but we are “breaking it in” with every problem solved and training attended.
• New MyCSN features are coming online.  Recently, the Counseling department had their module turned on.  DRC is on the way.
• We have “done more with less.”  A lot of it worked, some of it did not.  Having learned this, we are now better informed to do what we have to do.
• Better communication takes effort and innovation.  When the phone lines overloaded, SFS staff adopted a chat program to communicate quickly and efficiently.  Counseling, SFS, the Office of the Registrar and the campus deans kept each other informed about urgent issues through email notifications.  KC Brekken has helped many Student Affairs departments to better communicate with students via social media.  Continuing in these efforts and innovations, we will soon have an Intranet that will add a new dimension to inter and intradepartmental communication.
• Customer service is getting better.  Associate Dean Stephanie Hill continues to facilitate training for our employees, including our student employees.

It is realistic to appreciate that we are not done improving yet…and to beware of any department or employee who says they are!  We do most of what we do quite well and the proof of that is in our results:  our Division got over 40,000 students successfully enrolled!  Think about your role in that accomplishment.  What did you do very well?  What was “good enough?”  What could be improved?  Are there processes in your area that create bottlenecks or barriers for students?  Think about the common frustrations that are communicated to you and what can be done about them.  Please, pass these thoughts on to your supervisors, managers, directors and deans.

Growing pains can be treated with stretching and exercising.  Acknowledge the successes of your staff and co-workers, growing pains can be treated with massage.  And don’t forget, a lot of times growing pains are gone the next morning.

–          General Education Course Review and 60/120 Credit Limit for transferrable degrees

–          A multimedia Online Orientation with built-in assessments and compliance-tracking features

–          Assignment of Counselor/Advisor Liaisons to the Division of Academic Affairs to further an advising curriculum centered on excellence and exploration of degrees and occupations

–          College Access Challenge Grants (CACG), one linking secondary students to postsecondary Career and Technical Education pathways and a second providing Accelerated Degree Completion pilots in both Business and Education

–          Curricular Changes in Developmental Math and English coursework

–          Don’t Wait Graduate for CSN stop-outs and drop-outs to reconnect with CSN and complete their degrees

–          Non Traditional No More for local firefighters with previously earned college credits but have not earned a degree

–          Project Graduate reaching out to students with 45 or more transferable credits to get them on track to graduate

–          PeopleSoft granting students access to personal, academic and financial information, as well as educational plans to help them monitor their own progress

–          Revised Admissions requirements promoting high school graduation and GED completion to ensure increase college preparedness

–          Achieving the Dream (ATD) application from CSN to join dozens of other institutions in the country working with experts to assess, interpret and use the correct institutional data linked to direct interventions reducing time to completion while simultaneously increasing the number of disadvantaged students who graduate.

Finally, involvement in Achieving the Dream could help CSN accurately track and capture other measures of student successbesides the standard graduation rate.  Why is it important to expand the current scope of what is traditionally considered student success? Because graduation rates for federal reporting-purposes are solely based on the achievement of full-time degree-seeking, first-time college attending students who graduate from two-year schools in three and a half years.  This antiquated measure, developed in the early 1980’s for primarily residential schools, certainly does not do justice to community colleges. To put it in perspective, only 11% to 12% of CSN’s entering class calculates into the federal government’s standard graduation rate in any given reporting period.  This very narrow definition of success has prompted CSN, along with hundreds of other community colleges in the nation, to consider the following measures as additional indicators of student success:

• Advancement from remedial to college level courses
• Completion of general education “gatekeeper” courses
• Course success with a grade of C or higher
• Persistence rates of students from term to term and form year to year
  • Transfer rates to 4-year institutions
  • Training for job advancement and gainful employment

Paramont to the success of these projects is continued collaboration between Student Affairs and Academic Affairs.  In working togher, the CSN campus community creates multiple pathways to success and student achievement.

Students are both learners and consumers. What is it that distinguishes the College of Southern Nevada from the thousands of public and private colleges and universities across the United States? Some would say it is instructional delivery, degree programs, and even location. I agree. I am also of the mindset that the single most influential factor is our employees and the level of service that they provide. Customer satisfaction is determined by what our employees do, how they act, and how they respond to customer needs. It not only sets us apart from our competition but also determines if our customers will return.

Training, customer service philosophies, and policies and procedures are critical aspects to developing customer-oriented employees and a culture of service. These same tools and resources can often come across as a one-size-fits-all approach or even a rigid to do list. What is often missing in service delivery is empowerment. Do we at CSN empower our employees to provide the exceptional service that we expect and hold them accountable for? Do our policies and procedures hinder our employees from making the decisions necessary to truly serve our students, our customers? It is through empowerment that our employees are given the authority to take care of a landscape of both expected and unexpected customer needs. It is also through empowerment that employees begin to develop a sense of security and confidence that enables them to look at policies and procedures through the lens of what can be done as opposed to what can’t be done.

Memorable world class service results from a balanced combination of training, policies and procedures, and empowerment. We must first decide the type of impact that we want to make with each encounter. Do we want our employees to make an impact that exceeds customer expectations and places our institution in a league of its own? Or, do we want to be indistinguishable from the rest? If the goal is customer satisfaction then we must empower our employees at every level to make decisions that allow them to truly serve our customers, our students. The choice is ours.