The Student Affairs Blog

Using Facebook Insights to Assess Your Facebook Page

Facebook Insights is an application available to all page administrators.  It measures exposure, actions, and behavior related to your page.  Insights gives you almost instant data––it is updated 12 hours after the end of each day.  Available data includes: geographic and demographic information about your fan base, a record of interactions (comments, wall posts, photo/video views, “likes”), and the growth of your fan base over time.  All of this information is displayed in the Fan Dashboard, and most of it can also be downloaded into a spreadsheet so you can use the data in any way you see fit.

In Practice: How UW–Milwaukee University Housing Uses Our Facebook Page

I created our Facebook Page in July 2009.  After the first week of school, we were hovering under 100 fans.  Next, I harnessed the influence of the Neighborhood Housing Office, who at that time had over 200 fans of their Facebook Page.  Within two days of suggesting our page to all of their fans, we had over 200 fans as well.  By this point I felt that our page had enough content and fan support/interaction to go public.  So, when we launched our new website on September 10, I included a prominent link to our Facebook Page on the homepage.  Since then, our fan base has grown at a modest pace of 3 pans per day, which should put us over 400 fans by the end of this semester.  Facebook Insights gives me the tools to track this data easily, especially if I take note of the dates when actions with potential impact on our fan base occur (other page suggestions, new advertising strategy).

By downloading the Fan Demographic data from Insights, I can see that 75% of our fans are between the age of 18-24 and 5% are 13-17 years old.  So, it’s likely that 80% of our fans are current or prospective students.  The remaining fans are likely staff members and parents/family members –– yes, we have had a parent become an active fan of our page!

Knowing who our fans are is not enough; to truly assess our Facebook activities, I need to know if students are interacting with our content.  From the Fan Interaction data set, I can report on the number of total interactions with our content (74), average number of interactions per post (1), total photo views (1711), video plays (170), and comments on our content (30).  Astonishingly, our Facebook Page has had 3,875 page views from 1,234 visitors since its creation. Soon, Insights will also allow page administrators to see the Click Through Rate and Engagement Rate, which will provide a clearer picture of how many fans are responding to your content.

Do you use Facebook Insights for assessment or reporting?  How have you used the data?

Interviewing for Student Positions . . . what's your approach?

As I start getting prepared for the spring semester, I am knee deep in interviews for RA positions in one of my living-learning communities.  I love doing these interviews because I get to meet students who I may otherwise not meet, and it gives me an unusual amout of control over what my staff will be like (outside of the LLCs, RAsare very randomly assigned at Penn State).  These are really casual interviews that give me a chance to make sure individuals are prepared to work in the LLC, as well as opportunities for the students to ask questions and make sure the LLC is a good fit for them.

The part of the process that I do not enjoy is that not every student gets selected.  This is always a concern that I have . . . . I don't particularly enjoy the responsibility that goes along with what may be a student's first experience with rejection, even though this can be a great teachable moment.  What sort of processing do you do with students who are not successful candidates?  Is this something that is a formalized part of the process, or something that you do individually? 

So You Want To Make A Facebook Page

This summer I created our department's Facebook Page and Twitter account. Since then, other offices on campus have asked me for advice on Page creation, gaining departmental buy-in, and increasing student interaction. Although I can talk for hours about the intricacies and possibilities of social networking, a beginner really only needs to learn three simple steps. If you're unaware of the difference between Pages and groups, learn more here.

Three Keys to a Successful Facebook Page:

1. Keep administration in the loop. At the very least, make sure your direct supervisor knows you're creating the page. If you need data to justify Facebook participation, check out this presentation by Dr. Rey Junco about Facebook and student engagement. If you face resistance to social networking, try these 7 Creative Ways to Introduce Social Media to Your Team. Also, many of the bloggers on this site can offer anecdotal information about Facebook use on their campus
2. Be intentional when choosing Page administrators. If you're in the position to have access to more than one potential administrator, make sure you have a mix of people that (1) have knowledge about your department, (2) understand the how-to's of Facebook, and (3) have lots of Facebook friends on your campus (or in your target audience).
3. Add content, THEN advertise. Too often staff/students get very excited about a new social networking opportunity and want to advertise it to the public right away. I would recommend taking a few weeks or months to build content (complete your profile information, add photos and videos, post status updates, etc). If you followed Step 2 and used your well-connect administrators to suggest fans of your page, word-of-mouth should already have garnered some fan interactions. Only when your page looks like something that would entice student to come back should you consider advertising it in official publications. When you make the decision to do this, take any opportunity you can to make your social networking presence legitimate. For example, we provide links to our Facebook Page and twitter account on our department's homepage.
   

These three steps should get you started. From here, your interactions should lead you to develop your Page in the manner that best serves your population.

Tuesday Tally - What's One Piece of Advice You Wish You Knew When You First Started College?

If you cannot view this poll click here.

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And here are the results from the last poll.

There's a pit in my stomach...

Well, tonight is our first lecture event in the lecture series sponsored by our Student Government Association and I have a pit in my stomach.  This "pit feeling" is probably familiar to many of you, as it's defined by the "advisor's dictionary of run on sentences" as...

"that pit in your stomach when you know you've supported your student leaders all you can without doing the program for them but no matter how many times you ask about specific details you still know that they aren't going to have a good attendance and aren't prepared because it doesn't seem like they are always paying attention when you talk to them..." feeling.

I'm an experienced advisor. I know the balance between training, checklists, and "on the job" experience that students need to be successful.  However, sometimes they just need to do it.  Yes, I know that this student I'm taking about is inexperienced.  Yes, I know that I have a role in helping to save her from failure for her events.

However, how is she going to learn if I do it all for her?  Is it ok for her to experience an event that has low attendance?  I always ask, "what's the consequence of failure? What's the risk?"

I confess to you, the SABlog community, that I am hereby pushing her into the "cold swimming pool" of event responsibility.  I'm staying right next to her with a life raft at every turn, but if she chooses to keep swimming in this wacky direction I need to just go with her and let it happen.

Have you ever been in this position? 

I'll let you know how tonight goes.

Balancing demands: work vs. new baby

On October 27, 2009 at exactly 4:36pm, I became a father for the first time.  The past week has been exhilarating, exciting, exhausting and elating.  But, now I'm back at work with a full slate of student appointments and meetings.  I'd love to hear advice from other student affairs pros about their first weeks after the arrival of a new baby and how you've balanced the demands of work and home.  All comments welcome.

Here's a shot of the proud papa (me!) and our new little guy.

Gary Alan Miller

Going Beyond Expectations

I couldn’t have been in my graduate assistantship more than 24 hours when I first heard about these “expectations” that they had for me as a Graduate Hall Director. I had to chuckle, given that the only recollection of expectations I had experienced prior to that point were courtesy of Mad TV’s “Lowered Expectations” sketches. Don’t get me wrong… I had been given expectations prior to that in my roles on campus and in the classroom, I just hadn’t recalled covering them with such zest. We discussed the expectations of us (in our roles), expectations we had of each other (as a team), expectations of our supervisor, and expectations of the experience (of which I had no idea what I was getting myself in to). I had yet to see how expectations played out in supervising students, but I was sold. I turned around two weeks later and did the same with my Resident Advisers – and every group of students that I have worked with since.

 

Expectations have served me well. Over the years I’ve been able to avoid a lot of difficult conversations – except for one. I remember sitting in a staff meeting during that year as a Graduate Hall Director as we had reached the tipping point of spring semester. We worked together, we lived together, and for the most part we enjoyed spending time together. Things were starting to break down within our team and I was getting to the point where I didn’t know what to do. Then the moment came where (either in pure frustration or pre-contemplative enlightenment) I asked my staff “What do you want from me?” Trust me when I say that I make it sound more glorious than it was.  Imagine more of the frustration and less of the enlightenment.

 

As I sat there listening to their thoughts, comments and feedback I was struck by how reasonable it all sounded (despite my stubbornness). I could even relate it back to my own experiences in college where I didn’t understand what was happening in the community around me. I had become so caught up in my own job and responsibilities that I didn’t take the time to think about how I was asking them to do theirs. Through that conversation we revisited the expectations that we set at the beginning of the school year and the results have become the foundation of the “Supervisor Agreement” that I still use with my students to this day.

 

Now, at the beginning of any supervisory relationship with student employees I go beyond sharing my expectations of them to sharing the expectations I have of myself. My agreement with them says that “I will strive to:”

 

• Set clear expectations at the beginning of the supervisory relationship;

Communicate the values, goals and objectives of [our office];

Communicate your responsibilities in a timely and professional manner;

Provide you with timely feedback on your job performance and address any concerns that I have regarding performing your duties and responsibilities before those actions adversely affect office operations;

Invest in your personal development beyond the confines of your position description;

Support your desire and drive to be successful;

Celebrate your accomplishments;

Pay attention to the unique qualities and personal attributes that you bring to the office;

Value and respect you as an individual, a student, and a staff member;

Hold you accountable to your responsibilities and actions as a leader within the staff;

Allow time for reflection and discussion following the completion of projects;

Admit my mistakes and solicit feedback on my own performance;

Invite you into appropriate decision making processes;

Provide you with a meaningful and developmental professional/personal experience; and

Maintain a supportive relationship upon your exit from [the office].

 

Following a conversation with the student about what else they would like from me as a supervisor it’s signed like a contract. I think that we often forget that we’re not the only ones with expectations in a supervisory relationship (with students and professionals). In my experience, these conversations have gone a long way in establishing an environment that encourages open communication, mutual respect and trust – way beyond anyone’s expectations.

 

Do you share your expectations for yourself with your students? What do you think are the most important expectations that we can hold ourselves to when we are supervising students?

The Value of State & Regional Professional Associations

I’ve had my fair share of memberships to national professional associations in my four+ years in student affairs, namely ACPA and ACUHO-I.  I’ve had the privilege to attend the national meeting of both organizations at least once.  Although I value what the national orgs do for our profession (especially publications and job placement), I must confess that at the moment I’m getting more professional development from my state association, WCPA.  Many of my colleagues belong to UMR-ACUHO, and likely feel the same way.

Why I ♥ My State Professional Association

 No membership fee.  Yes, I know this is not a benefit that comes with many associations, but our state association eliminated the membership fee about a year ago.  However, most state/regional associations have membership fees that are significantly lower than national associations.

Shared experience.  Most of the people in the association can immediately relate with my professional experience, and I with theirs.  We all have similar types of students, are working under the same state budget (those of us in public institutions, anyway), and are impacted by the same local events.

Small, powerful network of professionals.  The membership to my state association is currently a little over 300.  Although that pales in comparison to the thousands of people that belong to national organizations, it’s a powerful group for me.  Should I try to get a job at any other institution in this state, knowing just a few of those 300 may help me get my foot in the door.

Involvement opportunities.  It took me approximately 30 seconds to join the Professional Development Commission; all I had to do was walk into the meeting.   Some of my colleagues have been on the Executive Board since they were in grad school or their first entry-level position.  All it takes to become a leader in this association is to announce that you’re willing.

Easy-to-attend conferences.  The conference is short (2 days) and held in a central location each year.  Also, it’s affordable.  Registration was $150, which included 4 meals, and hotel rooms were well under $100 per night.  The yearly Professional Development Institute is always at a campus within driving distance; this year it’s on my campus.  That sure makes me likely to attend.

Positive, engaging membership.  This year I presented at the conference for the first time, and I met a number of grad students and professionals eager to talk about my area of interest.  They provided lots of positive feedback, and ideas I could bring back to my campus.

 

Are you a member of a state/regional association?  What types of experiences have you had?  How has it compared to your experience with national associations?   

Tuesday Tally - What Upcoming Student Affairs Conferences Are You Attending?

If you cannot view this poll click here.

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And here are the results from the last poll.

Tuesday Tally - How Many UnPaid Hours Do You Work On Weekends For Your Student Affairs Job?

If you cannot view this poll click here.

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Encouraging Campus Collaboration

After last week's SACHAT, I thought I'd share some campus collaboration ideas I've assembled over the past couple of years.  It’s perhaps  the most common missed opportunity on any college campus.  While campus entertainment can be fun, it can also be culturally enriching, or have an educational slant.  But even more important, programs can serve to reach across campus and bring students, faculty, and staff together.

Some connections between programming and academics are easily apparent.  When you bring in lecturers and other speakers, their primary purpose is to educate. Speakers from environmental and human rights groups aren’t there for fun-- they’re there to teach your students about the world.

But there are other, not so obvious co-curricular uses for your programs.  Reach out to the faculty on your campus. There are professors you already know who are supportive of student activities. Meet with them and discuss how student activities can be supportive of their teaching, too.

Some departments will have an distinct connection.  The music department on your campus produces graduates with great musical skills.  Perhaps the students (and faculty) could benefit from a master class presented by a performer you are bringing to campus.  Maybe the performer could speak to music majors
about the “real world” of the music business, and help them to create a career plan to follow after graduation.

The comedians that you bring to campus also have relevant skills and experiences to share.  They have appeared on stages all over the country, and they may have been featured in films and on television.  Wouldn’t the students in your theater or drama department love to talk with a real live successful
comedy star?   See if you can’t set up a question and answer session with theater majors.  What valuable lessons your students could learn about life in New York City or LA!

The human mind is an amazing thing, and your campus probably has a number of psychology majors trying to understand it. Wouldn’t they learn from interacting with the hypnotist or mentalist you’ve booked on your campus?

Most humanities classes have a requirement for students to attend a number of cultural events during the term, such as a concert, a play, an art gallery, etc.  Your humanities faculty could certainly select a number of programs from your upcoming semester’s events for students to attend.  Just imagine thirty or forty (or more) students boosting your audience when an entire humanities class shows up.

Another very obvious connection is with spoken word performers.  Poets practically live for poetry, and would leap at the chance to speak to an English class.  That might jump-start a freshman’s appreciation for poetry, and produce a future Billy Collins or Sylvia Plath. 

The mass communications department on your campus may have a class in the history of the cinema. By co-sponsoring with them, you could present a film series of classic motion pictures that would serve the entire student body in addition to the film classes.  Everyone should have a chance to see Citizen Kane or The African Queen, not just film majors.

This isn't as easy as it looks.  I know you've experienced resistance (and resentment) towards your programs by faculty.  But try putting the past behind you, and reach out to your faculty again.  To quote Rick in Casablanca, it might be "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"This didn't suck as much as I thought it would!"...and other conference wrap up.

Five months of planning;

four tracks of sessions designed to give a range of options;

Three session blocks,

Two student governments joining up to "host" the event,

...and one big day of programs from 9:30 am - 4 pm.

We had our Student Leadership Summit here on campus this past weekend in conjunction with another area institution.  My colleagues and friends at our neighboring campus were also experimenting with more leadership offerings and so we decided to work together and host one conference for both campuses.All this went into the event, yet one of our most active student leaders (and a student I trust and respect immensely!) can only say "this didn't suck as much as I thought it would."

I know it's a challenge to recruit participants in events that are "for your own good" events carrying no credits or other types of merit awards.  However, our employers and graduate schools are calling for our students to arrive on their doorsteps with "leadership skills" and we have to answer that call.

Our event today offered some seriously high quality topics and, I believe, met students at a variety of levels.  But, I think that in our effort to be "all things," we probably lose some focus.  It leads me to wonder, what's it going to take to get the "average student" out of bed on a Saturday morning if one of my "frequent flyers" is already expecting it to "suck" even before it starts?

If you are in the same boat as we are and are currently wondering where to begin, I'd like to offer a few thoughts:

• Think about leadership training, leadership education, and leadership development as three separate things.  Your campus should figure out if the true goal is to focus on just one of these or on all three.
• Do you have to choose "a model?" 
   I had a great conversation with my colleague from the other campus today about this.  Choosing a model offers ability to gain consistency between programs and departments around campus.  However, it doesn't mean just throwing programs together organized around the 7 C's of the Social Change Model or doing one workshop in each of the 5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership.  You can still teach what you need to teach, but use your models as a framework for writing your learning outcomes for your program as well as a litmus test for knowing whether your programs are truly "comprehensive." 
• Look at a long term plan to establish a comprehensive effort over time, presenting programs with multiple points of entry for students.
  If a junior suddenly realizes they are interested in some leadership programs, make sure they can jump in just as easily as a freshman can. 
• Decide if your programs are for positional leaders or for every student on campus.                           
  If your campus activities office is sponsoring these leadership workshops, you may have to work to adjust a perception that these programs are only for those in positional roles.  This has been a difficulty for us and, based on today's event, is still something we need to address here.

Not every campus has the luxury of having one office or even one staff member who can devote time to leadership education.  So, here's our "money question." 

If you had to choose one area of focus for your leadership programming and could only offer 1 or 2 programs a year, what do you choose?

• Leadership training?  (train your club/organization/positional leaders)
• Leadership development? (cultivate more of your students to be involved with leadership experiences)
• Leadership education?  (educate your students about what leadership is)

I hope to hear your comments!

(commercial: Join us on Twitter for #sachat on Thursdays at 7 Central Time.  It was all kinds of fun last week!)

Sustainability in Student Affairs: What are you doing?

One of my personal areas of interest in sustainability.  This morning we had a staff meeting in another area of campus.  I left my reusable coffee cup at home asuming we would have ceramic cups at the meeting (sometimes our director splurges and provides us with drinks at these meetings), and I was saddened to find paper cups instead! I dejectedly used my first disposable cup since July!

This got me thinking about the things we are doing at Penn State to educate students about sustainability and whether or not they are actually making a difference in the long term. For example, two weeks ago was Penn State’s “Great Recycling Challenge.” This is a very exciting project where we encourage students to recycle as much as possible. Staff members from the Office of the Physical Plant actually audit the garbage for the week and determine which residence hall area recycles the greatest percentage of their recyclable trash. Students get daily updates on their recycling efforts, and there is a lot of friendly competition from the areas to see who can win the Great Recycling Challenge trophy. (For laughs, here I am with the trophy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bck134/3945667667/ ) The area I supervise is the three-time defending champions . . . . but are my students more likely to recycle when they graduate? I don’t know (and I doubt it).

What sorts of sustainability projects are going on in the student affairs offices at your institution? How do you assess their effectiveness, and how do they contribute to student learning at your institution?

America’s Best Dance Crew Vs PBDC!

 
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Shows like So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars and have created a resurgence of interest in dance. Capitalizing on this trend, our Student Association’s Activities Coordination Board decided to tap into this energy by creating a homegrown show that captured the trend but made it our own: Plattsburgh’s Best Dance Crew (PBDC).

The campus was a buzz about PBDC, but even so, we were wondering how successful the program would be. To add to our anxiety, on the night of the event the skies opened up and panic pervaded our already tightly wound nerves as we waited with baited breath to see what the turn-out would be. Since this was a non-ticketed program, we had no clue as to the number of people who would be in attendance. Facebook numbers hardly ever reflect reality, but we would have been happy with the 200 FBers indicating an interest. Additionally, we built into the show a raffle, campus celebrity judges (people like Penny our Dining Hall card swiper) and opportunity for the audience to vote for the overall winner. The question was: would it be enough to get those 200 people out on a night like this?

The doors opened, our preshow started and the audience poured in. They just kept coming, and coming. To put it into perspective, our undergraduate student population is 5,736. When the show was over, we recorded just over 800 in attendance. That’s roughly 14% of our student population! (Our comedy series typically brings in between 200-300.) The result, as my students have put it, was an Epic Show.

Twelve student leaders worked for months to pull this show together. During our Monday Quarterback session everyone concurred this was a special program for our campus that yielded results beyond our wildest expectations, and while not proven scientifically, be believe that the homegrown infusion of a current interest got folks to buy in. I encourage you try to it.

 

Some of elements we use:

• Created a limited edition shirt for committee and give-aways
• Required Auditions
• Prize $100 Mastercard Gift Card Per person on Crew
• Held A Teaser Show Day of PBDC (61syx Teknique also performed in at show)
  
  (hope to post a link with more photos and video - soon)
  
  
   
  Photo with ACB Entertainment Committee and Winners of PBDC
  
  
  

The curse of "Community" and other television ephemera

It was not without irony that a few weeks ago I attended a day-long conference on transfer student success here at UNC and on the same day that, via Tivo, I watched the premier of the new NBC series Community.  It was quite the contrast:  In the conference we discussed issues like imposter syndrome and the perception of quality in our community colleges.  Watching the pilot of Community I was bombarded by stereotypes -- students who don't care, faculty who can be bribed, deans who are young and incompetent, and so forth.

That's not to say I didn't laugh.  Actually that's not to say I even took it out of our Tivo (or more appropriately, had my wife take it out of Tivo).  But, I did feel a twang of guilt for watching.

That twang of guilt was similar in size to the twang of anger I get from watching How I Met Your Mother (which I love) in which one of the main characters has to "settle" for a career as a Cornell professor rather than pursue his real passion for designing buildings.  Yeah, because that feels rights -- can't cut it as a designer, but faculty member is easily attainable.  But, I digress.

My wife tells me I shouldn't try to hold television to a high standard regarding their statements on academic institutions... or any standard about anything, really.  But, I can't help myself.  I do get upset, at first for them for writing such things and secondarily at myself for enjoying it. 

Should I feel guilty enjoying a program that reinforces a host of stereotypes related to my profession?  Maybe, or maybe not.  But, I can't stop watching. Has this happened to you before?

Gary Alan Miller