Joined the rush to get my new Facebook vanity URL of http://www.facebook.com/DebraSanborn. Regretfully, I cannot set one up for my scholarship program or student exchange program groups as I do not have a fanbase of 1,000 or own trademarks on these names. Hope that Facebook will soon see the advantage of allowing all groups and pages to customize their URL.
Author Archives: debrasanborn
Some choices we live not only once…
Our university town has been struck with two tragedies in the last week. The circumstances of these events were live changing and in one case, life ending.
The first, an out of control post-high school graduation party, resulted in a local all-state football star disarming a police officer. The 18 year-old, a recent graduate, now faces four felony charges. The second incident involved a 19-year old visiting friends in a high rise apartment next to campus. He fell seven floors to his death in an elevator shaft.
These situations were framed with bad decisions, wrong choices; choices that could likely have been avoided. In student affairs, we work with students every day who when faced with opportunities to self-regulate independence, do not have the experience or maturity to make wise decisions. Decisions that follow and frame their lives.
Sadly, I guess that is part of what keeps us in business.
Some choices we live not once but a thousand times over, remembering them for rest of our lives. ~Richard Bach
Life is like one big Mardi Gras
I enjoy the gems of wisdom from celebrity commencement speakers each graduation season, particularly when they are authentic and from the heart.
This year’s entry from Ellen Degeneres made me smile.
Life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain. And if they like what they see, you’ll have more beads than you know what to do with.
…To boldly go where no man has gone before
Okay, so I exaggerate, men and women have gone here before.
Today, I embarked on the adventure of a PhD in Higher Education. Nudged along by my very wise mentor and adviser, Dr. Dan, I began the first class in my program and had an energetic day with an exciting group of professionals in education. Pretty soon I will be able to use univariate, bivariate, and multivariate categorical data in a sentence. And it will be wonderful.
I also got a discount today on my iced mocha at Caribou for being able to name all the original members of the Star Trek cast. If you haven’t seen it yet, make your aerospace engineering students proud and get yourself to a showing of the new Star Trek.
Pomp and Circumstance
It is graduation weekend on our campus. Students are moving out of residences halls, parking lots are jammed, and families are arriving to join in the festivities.
My graduate assistant, Kari, will commence tonight and embark on her career in Student Affairs. She has made dynamic contributions to our program over the last year and we are excited about her new adventure.
The Hixson Scholars will welcome 42 new graduates tomorrow, bringing the total number graduated to 818 since the first graduating class in 1999. Their successes are many and will continue to warm my heart.
It’s a great time to read some Graduation Wisdom. Here’s one of my favorites.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ~~Steve Jobs
Congratulations all!
Campus Freeze: A Facebook Social Experiment
The week before finals on our campus is known as Dead Week, traditionally a time when no activities are scheduled and student stress crescendos to peak level in the days before exams. This week, however, an enterprising sophomore staged a social experiment to engage student brains in something other than the academic craziness of the end of the semester.
FREEZE ON CENTRAL CAMPUS!!! was organized in the spirit of events that Improv Everywhere have created around New York City. Several campuses around the country have planned similar events recently, including NC State. The Iowa State performance began as the Facebook Event post along with a supplemental group page to provide more specific instructions. It occurred for five minutes as our Campanile struck 12:00 noon on Thursday and the daily carillon concert commenced providing background music for the event.
The videos posted on Facebook include the carillon music. This edited version can be found on YouTube.
A new campus tradition?
Higher Education Priorities
Just squeaked through crunch time of awarding $1 million private scholarship dollars to students entering our university this fall. The award is equal to one-half tuition and fees for four years. Most of the students receiving this award have significant to full financial need in meeting the cost of attendance for resident students, so getting this envelope in the mail is a reason for celebration.
So why am I not celebrating?
Analysis of financial aid packages for these students show that those with stellar grades who are scrambling for outside scholarships may meet about half of their expenses through grant and gift aid, leaving $8,000 to $10,000 in loan or out-of-pocket expense. Considering that the Iowa median income is $47,000 and most recipients of this award fall below the median, how is a student to afford an education at a Midwest public research university?
Our students graduate with some of the highest student loan debt in the nation and have amassed a 58% increase in loan debt in the last decade. Our state legislature disburses 85% of the state’s $3.4 million of need-based grants to students enrolled in private, not-for-profit colleges reserving only 6% for students enrolled in public colleges and universities.
Slow economic recovery and higher student loan default rates will not improve anytime soon. Tuition freeze? Loan forgiveness? I don’t have all of the answers. But it is time to prioritize the opportunity of higher education for all students.
Dreamed a dream of a college education
The meteoric celebrity rise of a 47-year old church volunteer to online sensation lends credence that there are many diamonds in the rough waiting to be discovered. Much as Susan Boyle inspired the world last week by defying an unsuspecting talent show audience and its snarky judges, I meet students each year who despite amazing obstacles before them are able to achieve admission to a research university, and then piece together enough financial resources to actually attend.
Each April, I work with a team of scholarship application reviewers to identify 100 students in need of assistance to attend college. Most people never know the challenges these students surpass on their quest for an education. They are frequently the caregiver of younger siblings while mom or dad work extra jobs to make ends meet, giving up basketball or the debate club for family needs. They have faced catastrophic illnesses or disability, including cancer or the loss of a limb. They have survived the death of a parent, and sometimes both. They have overcome losing homes to flood, tornado, fire or financial difficulties. They have witnessed the tragedy of family substance abusers in all forms.
Here is an excerpt from one essay I featured in a discussion of college students in poverty.
Neither one of my parents went to college, nor did they graduate from high school. My mother had me five days after her 16th birthday. My dad is a laborer, so he never made much money. I have a brother four years younger than me; somehow we still had a childhood. Then the major problems started. My parents were both alcoholics and battled drug addiction with my dad ending up in jail. My brother and I both were taken from our parents and put into a foster home. Luckily we were allowed to move in with our grandmother, but with no steady income, we were moved to another foster home. Then we were again sent to live with our parents. Somehow dad went to jail again and then we moved in with our other grandparents. When dad got out, he came to find my mom and us. Together, their addictions got worse and it broke off our relationships with nearly everyone. Mom left and dad struggled to keep the up with rent at a house we got next to our grandparents. Dad got drunk just about everyday. I was forced to take care of my new one-year old sister. I remember missing a week of school to stay home and watch her since she was too sick to go to daycare and dad wouldn’t stay home. I still kept my grades up and took honor classes that year. I didn’t have one grade lower than a B. Mom came back to live with us, and all was good, until one night. Dad pushed mom and I jumped up and ran into the room to break up his actions. I was scared of him my whole life and now I stood up to him and was ready to take him on. I stopped dad from doing any more and I got my little sister. The cops were called and both of my parents were arrested that night. I made the decision to move back to our grandparents with my siblings.
Just like an unassuming woman from Blackburn, Scotland can rocket from obscurity to the headlines, I observe average students with little on their resume succeed in a college system that values star athletes and student council presidents. I watch as these students sometimes shine, sometimes stumble on the way to college graduation, amazing me with their ability, tenaciousness, and resiliency. I have seen them become teachers, college professors, attorneys, business owners, and engineers, whatever they set out to become. They remind me each year to always keep an eye on the underdogs as they frequently outclass their faster and flashier peers.
For many of the great, great successes of the world, the background they came from was their great challenge. I’m trying to find those people. Those who may not have the highest grade point or a perfect family background, but who can be successful. These are the ones who will lend the helping hands in the future.
~ Christina Hixson
Who is the next great talent on your campus? What have you done for them lately?
A funny thing happened at the awards ceremony
We recently hosted a celebration for the learning community peer mentors on our campus. Our campus offers many learning communities linking courses and residence halls and this ceremony is an annual event to honor the student leaders in the academic units and courses. The mentors are nominated for the awards by their professors, course coordinators, and also their students.
As with many ceremonies, some students are able to attend, some have schedule conflicts. This year, we had an opportunity to honor a student who was a mentor last fall and then graduated at semester. At first he was not able to attend, but when he checked in and picked up his nametag, our committee made certain that his award was added to the program for presentation.
The student’s name was announced and he made his way to the podium while glowing praise was read from his award recommendation letters. He was one of the students who dressed up for the event, even donning a tie. The student accepted his certificate and paused for photos with the other student award recipients.
But it was the wrong guy.
You see, when the nominated peer mentor graduated last December, his university email account was closed. When notification was sent to award recipients, the email bounced to a student with the same name. This student with the same name believes he was nominated for and won an award, because we told him that he did. He then dressed up, attended the awards ceremony, and accepted an award to much fanfare and applause. If the learning community coordinator had not been there to discretely mention that he wasn’t the correct student, we would never have known.
Lessons to learn? Double-checking email addresses is pretty obvious. But what do we learn from a student who accepts an award that he has not earned? Is there a message here about the need to be noticed among a sea of faces on the university campus? I’ll take it as a special reminder that all of our students deserve recognition and appreciation. And perhaps they need it more than once a year at awards ceremonies.
Facebook for Orientation Webinar Recap
This post originally appeared at The Student Affairs Blog.
I had the pleasure of joining a “Facebook for Orientation” Webinar with Jennifer Sherry of Virginia Commonwealth and Beth Oakley with University of Windsor. While my colleagues shared how Facebook can be utilized at the university and department level to communicate and engage students, I shared the use of Facebook in a first-year seminar for community building and networking within a specific program.
Much of my campus time is spent coordinating a scholarship program that enrolls 100 new students each year (I should be reading applications right now). These students have long been Facebook users, as I shared here. Inspired by ideas from Tania Dudina over at the Student Leader Blog, I took advantage of that Facebook comfort and created a social networking assignment for the course last fall.
To introduce the topic, I shared my own social networks and links for our program Facebook accounts, a group and a profile. This video explanation of social networks was helpful and moved the emphasis beyond Facebook privacy settings to the actual functions of a social network.
Social Networking Assignment
1. Identify and join a new social network. Try Facebook, if not already a member (98% were Facebook users).
- A list of networks is available here.
- Upon creating your new social network profile, identify 5 new friends or links. Make a screenshot of your new network homepage, save as a jpg, attach, and submit via email.
2. Now that you are on Facebook, locate an alumni/ae of the program with whom to link.
- Interview your new alumni link regarding their advice for first-year students, favorite memories, motivational quotes or career choices.
- Create a PowerPoint slide of your alumni interview highlights. Submit it as an email attachment.
Response to this assignment was favorable and students researched a variety of creative networks. Many of our alumni are new Facebook users and enjoyed the opportunity to link back with the program. Next fall we will include the alumni assignment and may introduce blogging and wikis. We’ll see where it takes us.
Many thanks to the folks at Swift Kick for coordinating the webinar!
eighteen and life 