Professional Development

After a two day road trip (more to come later) up to Seattle, I settled in to campus housing on Sunday. I joined SPU staff on Monday/Tuesday for a professional Housing & Residence Life conference. It was a nice chance to reconnect with some colleagues and adjust to my new environment. Even with two days on the road, it takes some time for my mind to catch up with my body! It will be good to have a month to transition and then I am so excited to meet my new staff groups. Meanwhile, my former staff is on retreat getting started for the year!

Part of going to conferences is connecting with people, so it was refreshing to see some familiar faces. I also love learning. I am usually a compulsive conference attender (or as some of you know, it comes out in places like bumbershoot). I typically have an idea of everything I want to attend. This time, I just went with the flow and stumbled upon some great sessions. I've been pondering some ideas about staff development (ie. leadership curriculum), diversity, and civic engagement. This was a great chance to hear some new ideas (as well as a few recycled from the 70's). Paul Loeb spoke on civic engagement on the college campus. He spoke strongly of the need for students to shift from individual responsibility to learn how to act in common for issues effecting those around them, as well as global or larger issues. He is an author and I am looking forward to reading Soul of the Student Citizen: Role Models for Engagement.