WACUUUUUUUHO! Part 1

"Opportunity...Innovation"


First things first. Stanford is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and it is definitely the most attractive college campus I've seen, including Duke, UVA, and UNCW. From the architecture to the landscaping, I have yet to see an unattractive part of the campus.

For those of you who do not know what WACUHO is, it is an acronym for the Western Association of College and University Housing Officers. It is a regional branch of the national organization called ACUHO-I, or Association of College and University Housing Officers International. If you recall, ACUHO-I is the organization that provided the opportunity for the internship I am currently completing at UC-Berkeley. It was also the organization that provided me the opportunity to intern at the University of Virginia.

We arrived at Stanford during the late afternoon on Sunday, where we enjoyed the opening BBQ. Who knew the westerner's could cook decent BBQ and cornbread? We met a lot of interesting people, including the Vice President of WACUHO. I think his name was Dana. Following the BBQ, we split into small groups to have a guided discussion about topics of diversity. I chose to attend the discussion on the Compton Cookout at UC-Davis. I also got to explore the residence hall in which we are being lodged. The name of the building is Toyon Hall, and it is apparently one of the oldest structures on the Stanford Campus. The rooms are pretty spacious, however they do not have air conditioning and my room was on the opposite side of the hall from the restroom and shower room. The common areas reminds me a lot of the interior of Duke's resident halls, with a lot of stone and Gothic arches. It is definitely a stark contrast to the UC Berkeley campus. Both are aesthetically pleasing, but in very different ways.

Today, I woke up late because I did not sleep well last night. Between being alone in a creepy old dorm room and having no air conditioning, I was kept up by loud people outside of my window. As a result of this, I woke up late and missed part of the opening Keynote Speaker. However, the portion of the speech that I did hear was extremely engaging and interesting. The speaker talked about the core competencies of our profession (Student Affairs), including physical, intellectual, emotional, relational, environmental, spiritual, etc, and how we should continually identify competencies we need to work on and continue to strengthen the ones we already identify with. She also spent a great deal of time talking about "beliefs," and specifically talked about NPR's "This I Believe." This program, created through NPR, challenges college students to reflect deeply on their most essential beliefs. We did several activities centered around "belief" including identifying our own core beliefs. I ended up identifying this about my belief system: "I believe in a higher power and the connectedness of humankind. I also believe that each person has worth and deserves respect; and, I believe in the power of small acts of kindness, including giving someone a smile." I hope to use parts of the 'beliefs program' when I plan the New Member Educator Summit this fall at Duke. By having new member educators intentionally reflect on the congruence or incongruence of their core beliefs, the core values of their fraternal organization, and their experience as a new member, I hope to help them make better decisions when confronted with the temptation and/or pressure to haze.

After the keynote speaker, I attended a couple of interest sessions, one dealing with transitioning into your first job after graduate school, and the other about engaging in the spiritual development of college students. The session on spirituality was great, as it is my area of interest for research and the topic of my master's thesis. They spent a good deal of time reviewing the Astin et. al study that my professor (Alyssa Bryant) helped with when she was a graduate student at UCLA. At the session, I found out from one of my colleagues that the UC Berkeley residence halls are looking as constructing 'reflection rooms' to help foster the spiritual development of their students. Of course, I jumped at the chance to be part of future conversations dealing with this project. The last session I attended wasn't really a session, it was a case study competition. My fellow interns and I decided yesterday, on a whim, to enter into this competition, which involved receiving a scenario that contained several problems that needed to be addressed. In our case, we were playing the role of the Director of Housing who found out that one of his/her Asst. Director is trying to hire an AB540(Undocumented) student as an RA, and that one of his/her administrative assistant's is being accused of embezzlement. We thought that we had 10 minutes to present our case, which we decided to do in the form of a skit. However, when we arrived at the competition we were informed that we had 5 minutes to present, and the other 5 minutes would be used for questions from the judges. Although this threw a major kink in our plan, my fellow interns and I were quickly able to improvise and shorten our presentation on the spot. In short, we rocked it! I really hope we when, but we won't find out until tomorrow at the Grand Banquet. Even if we lose, I won't be too dissapointed though because I still think we did an amazing job considering we're just grad students.

Alright, well I think this is quite enough blogging for one night. I'm so tired, I could pass out right now haha.

Cheers!