"You won't know where you are going, unless you know where you have been."

Reflections on Love, Trust and Humility

Kelly A. Grady

After working as a professional student affairs educator for five years, the author reflects on the Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) graduate program at The University of Vermont (UVM) and how it prepared her for the field. By instilling the power of ideas, particularly trust, love, and humility, with the skills necessary for responsible implementation, the program prepared the author to meet the challenges of a field which asks the professionals to fulfill multiple roles for multiple constituencies. Lastly, the author reflects on the sense of purpose instilled in her as a student affairs educator and the obligation that demands.

It is hard for me to believe that I graduated with my Masters in Higher Education and Student Affairs five years ago. Contrary to the cliche, it does not feel like yesterday rather it feels like a long time ago. I reflect on my graduate experience and career in student affairs from a middle management residence life position.

My greatest memories of graduate school are the concepts my classmates, faculty, and staff taught me. I learned the power of ideas, particularly love, trust, and humility, with the skills necessary for responsible implementation. These ideas are synthesized in my philosophy of education and my ethical manifesto which continue to guide me as a professional. While no program can prepare people for every situation, having a philosophy of education and a developed ethical creed has provided me with guidance.

In the first semester my classmates and I read Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) and discovered that education is not neutral. While I was a graduate student, and sometimes since, this has been a terrifying thought. If education is not neutral, then I have to accept responsibility for what and how I am teaching students. This is a tremendous obligation as well as an opportunity. With this charge, student affairs educators are agents of social change rather than those who maintain the status quo.

The purpose of education is to empower. An empowered person is one who values him/herself as fully human and able to recognize and act upon opportunities for further growth while sharing his/her knowledge with his/her community. Empowerment only exists when applied to groups; it is not a concept which applies only to an individual. As none of us exist alone, it is impossible that one could become empowered without the help of others. True empowerment involves dialogue and exchange.

The excitement of the concept of empowerment, the opportunity and responsibility of being an educator, and the realization of my role as an agent for social change overwhelmed me as a graduate student. I saw the world with new eyes and self-assigned responsibilities which led me to rename the couch in my apartment as "the couch of disempowerment." I retired to my coach for hours at a time when I felt the outside world was too much to bear.

I had an immature mind-set about student affairs professionals. Just as adolescents struggle with the realization that their parents make mistakes, I struggled with the realization that student affairs educators have flaws. As an undergraduate student I believed my mentors to be the models of pure educators, their only concerns the development of students and communities. Once involved in professional preparation, I became aware of the complexity of the field and the reality that mistakes are made. Each time I was faced with what I thought was an error in judgment, I went to my coach with the melodrama of a teenager. I believed humanity was doomed and felt powerless to change it.

Knowing that I was unable to stop oppression and injustice, I struggled with my desire to be a change agent. While I had been inspired by both Friere's work and what I was learning as a HESA student, I had missed the most crucial concepts of love, trust, and humility. These concepts now define my philosophy of education and my ethical manifesto.

Love

Love has guided my work because of the basis it provides. It is the summary of many things. It inspires me to find the unique and beautiful in each person rather than his/her short-comings. I, who at one time hated all rules, now see that they are based in love. The yellow lines in roads exist not just to tell people where to drive, but because people cared enough that they did not want people to die from drivers being all over the road.

In Caring , Nel Noddings (1983) advises readers to attribute the best motive to others. Without love, this leap of faith necessary to give the benefit of the doubt would not be possible. Attributing the best motive to others makes it possible to build relationships and, in most cases, to hear, in Noddings' words, "the other's reality." Attributing doubt to people causes the listener to hear explanations with a predetermined paradigm rather than allowing a construct to form based on information.

The benefit of the doubt is especially helpful in hearing the student who tests peoples' patience. Rather than discounting a student who speaks in anger, attributing the best motive allows a student affairs educator to hear the content of the message as well as the delivery. Skills and understanding about how the message was presented can be developed as the student feels understood, but the content is not lost. This is especially important in issues of diversity. Cross cultural communication can lead to misinterpretation of the message because of the delivery. In addition, the substance may be personally challenging for the student affairs educator.

Lastly, when love is the motive for actions, the actions can be justified. There are numerous instances where love has been claimed as the motive and the result has been harm. There is a temptation in student life to act as benevolent despots by mandating experiences for students in an attempt to help them. While the motive is to help, by removing choices for students they are not able to realize the joy and responsibilities that come with governing their own lives. The purpose of love with pure motives is to recognize people as fully human and to provide people with confidence and opportunity to decide their own actions.

Trust

A partner to love is the concept of trust. There can be no empowerment without people having the responsibility to make decisions and choose actions. Trust means allowing people the freedom to succeed and fail, giving them more control over their own lives. Trust provides room for deviance from an accepted idea and trust causes ambiguity.

In an age of litigation and in environments where the emphasis is to control students, trusting people can be very difficult. The focus too often is on placing limits. A decision to allow only staff and faculty to reserve a special facility protects the facility from potential harm of student groups, but also eliminates all possible positive events which could occur with student access. By allowing access and educating students about the responsibilities, there is the opportunity for new gatherings to happen. Possibilities are the source of change and evolution. By allowing opportunity there is growth, where as limits reduce the possibilities of both positive and negative outcomes.

Humility

Trust and love are incomplete without humility. Humility is something I knew only in concept as a graduate student. Periodically I understand and display humility, but I describe myself as in the process of becoming humble in much the same way that Maya Angelou (1993) describes herself becoming a Christian. It is a life long endeavor because the idyllic condition cannot be arrived at and held on to eternally.

Humility is essential when engaging in any true dialogue. It allows one to be patient and listen to others' viewpoints rather than speaking first with the assumption of having the answer. By listening with humility one hears strengths before flaws. Once one realizes everyone has important knowledge to share then democratic participation is a necessity. It is no longer acceptable to make decisions for students. Decisions must be made with students.

Most important, one is more open to learning when she/he is humble. Humility frees people from the fear of making a mistake because the humble know that they are going to make mistakes, thus they are more likely to take risks. One can respect the contributions of other learners because there is not a comparison to see if one's own ideas are better.

The pursuit of the idyllic conditions of love, trust, and humility have made me a better student affairs educator. I realize being a student affairs educator is important, but my role is not omnipotent. Understanding love, trust, and humility I realize that people are thinking, responsible participants in their lives and our collective lives. I am better able to appreciate people because I am not taking credit for their accomplishments nor am I responsible for their failures.

The Necessity of Substance and Process in the Practice of Student Affairs

My philosophy of education and ethical manifesto are the substance that guides my practice as a student affairs educator. Substance is essential, but not sufficient. A successful student affairs educator is not just about strong ideas. He/she has the skills necessary for responsible implementation. At UVM I learned these skills from case studies, practica, my assistantship, and modeling after the professional staff. The professionals were extremely generous in demonstrating and explaining their skills. To this day when faced with dilemmas I think, "What would (fill in the name of the professional staff with the expertise) do in this situation?"

While I was a student, my class on administration and organizational theory seemed the least useful; as a professional, I have found it to be the most useful. In class I reviewed case studies of organizational dilemmas in higher education, analyzed the problems and suggested solutions. My first reaction to the case study was that the problem never should have occurred. It seemed common sense would prevent the situations from arising. Now I long for those cases, because what I have encountered as a professional is more bizarre than the examples that seemed inconceivable to me as a graduate student.

Resolving problems as a graduate student, I learned to see dualisms rather than to see dualistically. A dualistic paradigm puts ideas in competition because one concept must be chosen over the other. Seeing dualisms is a paradigm that looks at relationships between concepts. Dualisms have allowed me to resolve many roles that appear to be adversarial. I am an educator and an administrator. I am an advocate for students and I hold them accountable for their actions. My UVM education prepared me to approach the field with substance in thought and skills in process.

Being dualistic is a formula for frustration because the role of student affairs educators is dynamic in a volatile field. Whatever is at odds, when the core issues are examined, we can do both. Student affairs educators can lead with powerful ideas and with effective implementation. We can be creative and organized, innovative and fiscally responsible, caring without acting en loco parentis, and diverse while celebrating community.

Fiscal demands, growing distrust in institutions of higher education, and issues of diversity are continually shaping the field of student affairs. People want to know why there is violence on campus, what they are getting for their money, and if what they are getting is worthwhile. These concerns demand both substance and process to resolve.

Many problems facing higher education address core questions: What does it mean to be a college educated person? What does it mean to be part of a community? What does it mean to be moral? It is in this depth that we must address problems by engaging the community in a true dialogue based on love, trust, and humility. Ask people what is happening and be brave enough to hear the answer rather than translating it into pre-existing beliefs.

Being responsive in student affairs means employing a process which defines the problem and solution with substance and implementing action in a manner that is responsible. It is unacceptable to think a good idea alone is worthy of implementation. The process by which the idea is implemented must have integrity. Make certain that the goals of the program are well articulated, the implementation is solid, and that the program has an evaluation. The program will be defendable because of the integrity of the process.

In practice student affairs educators have relied too long on anecdotal information and experience as justification for implementing ideas. We are a field of professionals with a body of knowledge that guides our discipline. It is our responsibility to be able to articulate the necessity of our jobs and our actions. It is reasonable to ask for money for an idea when there are clear goals, a solid process, and an evaluation. As more student affairs educators act in this manner, the integrity of the field will be strengthened by its actions and the information gained through those actions. There is not a choice between substance or process, both are necessary.

Conclusion

I am optimistic about the field of student affairs and the education we provide. I am certain that we are a necessary and important part of higher education. It is each student affairs educator's responsibility to operate based on knowledge and to contribute to that body of knowledge. It is the responsibility of student affairs educators to develop and implement programs which are of substance and which can be evaluated. This challenge provides us with the opportunity to name our world (Friere, 1970) by discovering, articulating, and innovating the concepts that shape our field. Who better to develop our field than us, and what better time?

At UVM I learned powerful ideas and the skills to implement them. I am grateful to my classmates, the faculty, and the staff for all that I learned and continue to learn from them. Learning from them about love, trust, and humility has not only made me a better student affairs educator, but a better person. Thank you.

References

Angelou, M. (1993). Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. New York: Random House.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder.

Noddings, N. (1984). Caring. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kelly Grady is a 1992 graduate of the UVM HESA program. Correspondence concerning this article is welcome and should be addressed to:

K. Grady
Area Director - First Year Experience
The College of New Jersey
Trenton, NJ 09650-4700
email: kgrady@tcnj.edu