SWACUHO Podcast

Get ready for an exclusive look into the inner workings of SWACUHO leadership! Fresh off the 60th anniversary conference, host Ricky Harris talks with immediate past president Beth Eppinger and current president Dr. J.C. Stoner. The trio unpacks the unique and contrasting pathways that led both guests to the presidency, proving there is no single "right" way to lead. From the resilience required a...

On this episode we welcome Leanna Payton from Henderson State University who is also a member of the SWACUHO Executive Board. For the last couple of years, she has led SWACUHO’s efforts to celebrate the association’s 60thAnniversary. During this discussion, we go back to 1966 and the beginning of our history and take a journey up to the present. Intermingled throughout the conversation are thought...

About two years have passed since the last episode of the SWACUHO Podcast. This episode reintroduces the podcast to the region, welcomes a new host, and discusses the idea of "pet projects." We look at how they are thought of, the work that goes into them, and how they can be set up for future success (or failure, too).

After a three month gap, we have M. Joel Gatti (Director of Housing Operations at SMU) back on the show. This time around we are cruising the ACUHO-I community message boards for topics to discuss and banter about. Those topics include: Mid-semester room cleaning, preparation, and handling abandoned property; Requiring staff to be trained to administer CPR and Narcan, plus the logistics behind suc...

This month we are using the book "Friend of a Friend: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Career" to talk about network science. In this episode we define the various ties in your network: strong, weak, and dormant ties, revealing the value of each. We cover out of the blue recommendation letters or reference checks, how to see your whole network, being a network bro...

This episode features Molly Albart, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs at UT Arlington. Molly talks about moving up and moving out of housing into an AVP role that, interestingly enough, does not include housing in her current portfolio. We talk about the transferrable skills housing experience provides when considering to make a move into other areas of student affairs. We then tackle c...

This month we are joined by Don Yackley, fresh off his tenure as President of SWACUHO. This is probably the most organic interview we have had thus far on the podcast, with topics ranging from stupid questions to imposter syndrome to having situational awareness. Most all of these topics weave in and around the actual topic at hand: professional involvement. Don gives us his observations on whethe...

This month is our second round of asking the most important questions of all: your questions! That's right, our panel today is responding to listener questions. Coming back on the show is Adonis Thompson, Maggie Guzman, and Ken Stoner who give advice and some tough love to the following questions: Should you look to leave your job when you don't really like your supervisor but love your department...

Although it is only March, our three guests today have already been hard at work planning for the summer make-ready season. Those rooms don't magically get perfect before August move-in, but rather take lots of time, planning, and resource management. Our guests today walk us through systems, checklists, and all the moving parts related to summer turn. While doing so, they also highlight the trans...

CORRECT EPISODE NOW UPLOADED! The annual conference is right around the corner, and to lead up to the big event, this episode was put together by SWACUHO's Exhibits and Displays Committee. In this episode, Trey Stoermer, Norma Ramirez, and Felisha Perrodin break down the exhibit hall at conferences and hone in on how it is more a place to build and foster relationships, which sometimes happen to r...

We start the New Year off with Tanya Massey, who about six months ago began her new role as the Senior Managing Director for University Student Housing at Texas Tech University. To mark her first-time accession to the SHO role, Tanya shares going through the candidate process, the experience of sitting in the "big kid chair".  While this episode will certainly be beneficial to our region's mi...

This month on the SWACUHO Podcast we are joined by Drs. Robin Williamson, Stephanie McBrayer, and Mimi Benjamin to discuss and dig into "The Great Resignation". While we only scratch the surface, we start by looking upstream at the challenges of recruiting staff before looking downstream at retaining staff once they are with us. We ask the following questions: Is the field less attractive than it...

On this episode we talk to Past President Nancy Murphy-Chadwick. We start with Nancy's hobby of making stained glass windows and applicable lessons to the workplace and how Nancy originally wanted to be a high school band director, but was steered away because those jobs were for men. Nancy talks about her thirty years as the SHO at TWU, a job she apparently enjoyed enough to come out of retiremen...

To conclude Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, this episode features Dr. Rikki Turner, Founder and CEO of Still You Rise, Inc. Rikki worked her way up the housing ranks in Arkansas and through her dissertation research found her life's calling working with college campuses providing suicide awareness and trainings. We begin the conversation with how Rikki disarms groups when talking about the sen...

This month we have a very special guest who was never employed at a SWACUHO-affiliated school but certainly orbited SWACUHO throughout his long career in student housing. Several of our guests talked about SWACUHO being a family, so in my best judgement between him attending a couple SWACUHO conferences, keynoting at SWACUHO events, and consulting at SWACUHO schools, it's almost as if our guest is...

This month is special as it rounds off one full year of the SWACUHO Podcast. To celebrate, we are answering listener questions. Four people wrote in over the course of the year asking for advice. Along the way, I've recorded various guests answering these questions. For dedicated listeners, you will recognize every voice today as a repeat guest.  Today we are responding to the following topic...

It's been mentioned on the Podcast a few times how time consuming it is facilitating RA hiring processes, so today Apefa Cooper (Texas A&M San Antonio) came back to the show to talk about an article she wrote in The Journal of College and University Student Housing about this very thing. Apefa not only talks about the hours upon hours spent in the various components, but also coverts that time...

In the fast pace world of campus housing we have to be effective at communicating through a variety of formats to reach our audiences. One of those formats, is email. This month we are joined by Monique Burkley (UT Arlington) and Maggie Guzman (Texas A&M) to talk about how they manage their email. We start by talking about how many total email and how many unread emails we have in our inboxes,...

This month we are joined by Adonis Thompson, who served as President of SWACUHO in 2018 and 2019. We start by talking about Adonis’ career on the operations side of the house and how processing conduct cases built the necessary skills to be successful in operations. We talk about catch phrases, picking your battles, balancing job responsibilities and self-care. We then move into his SWACUHO involv...

April is World Autism Month, so this episode aims to share the stories of residents with autism. To do so, we are joined by Dr. Dustin Grabsch from Southern Methodist University who published an article last year in The Journal of College and University Student Housing exploring the expectations of residents with autism to increase satisfaction with the on-campus living experience. We discuss the...

Today our guests use the book Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking as a vehicle to discuss those inevitable rabbit holes within our mind that every campus housing professional has fallen down at one time or another. Our guests today are two self-described overthinkers, Jasmine Jennings and Sara Frick, who reveal an important truth: you aren’t the only person overthinking your work...

We have a special bonus episode of the SWACUHO Podcast today. We recorded live from the SWACUHO Annual Conference during session block 6 where we heard about some programs conference participants ended. Of course we dive into random topics related to our guests who were willing to volunteer their time and experience for the benefit of our region. On this episode we talk to: Nicki Neely, Assistant...

“This podcast has positive psychology and solutions-based counseling.” -Jason Titus, Ph. D. Today’s episode is another feature topic: student staff accountability. If the only times you think about staff accountability are when you are facing staffing situations, this episode will demonstrate the value in considering these topics when things are going fine to better position yourself and your depa...

We start off the New Year with a conversation with another SWACUHO Past President, Tanya Massey from Oklahoma State University. Tanya spent a number of years focusing on the human resources component of campus housing, so we dive into importance and nuance of recruitment and training staff. We then explore the value of developing small skills with long term career impact before jumping into associ...

On today’s episode we explore the maintenance side of the house, specifically looking at solving problems before they are problems with preventative maintenance. Our three guests are Drew Jahr, Katy Pelton, and Miles Oller, all of whom began their professional career in residence life before moving into housing maintenance and operations. We first discuss the differences between residence life and...