We’re thrilled to kick off our yearly tradition of uplifting our latest cohort of amazing bloggers, starting off with Andrew Skelley. He chats with Dustin about what brought him to the writing team, and how he has brought his authentic self to his work by using music and other interests to forge unique bonds with the students he serves. Stay tuned until the end of the episode where Andrew shares a funny ghost story from his years in the halls.
Guest: Andrew Skelly (he/him/his)
Host: Dustin Ramsdell, Independent Higher EdTech Content Creator
Listen to the Podcast:
Watch the Video:
Show Notes:
Check out all of Andrew’s posts on the Roompact blog.
Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Dustin Ramsdell:
Welcome back everyone to Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast. If you’re new to the show, every episode our team of hosts brings you timely discussions on a variety of topics of interest to higher professionals who work in and with university housing, residence life, residential education, whatever you might call it. And if you’re following along, in prior years, we always do a series of interviews with our writing team, the bloggers that are part of the Roompact community that have stepped up to contribute their insights and reflections and advice on a variety of topics. So we’re kicking off this year’s series here. And it’s always a treat for me. I get connected with a lot of cool, interesting folks normally, but then this sort of broadens the scope a bit, but these just tend to be more kind of fun, casual, get to know you episodes. And so I think it just kind of livens up the feed a little bit.
But Andrew, we’ll start, as we always do, if you want to briefly introduce yourself, give an overview of your personal background. And then we’ll get into more about what brought you onto the blogging team and some of the things that you’re writing about.
Andrew Skelley:
Yeah, sounds good. Well, thank you for having me here today. My name’s Andrew, Andrew Skelley. I use he/him pronouns. I am a Res Life professional. I’ve been in the field for six years professionally now, working in Res Life for all six of those years. I was an RD for four years and now I’m an area coordinator. So just a more elevated role in Res Life.
Went to Boston College for my grad school, went to Allegheny College for my undergrad. Math major, history major. Did the whole typical, really liked being an RA in school, being involved. And that kind of took me on this journey into higher ed of where I’m at now.
I grew up in the Erie, PA area, but I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania now. So kind of been in Pittsburgh in the western PA area for pretty much all my life except for grad school. So love the area.
Outside of work, big movie person. I love movies. I love talking about movies. I love watching movies, debating movies. Similar with music too, as we’ll talk about in this episode, I love music. Just listening to music, talking about it, debating it, all that stuff. So there’s things that kind of fill my cup. Like to travel to. Big travel person. And I just like to be creative too.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Well, I think that is a good segue of what inspired you to join the blogging team of just having interest in a lot of creative pursuits and all of that. But I guess, yeah, I’m just curious because I think it’s a different journey for everybody, and that’s kind part of the point. I think it’s just highlighting that it’s like there’s room at the table for everybody even if you don’t consider yourself a writer per se.
But what inspired you to join the blogging team at Roompact?
Andrew Skelley:
Yeah, there’s a few different things that brought me here. First and foremost, I think seeking out development opportunities outside the scope of my day-to-day work has been really important to me as a professional since I started in my job. I’ve always been trying to… I love the work I do on a day-to-day basis, but I think there’s a lot of merit and a lot of good opportunity to just branch out and kind of express those skills. And as I sought out different skills, being creative and kind of tapping into a different part of my brain was really important for me. And so that’s how I stumbled upon this.
The institution uses Roompact a lot, so I was very familiar with the software, very familiar with the team. We had met some of the folks before. So that’s what kind of got me into that. And it just seemed like a really cool opportunity to talk about residence life and just add different spins to it and kind of put my different opinions out there. So it’s been really fun. I just like the idea of being able to be creative and being able to talk about these things through a lot of different lenses.
And I’ve also just learned a lot too. That’s been kind of one of the other things I’ve really enjoyed about this too, is working with the other bloggers and working with the other folks. You see Res Life through a lot of different lenses and that’s been really cool. Really cool opportunity to see what other folks are doing and to get different insights. So it’s just been a really rewarding experience. And just fun too. Writing is one of those skills that in the field of Res Life we do a lot of writing, but it’s so report-driven, assessment-driven. So just being able to write long form, write narratively, and to be able to pick what I want to write about. It’s just really cool opportunity and really enjoy doing it.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. Well a couple of thoughts there, just what you said, because I think it is people go through school and don’t even know how to read for fun and have to grow back into that. And I think similarly it is just like writing for fun is sort of a novel thing that I don’t think enough of us get to do.
But I think for me being a content creator just through a couple of different modalities for a long time, it is that idea of especially if you’re somebody who just consumes a lot, thinks about things a lot, having a canvas where it’s like you kind of need to put it in a way that is coherent and able to be understood by others. If it’s like, “I’ve got all these ideas. We should be doing this, that and the other or whatever.” It’s like, “Okay, well, you need to write it down in a way that other people are going to understand and be concise and not a laborious process to go through your whole thought process, whatever.” So I think it is a benefit in the skill of writing and even just the kind of squishier thing of just sort of like, how do I put ideas together?
So yeah, I think it’s a really interesting thing that I’m grateful that I think a lot of different folks have been picking up the mantle and joined the blogging team where I was thinking it’s been years now. I feel like we’ve got quite a cadre of folks that have been through the blogging team. And I think even if they don’t do something like this afterwards, it is just something that this kind of intensive in a way to do exactly what you’re saying to learn from others and build the skills and all that good stuff.
So what you’ve been writing about a lot is sort of incorporating music into your professional work was sort of how I kind of synthesized a lot of it. And I’m curious with that as a more predominant area of focus with what you’ve written about. If you could just summarize to give people a teaser because certainly I’m going to encourage them to go read every single one of every one of our writers articles in full. But just as sort of a teaser for some of what you have written, how do you incorporate music into your professional work writ large? Just any sort of anecdotes you’d want to share with folks listening.
Andrew Skelley:
Music has been one of those tools that it serves as a great connector with folks I think both in Res Life and just in life in general. I mean, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone that doesn’t have a certain preference of music, whether that be artist, style, certain songs. So I think that alone, it just provides a great connecting piece to get to know people.
And as I kind of started my professional career as I worked to engage students and work to engage professionals, that’s always think about, how do you bridge those connections with people? How do you connect with people? And just by virtue, music has been one of those things that it’s just so universal and so individualized for each individual person too. So I found that to be a great kind of connector and resource.
And in terms of using it, there’s a lot of different ways you can do it. For one, music, I think, tells a lot of stories for folks. I myself, there are a lot of different music pieces, a lot of different songs that I can tie back to a certain favorite memory or a certain kind of time period in my life. When that song comes on, I feel like I’m just right back in that moment of wherever I was and a certain memory reflection.
So as you think about getting to know folks, I’ve used that as an icebreaker before like, what’s a favorite song you have? And maybe what’s a quick little memory attached to that? And that just opens up a good conversation for somebody to talk about, like, “Oh, I listened to this song when I was a child and I can still remember running around my parents’ house when I’m listening to this song.” Or maybe there’s a song that comes from your high school or something. “I remember this day in high school this song was playing.” It just has that just vivid memory attached to it. So it’s a great way to collect somebody’s memories and share that is really impactful tool that music can do.
I think just learning about people’s preferences also tells you a lot about someone. So I like to ask folks, if they tell me a particular artist or a particular song they like, I like to ask the like, “What about that song do you gravitate towards? Do you like the instrumentation? Do you like how the instruments sound, how they all come together? Are you more drawn to the lyrics that are kind of being spoken out?” I think it’s really interesting to hear like, okay, you like this piece of music, tell me a little more about it. And I think you can learn a lot about somebody if they’re more drawn to the instruments, maybe they’re more drawn to the lyrical content, something about that poetry and the lyrics where they connect to them. Or you learn if somebody’s just more kind of connected to that just vibe that an instrumentation can bring. So I think it’s just a cool anecdote to hear about someone and hear about what it is that gravitates them towards that music.
And beyond all that too, it’s a great way to fill space too. I just always have music playing in my office. I think it just adds a certain kind of just atmosphere to your space too, and can give you just liveliness to your space both when you’re just doing your own kind of personal work.
But I’ve also started playing music just when folks are in my office too. Just having that little bit of extra something in your office while you’re meeting with folks just adds to the atmosphere, adds to the environment, and thinking add just a cool touch to what you’re doing. And you can even talk about the music you’re playing too. So just some of the pieces I talked about in my article. But I think just music as a whole gives you so many different ways to connect with folks and a bridge to really get to know someone.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing a comprehensive summary of all the things. And I think the thing that resonates with me the most is like, when I’ve worked on campuses, in-hall offices and things, I mean always somebody observed this and it’s like, “Oh, that is spot on.” I’m always quick to settle in and make a space my own of putting up art and things on the wall and all the books on the bookshelf and it’ll tchotchkes and decorations and figures. But that being this enabler will people notice things, call it out, be like, “Oh, you’re into that. You’re a fan of this” or whatever, so for me it’s a lot of this sort of geek culture kind of stuff. Comic books and whatever else.
If folks are watching the videos, you can probably see Spider-Man things around. And so that’s just something where I get them a lot as gifts over the holidays and birthdays and whatever else. People know that about me. And that can be just an icebreaker in the way that you’re talking about music to where, yeah, I think it’s something that music in particular is so quick, I think, to evoke kind of reactions out of people. And then other things that might be a little bit harder.
So I think that’s something that really I’ve not even with full intentionality, it’s just the idea of like, “Well, I am who I am. This is my space. I’m going to decorate it like I would decorate my space.” It’s not even some sort of really conscious strategy necessarily, but I’ve seen the benefits of it. And now it is sort of like, “Well, no, yeah, I’m going to make sure I’ve got my little action figures out on my desk or whatever” just because it doesn’t hurt and it only benefits, in my experience at least, which I think, I don’t know, I think we’ve definitely come a long way in that sort of acceptance and celebration of people’s interests and things and whatever they are.
So I guess just as a brief follow up, I guess, any reflections on that of the journey of intentionality when it comes to doing this, knowing that it can be all the purposes that you outlined? Did you stumble into that and then realize the benefits of it or did you have an opportunity for somebody, like a mentor or somebody, to emphasize that for you beforehand?
Andrew Skelley:
Just quick note, I’m right there with you with the stuff. I’m the same way. My office is just all these little decorations and stuff that kind of embody everything I like. I get a lot of little trinkets and stuff as gifts too, so I’m right there with you.
And when you talk about decorating, that kind of brings… There’s this quote, I might be butchering the quote, but it’s something like, “Music is how we decorate time too.” So music in a way is almost like a decoration too. So that just kind made me think of all that.
But to answer your question, I’m pretty sure I just stumbled into it. It was, just as a kid being really interested in music too. I mean, that was a fundamental piece for a lot of my friends. Our shared interest in mutual bands and mutual songs really brought us together. And so again, as I kind of went down this professional career of starting to work with students and work with professionals, as I found myself realizing how important it’s to make connections and really getting into that as I thought about ways to bridge connections with people, I started talking about music.
And sometime when I started doing this, maybe a couple of years in, I found it was… It’s one of those questions. It can be used to the same with TV shows and movies. You asked somebody real quick like, “Oh, what are you watching lately? What kind of music are you listening to?” It’s almost kind like a throwaway introductory line. And then you kind of go into the meat and potatoes, whatever you’re talking about.
But I’ve realized there’s really cool to kind of dig a little deeper. And that’s when I started doing that as a way just to kind of… As we talk about talking with folks and asking questions, having really intentionality in everything you’re asking. So if I’m asking somebody like, “Oh, what kind of music are you listening to lately?” Not letting that just be a throwaway just to kind of fill space, but let’s add meaning to that. Let’s add intentionality behind that. And that can open up a whole other conversation that can guide you into where you’re going. So that’s where it kind started coming from.
But it also is where it started coming from too, just as I got to know students and we found mutual music and stuff like that, just realizing how cool that conversation is. Take if you find a smaller band or something. It’s really cool to talk about a shared interest in some of these larger artists, like your Taylor Swift, your Beyonce. There’s a lot of folks who like that and a lot of folks can gather with that. But if you can find somebody that likes one of these smaller indie bands that doesn’t have a whole lot of followers, that can be really cool. It’s almost like you’re in a little secret club together almost where not many people know this, but we do, and that tells us a lot about one another.
And so having the opportunity to have a few of those conversations about some of these smaller bands, that opened up that world too of like, “Oh, people really open up to you when they find that if you can particularly find something that’s a little bit more niche, a little bit more not as well known.” And I think that just creates a really cool connection with folks. And so I kind of figured that out along the way too, as I just started talking to folks about their interests and really digging into it a little bit more.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. I mean, that perfectly segues to my next question about advice and that idea of really nurturing your curiosity, asking good questions and good follow-up questions. And it can be that you’re starting from scratch and you don’t even know anything about the thing if it’s like you just notice that somebody wears a certain shirt all the time and whatever. Just that idea of being in Res Life and residential education and all these sort of things, it’s like you’d want people to feel like they’re in a safe welcoming community.
People come up to you and ask questions and just make conversation, and that feeling confident and comfortable in doing that and receiving that and responding to it and whatever else because I think, yeah, that idea of it’s a typical small talk question, asking people about what they’re consuming, but then just following the thread of what are you getting from that. What’s that giving you? Whatever, because it could be, obviously some people it’s like, “Yeah, well I’m listening to this because I’m going to the gym a lot. I need something to amp me up, or I’m trying to relax or whatever.” And it’s like that’s just the back and forth of just getting a little bit more to chew on and engage with one another. But I think, yeah, it’s even next, next level if you’re just being like, “Hey, what’s that on your shirt?” It’s like, “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking and I want to know, so please tell me and then maybe we can go from there.”
But yeah, I mean it is just like that is how you build bridges and everything and just at least kind of, I guess for lack of a better term, be a good neighbor in a hall. It is just sort of doing those sort of things. And then certainly if you’re a professional staff member and networking and all that, it’s like you can always go that route. I mean, obviously in professional spaces sometimes we kind of follow the same formula or whatever for better or worse.
So yeah, all that to be said, any other pieces of advice like reflections or even resources or things? Like if folks want to do something similar, whatever avenue they might go, whether it’s music in particular or just that idea of mining for shared hobbies and interest, I guess, it’s sort of the through line of all this. So advice, resources, things you’d want to share that we could put in the show notes?
Andrew Skelley:
What you just named is a big one. Yeah, don’t be afraid to be inquisitive or ask those questions. It’s funny when you said that about pointing someone about somebody’s shirt. A few months ago I saw one of our students. It was an RA I didn’t really know, but he was wearing a Modern Baseball shirt. Modern Baseball is an email punk band that kind of disbanded in the 2010s. I didn’t really know him, but he came up. We were doing a tabling event and I just said, “Hey, I like your shirt.” And his eyes just lit up. He was like, “Modern Baseball?” I’m like, “Yeah, I know modern baseball.” And so we had this whole conversation about it.
So not being afraid if you see somebody wearing a shirt of either something you like or something you don’t know, yeah, ask a question about it. Try to get to know a little bit more about it. So I think that being inquisitive is a big one.
Another thing that I like to do too is whether this can work for music or maybe something like movies or TV shows or something, what I always did with my RA staffs every year is at the beginning of the year, I’d ask them like, “What’s a collection of songs we can put together?” Ask them what some of their favorite songs were that they feel comfortable sharing. We did this with movies too, and I created a Spotify playlist and we’d played that throughout the year. So kind of gathering all that music together and playing that at staff meetings, playing at different events. So that permanent Spotify playlist lived with us throughout the year. And I encourage folks to listen to it and really listen to the songs that the staff is listening to and really appreciates. So I think having that is important and can be really helpful.
I did the same with movies too. I always created a list every year of movies that folks like and hung at my office. I’m like, “You need a movie rec? We got this big list right here of some other stuff that folks on your staff are watching.” So I think that can be a big one.
And what you named earlier too, like not being afraid to display what you like too, and try to find ways to incorporate those things you like into the things you’re doing. So whether that be decorating your office, wear a shirt with your favorite band on it sometime, and just displaying the stuff you like and inviting conversation about that too, and being open just talking about this stuff that you like too, again, can help bridge those connections too and just makes us more human too, and talking about the stuff we like.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. I think that’s sort the… I’m sure people aren’t thinking this, but I often think about when I’m sort of crafting a episode and topic and all that as basically so what factor of like, “Why is this important?” So I’ll just ask that just to give space to like, “Okay, cool, yeah, this is all well and good, but why is it important? What’s the impact? What’s the outcome?” And it is that idea of bringing people’s humanity into all these spaces and places and connections and all that is that, again, it’s fine if you’re having those surface level small talk kind of things or if it’s purely like, “Tell me what you do for work” and you kind of just do all that and it’s like, “I have no idea where this person lives, if they have a family, if they… whatever,” because we just talked about like, “Oh man, my job is like this. My job is like that.”
So I mean, just another sort of thing to sort of fold and circle and underline here is the idea of like, I think a lot of people do get stalled out at the surface level stuff and trying to exercise that muscle to go a little bit deeper, whether you’re starting with hobbies or starting with something else. But I think, yeah, you gave some good advice and some other ideas there because honestly, when you’re saying the thing about the sharing of movies that people are watching and stuff, it’s like you could have from an old school movie rental place or block, but it’s like, “Oh, you got Andrew’s pics here. You got whatever.” It’s just sort of line up some movies or whatever. And if you could actually set up a situation to have people share movies with each other and return them.
So yeah, I think it’s those ideas of really, it can be a very good tailwind I think if you can get people to earnestly put themselves out there in that genuine way, because I think you’re very likely to find people that you may end up having a very just powerful and deep connection that can then power other things, especially within this context, I guess, of just sort of being like, “Okay, everybody respects me or enjoys sharing interest and connected,” whatever. “I got to get you to sign this form or whatever. You got to do a boarding thing,” but it’s just like, “Oh yeah, for my friend that we play these video games together, we listen to this music together where you watch these things together or whatever.”
Andrew Skelley:
Yeah. It’s just a cool connection. And it’s one of those things… I named this before, but especially music. You can do this with video games, you can do this with movies and stuff, but there’s just something about music that’s just so, I don’t know, ingrained in folk. And maybe just because there’s so much of it out there too that you can pick and choose from. I think it’s just really cool to hear about why people gravitate to one certain artist or one certain song or something out of this, just plethora of millions and millions of songs out there. So it’s a cool gateway.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, definitely. Well, I guess to take our own advice here, I thought of an interesting way to end this when I was just perusing your LinkedIn. You have a prompt on there to ask you about Res Life stories. I think we all have them varying levels of uniqueness, I will say. So choose your own adventure here, but if you could tell me one of your favorite Res Life stories as a way to… This could be a good example I guess in the professional context that it conference somebody, is that you could share stories here. But what is one of your favorite Res Life stories? I’m not saying crazy, negative, wild, whatever. Just a favorite story. A lot of stuff happens in the hall, so what is one of your favorite stories?
Andrew Skelley:
Let me think on it. I know when we talk about stories, I’m so naturally drawn to like, “Oh, what happened on duty? Or what’s a duty stuff?” But I think to keep it a little more light-hearted, one I love telling, so a few years ago when I was an RD, I worked in this residence hall that was supposedly haunted. A lot of students had told stories about ghosts in the building, just weird happenings. And I agree. There was some weird things that happened when I was there too, like doors would open on their own. People would hear weird sounds like sometimes you’re in a building too, that just gives you a vibe, like, “Ah. I wouldn’t be shocked if there were ghosts in here.” And so it became a reoccurring joke with the RA staff that the students were really into.
We named this alleged ghost in the building. His name was Trevor. So people always talked about like, “Oh, Trevor’s wandering the halls,” or “Trevor did this to the building, or Trevor did this” and so on. It just became this big reoccurring joke on staff that we really liked.
So on April Fool’s day of that year, me never, one, to let a good April Fool’s day go without any sort of prank or anything fun happening. I concocted this little story about a ghost haunting our residence hall. So I took a quick picture of our residence hall. We had these big chalkboards in the building. I took a quick photo of the chalkboard. I found this image of a ghost online. I did some quick little photoshopping and created this ghost image on the background of a chalkboard. And so then I sent an email to myself pretending I was a resident, and said like, “Hey, RD Skelley, the other night I heard laughing and I saw this weird shape at the end of the hallway. I took a photo of it. I don’t know if you can see this, just thought I’d put it on your radar.” But it was just me emailing myself.
And then I took a snapshot of that email. I cut off the two line and I cut off the signature line so they couldn’t see it was me sending it to myself. And then I put it in a Group<e for my RAs, and I’m like, “Hey y’all, have y’all heard anything? I got this email from this resident.” And they just went wild over it. Some of them were like, “Can you see it? Can you see it?” Folks were taking pictures of it and they’re doing little cutouts on it. Somebody had this graphing software that they put on and they just spinning out on it. Some of them photoshopped their faces on Ghostbusters, and so like, “We’ll go get it. We’ll got this.” One student sent a link to transfer to another school being like, “It’s not too late to go to another school now.” And it’s just kind of like unraveling this whole thing. And somebody’s like, “Wait a second. What day is it today?” And so then they all kind of realized it was an April Fool’s joke.
It was so much fun. It was towards the end of the school year too. So this full moment, we’ve been joking about the ghost all this year. And then up close in front, they had one right there. And they just loved it. It was one of the things the whole staff was in on it. They were all in the GroupMe. Then towards the end of the school year, it was just something they kept joking about and kept laughing about. So it was a big just coming together moment for our staff that brought us a lot of fun and a lot of joy. And again, just full circle with the haunted happenings in the buildings that we always talked about throughout the year too. So it was a really cool, really funny moment.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, that’s a great one because I think it’s one of the things too where you could do it similarly of like, if you were working in an office and trying to… But it’s like, we all live here. We’re all here all the time. And especially that idea of the sort of visceral affinity for this building is haunted. “I’ve seen this, you’ve seen that, whatever.” And yeah, they plausibly believed it for enough time to really… I think that being something where I think our conversation here being in service of like, I think the really fun ways to bring people together on shared interest or whatever else, or even just sort of camaraderie of like we all live in this quirky old building that might be haunted together, all these sort of different routes and paths and different flavors of how are we building community, how do we make sure that people feel like they’re part of a group in this building on the campus, whatever else, that, “People here care. I have fun. I can be myself. I can share my interests and all that.”
So I’m glad we had this sort of lighter kind of conversation that still ends up in a place where we like to be of giving these great insights and advice and just ideas to just think through how folks can do a similar version wherever they are.
But yeah, just really appreciate you and everything that you shared and for being part of the blogging team to bring just unique insights like this to our community. So just thanks so much for hanging out.
Andrew Skelley:
Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate your time and this opportunity. Thank you.
