In this episode of Roompact’s ResEdChat, Graduate Residence Hall Coordinator Mckenzie Howard at Eastern Kentucky University will share what’s proven to be best practices to provide ongoing care, taking the time to debrief, and creating a culture that prioritizes well-being after critical incidents for student staff. Howard developed a “Comprehensive Care Plan” that she and other co-workers have used throughout the academic year to maintain the standard of care that has been set for her department. Let’s discuss!
Guest: McKenzie Howard (she/her/hers), Graduate Residence Hall Coordinator, Eastern Kentucky University
Host: Jasmine Nettles
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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:
Jasmine Nettles:
Happy new year you all and welcome back to another episode of the Roompact Res Ed Chat podcast where I am one of your hosts, Jasmine Nettles. An Associate Director for Residence Life at Eastern Kentucky University. So welcome back. I’m so excited to get back into another season into more very cool topics with you all this year, this season. So my first one today, I wanted to kind of open us up with student staff training on the brain, coming back after a week, a long break or extended break. And going back into the spring semester. I wanted us to talk more about our student staff, and how we supervise them as young adults and who experience the world just like everybody else.
What we know about our RAs if you’ve never been in this position before or even if you have. Our Resident Advisors are typically our first line of defense. When it comes to most crisis situations in a residence hall, typically the first person that’s going to find out about it or be called about it’s going to be that RA on call. So we know that that takes a pretty significant toll on our RAs and I want to talk about that. And how we support them as their supervisors and also the supervisor of the supervisor. So first, I want my guest to introduce herself and then we’re going to get right into it.
McKenzie Howard:
Hi, I’m Kenzie. I am a graduate residence hall coordinator at Eastern Kentucky University. This is my third year as a grad, but I did go here for undergrad as well. So I’ve been an eternal colonel since 2019. And I’m currently independently managing one of our first year first gen population buildings.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. So welcome Kenzie Girl. I’m so excited that you are going to chit-chat with me today. So my first question to get us into the topic, I want to talk a little bit about your background in housing and Residence Life. How did you start and how did you end up where you are now?
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah. So my junior year of college had an incredible RA, Arenze, if you’re listening to this, love you. And he came up to me one day and he said, “Yeah, so I told my supervisor that you’re going to apply to work the front desk.” And I was like, “What? I never signed up for that.” And he was like, “Well, I think it would be a great opportunity.” I had let him know that I was interested in getting involved on campus. So I ended up applying and was a desk worker for a year and I really liked it.
I was kind of intimidated by the RA position. I really liked the admin side, so I ended up being a community desk manager the following year where I did two buildings. One of them being the building that I run now, full circle moment. And then when I was graduating and applying for graduate school, I knew that I wanted to get my master’s in counseling education and Eastern offered the program that I wanted. As well as some GA positions, some of which being in housing. And it’s a field that I liked, so I decided to apply and get the job and stay.
Jasmine Nettles:
Period. I love it. So something that is a little specific to Kenzie. Kenzie, talk a little bit about your grad school program and what you are interested in or what your long-term career plans are. So that to just kind of give us some context about what we’re going to talk about.
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah. So my specific program is the school counseling track two program. So that is a 60-hour program instead of 48 hours. And it allows me to study predominantly school counseling, as well as clinical mental health counseling. So I take all the same classes as my clinical mental health counseling peers. But my practicum and internship experience is in a high school setting, working with students predominantly. Which working in higher education, students are kind of my passion area. But it also ties directly into what I do here as a graduate residence hall coordinator where I get to use all of my foundational counseling skills with my students as well as my staff.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And so I know a lot of the times when people talk about the RA job, that is the only job people think about. But I want to make sure I want to connect the dots to the fact that even though she’s never been in an on call rotation. She’s never done any type of crisis management as far as being in a one-on-one situation with a student who was in a significant crisis as an RA. She still had very, very adequate experience when it came to being a student staff member with us.
So Kenzie, two years ago, I think you wrote it about two years ago, created a trauma response comprehensive care plan for student staff. As somebody who is a busy body and just likes to always be doing something, she came up with this idea. So Kenzie, can you talk to us about what sparked your interest in creating this plan and maybe the foundation of putting it together?
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah. So like Jaz said, I always like to be doing something. And I told our executive director at the time that I was kind of bored. I was in an apartment style building and didn’t have a lot of front facing student experience. And so we were looking like, what are the things I can do to get me busy? But also that can actually help our student population, and help me develop and grow as a professional? So we looked at trends and things that I was interested in, and then things that I was seeing. So obviously my background and my education is in mental health psychology.
And what I kept seeing both from the student staff perspective and then in supervising student staff was that while our RAs are incredible at supporting residents and they really want to. They really struggle to ask for help themselves. To name their own stress and to give themselves permission to rest without feeling guilty. So we kind of talked about what that could look like at our institution.
And I did a lot of research and I came across a thesis by Michael Herbison that talked about making mindful moments, and encouraging self-care for RAs. That was kind of the whole foundation of the comprehensive care plan. And really validating that there is a need for structured self-care. And that it needs to be a supervisor-led normalization because as much as we can write down policy and procedure, our student staff oftentimes need some … they just need it written down. They need to be told that it is okay to implement that. So we decided to build it out, look at it and let it remove the guesswork around implementing self-care and mental health resources in our work. As well as making it an expectation, not an outcome.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And I know that when it first came up, I know at the time we had had some pretty gnarly crisis things that had happened on campus. Some of everything, like the things that you anticipate. But a lot of these things didn’t typically happen out in her specific, like in your specific community. So I know I was truly impressed when the idea came up. And then once I got it, because it’s a very long document, I’ll make sure I share it with the people. But I want us to talk into more of the details, but also just some of the questions.
So as you all are listening, I want to make sure you all are understanding that the point of this conversation is not to say that these are all the things you absolutely have to do. But this is just a pretty good place to start. Because if you’re not aware of best practices when it comes to responding with students and providing ongoing care, not just for our residents, but also our Ras. Because a lot of them, depending on their background and their lives, trauma is not something that they may be super familiar with. Which means that they may not be super familiar with self-care.
And so my next one, what would you recommend or what do you think, Kenzie, is probably the most proactive practice to help and build resilience before we get into crisis situations? Either as a supervisor or a student staff member.
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah. I think that the biggest thing is that we need to make sure our foundational belief is reflective of building care into our expectations. As I was talking about before, student staff often just need things written down. Every year at the beginning of the year, I type out expectations and I give them to my staff. That looks like completing things on time, and making sure that you’re doing all of your GPC tasks so Jaz is happy, and the regular things that come with the role. But in that as well, I do have expectations of self-care.
If something is going wrong, if you are not getting what you need, if our students are not fulfilled, they are not effectively serving their community and I’m not doing my job as a supervisor. I’m not doing my job in supporting them. I’m not doing my job in supporting the kids they are supporting, and that is going to impact retention as well. So it is a full thing that needs to start from the beginning with just blanket expectations.
How do we take care of ourselves? What does that look like? When does that happen? What do you need from me? What do you not need from me? And it’s a very simple conversation to have, but an important one that often gets overlooked.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And I know to add to that too, as the supervisor of the supervisor, something that I always hope that we do or we give an opportunity for when we’re doing pro staff training before the student staff get here. Is what does that also look like for you? When we’re talking about crisis training, I was very vocal when I was in RHC about the things that if this is the type of situation that’s happening, I’m going to call someone else. Whether it’s the admin on call like an AD or the director. Or if I’m going to call another coworker that I know is better at this than me because I just can’t.
And so preventing yourself from getting into a situation that you may not be able to successfully recover from is also very important. And that starts with just being honest about what your limits are, what your boundaries are when it comes to responding to crisis in the first place. And that can be, again, like I said, what’s regular students or student staff. If you have student staff who are in a crisis that has nothing to do with their job. And it’s something that could be triggering for you, knowing when to step away.
So that kind of leads me into my next question. What do you think, what’s one thing you wish more supervisors knew or maybe recognized or understood when it comes to supporting RAs before, during, after a crisis?
McKenzie Howard:
This is a good one. The biggest thing, no RA is going to process it the same. And our high performing staff still need an intentional amount of care. It’s really easy for high performing staff to pass off a situation as, “Oh, I handled it. We’re moving on to the next thing.” Because we all know mental health is a taboo topic. And if someone seems like they’re struggling, maybe they’re not the person to help in that scenario, which is absolutely not the case. Sometimes that is the most suitable person to help. Our high performing staff still needs care.
Care is not coddling. I think oftentimes people confuse care with having really personal relationships. And that is something that is important, you need to get to know your staff or they’re not going to … It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to help. But I do think that there oftentimes is like a, “I’m going to invest in these people. My high performing people are over here because they can kind of fend for themselves in a way.” Like the highest performing and even your favorite staff member and your least favorite staff member deserve the same amount of care and intentionality. So that when it comes to situations that involve crisis, they know what they need, what they’re asking for. And that you’re able to provide it and will do it the same way you would for anybody else.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And I know that something we don’t really run into a lot of now is our RAs not being able to say that, “I need help now.” This is a very new development. Anybody who’s been working in student affairs or in housing for a long time, it was like pulling teeth to get students to admit that they weren’t okay. But that’s becoming much more of a more common conversation we have now with our student staff. And so that kind of gives us the before. So what about during? So a crisis has happened, what do you think as a supervisor, what should you be prioritizing in those moments of crisis where you’ve responded or maybe you found out about it a couple days later because you weren’t on call. So what does that look like?
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah. I think, and those are two really important points because a lot of the time when we are on call, we’re probably dealing with student staff that aren’t ours. So we don’t have that built-in rapport. So reading body language is extremely important, and doing a debrief immediately after. And that’s not a full walkthrough. We’re not reprocessing the trauma immediately, but how are you? That was a lot. Before we’re going right into writing the duty reports. Because we just need to ground ourselves and then making sure that you’re connecting with their supervisor. And their supervisors following up as well. And if you see them on campus checking in.
You’re going to be in the building making it a point to stop by and be like, “Hey, I didn’t forget about this. You handled it well, but how are you doing mentally?” And so then the after part of if you are that person or if it happened in your building and you’re now the supervisor doing the follow-up. This is not a pass by in the hallway, “Hey, you good? Are we still doing okay?” That doesn’t work when our RAs do it to our residents. We’re not doing it to our RAs.
And we are separating the emotional debrief and the operational review. It is not a, “Okay, you were feeling this way, but you did this wrong. We could have done this better.” We are checking in to see what the hardest part about it was. We’re using these as growth conversations because unfortunately these situations aren’t going away and every time’s going to be different if you have a student staff member who goes through a Title IX or an OEO situation. Every single one of those is going to be vastly different and still needs the same level of care and follow-up.
And the post-situation follow-up is arguably more important because the adrenaline has faded. So that’s often when the immediate emotional response is going to be changed. But just making sure that they know you are there to listen, to give support or advice, whatever it is that they are needing. Because they shouldn’t have to ask for it. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. But the ones that won’t, that’s when you get the disengagement and the burnout because they don’t feel cared about, which isn’t the case. We all know that we get busy at times. But this to me and has proven at our institution is equally as important as the documentation follow-up.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And I’m glad that you brought up the emotional response and reaction because I know a lot of the times that’s what deters people from getting into the weeds with trauma care or after following up after the fact. I have been someone like years ago when it was my turn, when I was a first responder like that. I know that being able to cue their body language in the more common terms, read the room and see what state they’re in as they’re processing a situation. And it can be anything from a parent showing up and starting a fight with their student. To a more significant traumatic situation like an assault. Or a severe mental health crisis or something like that.
And the nature of it, I think because it’s such a wide spectrum, you kind of don’t know what their response is going to be. And as the supervisor, anticipating the response is not knowing how you would have acted in that situation or how that situation would’ve made you feel. But being aware of not just the crisis and what you have to know for your report. But also seeing how it’s affecting whichever staff member is there with you. Whether that be whomever has shown up.
Like I know we’ve had student staff who have less than favorable interactions with EKUPD officers. And not by anything that the officer has done, they just have bad relationships with cops. And if we know that, are we creating space for them in those situations to not feel that way? So that these officers who are great and take very good care and pride in being safety officers around the university, they don’t have this reaction from the student and it’s unwarranted. But yeah, that’s really good. I think the emotional debrief is the really big thing.
So when it comes to the emotions, what maybe is a piece of advice you would give maybe to another GRHC who is not primarily … you’re not a full-time staff member, but you aren’t solely responsible for your community? What does that look like for you as a super soldier? But as a GRHC who may not be and maybe a little bit wary of that?
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah, I think it starts with supervisor modeling, and I’m not telling you to break down on the floor crying in front of your staff. Because they’re going to be like, “Okay, let them-“
Jasmine Nettles:
Are you okay?
McKenzie Howard:
But I think it comes with a lot of intentional transparency. Obviously, we’re not just opening the closets and telling you everything with the floodgates. But being intentional of like, “I know I’m feeling some type of way after that. I am going to need time to reset. Here are the things I’m doing.” If you all need help or assistance, you don’t have to be a mental health professional or have all of the education to know. If I’m stressed, my staff is going to see it. And the best way for them to know that, A, it’s okay. But B, if they’re going through it too, we’re in this together. Is I am openly letting you know this is what I need, this is what I’m doing. If you all need the same thing or need something different, please let me know.
But I think just being honest. Because I think a lot of the time when they get afraid to ask or afraid to say something is because they always want to impress us, and they don’t want to think less of them. That is a traumatic experience that we have also experienced as well. So if something happens in my building, and I’m acting like it was no big deal, but it’s a big deal. And someone who might not be as verbal is impacted and I’m just like, “Oh, okay, we’re moving on.” They’re going to be like, “Okay, I’ve got to move on and we’re just off.”
Jasmine Nettles:
Just move on. Yeah.
McKenzie Howard:
So it’s okay to also recognize when you are going through it as well and letting your staff know. And even if you’re not, like this is something that happens often to me, but it is not for you all. Let’s talk about this. Let’s process it. Even if that processing is them looking at you like this.
Jasmine Nettles:
They don’t say anything, but they want to say something and they know that they can. I love it. I think to summarize that too, I think a part of it is just setting the tone for what you want the relationship with your RAs to be in general for supervision, but when it comes to responding to crisis and after the fact. Because once something has happened in the community, no one in the community’s going to forget that. And setting the tone goes into my next question, which is student staff training.
So while obviously we’re not standing up in front of student staff and telling them, “Tell your supervisor everything.” What do you think or how can student staff training be used to assist with the supervisor, student-staff relationship as it relates to crisis response?
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah, I think it is always a great time coming off of a break to reset expectations and have these conversations. But also if your department allows, like at EKU, we have the opportunity for professional staff to present just on areas that they’re passionate about. And so I’ve made it a point each year to present on something in this area. In the past two years, I’m obsessed with yes theory, and like that was me. So I’ve talked about using uncomfortable situations and uncomfortable conversations to build rapport with your supervisors and your residents. And what that looks like.
This year I’m actually presenting on mental health cues that every RA should know. To recognize not only for residents, but themselves and their peers. And that’s based on an ACUHO-I course that I was able to take, which was really cool. So sharing the knowledge as you get it, I think that’s another really big thing is that as supervisors, it’s kind of an unwritten duty. And if you’re not already doing, and I 10 out of 10 recommend to continue your own education so you can share it with your staff. So over break, that’s what I’ve been doing.
And our team times are going to be, we don’t have a whole lot of for spring training, at least hardcore things that we need to build out. Or that’s kind of what fall was for. So especially going into spring using it as team builder time. Team builders and letting the staff kind of do their own professional development in a way. Based on education with parameters. Because sometimes they just take things and run in all sorts of directions and we want to make sure it’s intentional. But just using the time wisely that you have.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And I know that for student staff training, our student staff training committee is very intentional about adding in time for not just like a deep dive into what duty and crisis and response and stuff like that is. They’ve added in, and we’ve done it the last few years, though a round table session day. To not necessarily make up for time in the schedule, but we have this extra four hours, what can we do with it? So giving each RHC as well an opportunity to get in front of the student staff so that they can establish some type of base level foundational relationship.
Whether they’re talking about superheroes or what jobs we’re hiring for. But to establish some type of connection with them so that the first time they meet them is not in a super crazy crisis situation. So if that’s something that your schedules may allow, I would definitely encourage or recommend that. The ACUHO-I courses that Kenzie talked about, she found them on her own guys. But that’s very normal to Kenzie Howard. But I’m obviously very familiar with the ACUHO-I courses, but there’s also student-led courses. There’s all kinds of things that you can give to your RAs that are not necessarily you talking to them, or having conversations with them.
But just finding additional resources for them to consider. Or listen to on their own time or read on their own time is also very helpful. Because you really never know what’s going to click when you’re looking at situations of supervision like this. Because the first time I met some of probably the more prominent people at EKU was in a crisis situation. And after that, they never forgot me. But I would maybe not have wanted to meet them for the first time in my superhero pajamas at 4:00 AM because something crazy has happened in the building. So opening up the opportunity for them to get to know who the rest of the team is should be able to crack the ice a little bit for them.
So I want to make sure too that we talk a little bit about creating a culture of care. People keep saying that. We’re seeing that on presentations and themes for things, but what does that look like for you, Kenzie? As a GRHC or as someone who’s a former student staff member, what does the culture of care look like in, I don’t want to say our department, but maybe just a successful team that you’ve experienced?
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah, I think especially, and this is more prominent from a student staff lens because they are the ones who spread the word on things. They are the ones who market for us intentionally or unintentionally in the way they talk about the position matters. And I think that it is very evident when they think that the care is reactive and not proactive or embedded into the culture. So for me, that looks like it’s little things. It’s not, “Okay, you were on call, so now we’re going to sit down and we’re going to talk about what happened.” It’s making sure their one-on-ones are not just talking about work.
Jasmine Nettles:
Right.
McKenzie Howard:
It’s making sure that their evals have a foundational level of care behind them. And we’re not saying, “Here are the things you did bad.” It is a, “Okay, here’s where we’re going to grow. Where do you want to go?”
All of our student staff are incredible. I would hope that at other institutions it is the same way. But they all have this job for a reason, whether it’s for housing or for professional development. And if we set the expectation that no matter where you are going, no matter why you are here, we care about you. And we want to make sure that mentally, physically, emotionally, the entire process is a good one for you. I think it goes a long way. And you can hear the tricklings from student staff when they feel that. And it’s probably rewarding for our department at least because it gets the investment from them.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And I know that’s something that we harp on pretty a lot here. And I know the meme that goes around when they say, “Welcome to the family, you’re about to experience human rights violations.” I get it. Like Kiki, that’s so funny. But I think people forget the nuance of that is if people feel welcomed, if they feel safe, if they feel like the things that are important to them matter, and the leaders who don’t have any type of stake in anything, because they didn’t know them prior to their job. It opens up a different side of the way someone communicates with you. And what the things that they feel comfortable to share.
So as a leader, if there is an opportunity for you to build structure, create, make changes into for … because we’re talking about crisis and on call rotation, or the duty response or call volume and things like that. The way that they report, if there’s an opportunity for you to do that to be better for your team, take advantage of that. And if you’re not sure how to get the buy-in or maybe where to start, literally you just have to ask the question. “What are you all looking for? What are we missing and how can this be better?” And if you get that feedback, do something with it.
Because obviously we know what some of the requests may be and you can’t do everything. But there are significant, whether small or large changes that can be made to support students and supervisors in crisis situations that aren’t just showing up because something’s happening right now. And so to kind of wrap us up, Kenzie Girl, I would like if you could share a message directly with new supervisors. I’ll do seasoned supervisors, who are maybe having a hard time supporting staff through difficult situations or just not knowing where to start.
McKenzie Howard:
Yeah. I think the biggest piece of advice I can give is that it is just important, if not more important, to show up imperfectly. You don’t have to have it written out and built out in a templated outline before you introduce something like this. Even if it’s a, “Hey, this has been on my mind a lot. I have no idea what I want it to look like. Give me some feedback and advice.” That’s when you’re going to get the most buy-in, and trust. Because especially in crisis, no one ever shows up as their perfect most prepared self. So I think that it is a theme that you’ll see throughout it of, “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m showing that I care.”
Jasmine Nettles:
We’re going to do it together.
McKenzie Howard:
Yes. So I think that it would just be to show up imperfectly and you’ll probably get the best results.
Jasmine Nettles:
Yeah. And to a seasoned supervisor, much like myself, I would recommend that the things that you knew whenever you became a new professional, so for me, it would be almost 12 years ago, is not the same thing that you would know now. So making sure you’re up-to-date on what’s trending on social media. What is currently the hot topic amongst the students on your campus, what is … And this is not necessarily what’s getting added on duty reports. I genuinely mean what are students talking about? What spaces do they frequent? What’s going on with them?
And if you’re someone like me, that was from a completely different state originally. And I went to a different state for grad school and then I came to a different state for work. I didn’t know anything about Arkansas and Kentucky. So getting familiar with what laws are in place as well for mental health response or any type of crisis situations or what a campus or university is at liberty to do and what they’re not. So making sure that what you knew is what you knew and that should always inform your thinking. But keeping yourself up to date on what’s going on is always going to save you so much more time in the long run.
So with that, Kenzie, girl, thank you so much for joining me. Listeners, thank you all so much for joining us on another episode of the Roompact Res Ed Chat Podcast. Make sure you follow and subscribe and watch on any platform where you get your podcast. See you all in my next one.
