In this episode of Roompact’s ResEdChat, Crystal connects with Demarcus Merritt, Sr., Assistant Director of Residence Life at George Mason University, on how burnout and the expectation to “push through” have become normalized within housing and residence life. Through a thoughtful conversation on supervision, wellness, move-in culture, and professional sustainability, Demarcus challenges us to rethink long-held traditions and consider what it would look like to prioritize staff wellbeing with the same intentionality we bring to student success.
Guest: Demarcus Merritt, Sr. (He/Him/His), Assistant Director of Residence Life, Housing & Residence Life, George Mason University
Host: Crystal Lay
Listen to the Podcast:
Watch the Video:
Show Notes:
- Merritt, D. (2026). Unnormalizing and Rehumanizing. ACUHO-I Talking Stick, March + April
- The Golden Circle – The Optimism Company
- The Whole-Person Workplace
- Reimagining Workplace Well-Being: Fostering a Culture of Purpose, Connection, and Transcendence – Jessica Grossmeier Consulting
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:
Crystal Lay:
Hello, and welcome to Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast where we highlight cool people who do cool things in college student housing and residence life. I’m your host, Crystal Lay. I use the she/her series pronouns, and I’m excited to connect with you today.
So, I was reading an article in the ACUHO-I Talking Stick a couple of weeks ago, and I absolutely loved everything I read. And as I went back up to look at who wrote that article, I thought, “I know this amazing human. I wonder if they will hop on and talk about this article.”
So, today we’re going to get into traditions that we have in housing. We’re going to talk about this idea of pushing through and just all the things that are happening in our departments and ways that we can be more intentional as we think about wellbeing and success for our students and our staff. And who better? Who better to do this than our guest that we have? I’ll stop rambling and have our guest introduce themselves.
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much, Dr. Lay. I appreciate you. I appreciate Roompact podcast platform. I am Demarcus Merritt, Sr. father, husband, just all around housing guy. I’m currently assistant director at George Mason University, also the chair for Mid-Level Leadership Institute with ACUHO-I, and the president of ACUHO. So, just a couple of things out there to try to get my feet wet in the leadership realm, but I’m so excited about this platform today and look forward to talking more about the topic at hand.
Crystal Lay:
Thank you. Thank you. Let’s get started with this first question. So, in the article you talked about you believe that we’re starting to normalize burnout. So, what was the moment, Demarcus, that made you realize that maybe this is just what we do now? Maybe we’re burnt out all the time.
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Yeah, it really sat with me for reflections. I think I’m in a very good season right now, in a very supportive environment. Love my supervisor, Derek McReynolds. And he’s always challenging me about how I’m taking on too much too soon, especially regardless of how much of a seasoned veteran he feels like I am in the field.
But we got to talking about moving and moving operations and those kind of things, and I actually came from a place of peace. Here at George Mason, I really enjoyed our move-in process. I’m like, okay, you look around. You see all the cars, the bins. There’s so much stuff going on. You’re like, “This feels good, though. The weather was cooperating. It’s not too hot, the rain. Everything is great.” And I’m like, “But why am I having trouble accepting this? Why am I having trouble accepting it’s a reality?” And I really sat down.
I went home, and I was talking with my wife, Ashley, and well, she’s like… She’s all, “Hey, babe, how was moving?” I’m like, “Actually, it was really good. Things were smooth, things were organized, families were nice, and people had great attitudes,” but it really sat with me that there’s been some past experiences that have not felt so good.
And I came across what a mentor once shared with me long ago of, sometimes, what want the mind, what we try to force the mind to forget, the body remembers. And I realized that sometimes my body would get so tense and tight in late July, August, but I’m like, “Moving is smooth. Moving is cool. Why am I feeling like it’s hurting? Why do I feel like I’m in physical pain?”
And I was talking to some, what I call, higher-ed homies, and we were talking and we said… He’s like, “Well, Demarcus, you had a tough move-in a couple years ago or three years ago. You were down four staff, and you were at work from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM.” And I was like, “Man, I forgot about that.” So, my body was sending warning signs, saying, “Hey, you’ve been normalizing pushing through so much that now this reality of a smooth move-in, a smooth operation, it seems foreign to you.” So, it made me just question and dig a little deeper.
And then I started talking to different colleagues and say, “Hey, how is your move-in experience?” And that’s what they were sharing. Was like, “Man, just moving, it’s just something we get through.” And I’m like, “Well, why is that? Why is that? Is there something we can do? Is it something we can change?” Even if it’s a small modification, what are some things we can do that maybe change that attitude or that force and that some of it to follow push through that I feel like we’ve normalized so much?
Crystal Lay:
So this push through idea, I’m assuming that’s like you just get through it or just keep going. We know this happens, just a couple more days. And I remember watching this movie a couple of years ago where the person kept saying, “Just one more. Just one more,” and just pushing through.
So, how do you think that phrase or that idea has shaped our profession? And has it shaped it for the better or for the worse, in your opinion?
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Yeah, great question. I’ll start for the better. I think we are a resilient field. We teach resilience. We model it. And it’s through these things because we know, like we call it the training train once pro-staff training starts. And then we get the grads, and we pick up the Ras, and then we move.
There’s a beauty to that. However, at the same time and in the same boat, the other truth that we have to hold and sometimes I feel like we ignore, there’s a resilience that we say… We celebrate it so much that I had to sit back and start saying, “Well, what if we didn’t put ourselves in positions that we had to be resilient? What if I got to just be? What if I got to be human? What if I didn’t have to go to this extra space, find this extra force within myself to get through and to push through? What does that look like?” And start toggling with, “Well, how could training look different?”
Because what I also realized, Crystal, was in some operations, some departments, training and moving are led by two different people, two different departments, and sometimes those units are not talking. So, if I got a big ask from the Move-in Committee, and then I got a big ask from the Training Committee, I’m the one that’s pinched between the truth, pinched between the ask.
So, how do we start to have more centered conversation? But in centering those conversations, how do we center the humans? Because a lot of it… Sometimes I feel like moving is Disneyland. Moving is a, “How do we prepare the hotel for our guests? How do we prepare this home away from home?” But in order for me to prepare home the best, I also got to figure out, what do I need? What do I need on the other side of August?
So, I started with me. I started to position myself in June. And I know some of the younger professors that I’ve talked to, they feel like I’m the old guy on the porch, like, “What are you talking about? Why are you thinking about September in June?” I’m thinking from a self-care standpoint. What do I need on the other side of August that, now, I may not take that last minute trip, that buffer week between pro-staff training RA.
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
I may not fly to Barbados. Because I like Aruba, and I want to get away and put my toes in the sand, but what is that going to cost me when I come back and reintegration into the work in the midst of summer-to-fall push?
So, I think there’s a beauty that, yes, we are resilient. We are a resilient organization, a resilient profession, but I question, do we always need to position ourselves to be resilient if there’s other ways we can rethink some things? And then I started reflecting on strategies that I’ve seen in other institutions. Colleagues were telling me things that they made shifts, and those things.
I’m like, “Oh. Okay, here are some other ways that people are rethinking this thing,” but we’re having such siloed conversation about it. The larger thing is everybody is tired in August. Everybody is like, “Don’t call me till after Labor Day,” is what I typically tell my family. Like, “I’m not available until after Labor Day.”
How do I change that? And how do I change it in a healthy way? And that’s the heart of it, Crystal, is I really want us to think, it’s not about shame. It’s not a shame game. It’s really about how do we rethink this for the health and heart of our organization?
Crystal Lay:
So, this pushing through and also even resilience now, because resilience, I think it’s like bouncing back from a struggle. Should we celebrate being resilient all the time? How often are we resilient? I feel like there should be hash marks, like, “Okay, I’ve been resilient five times this year. I’m done being resilient.” How do we change?
And I like how you talked about the move-in pieces. At my campus, we have a Campus-wide Committee. First time we’re doing this. So, it’s different campus partners with housing building out what move-in is going to look like. Because I was like, “Hey, we are welcoming students to campus. We are doing this. It can’t just be housing. Move-in is a heavy lift.”
So, I like that example, but you’re also being real of like, August, we do push through. So, I just talked about the celebration of resiliency. Are there other things that we celebrate in housing that you think maybe we shouldn’t?
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Ooh, how much time we got? I think one of the things that we celebrate… And this is something that I’ll tell my story. One of the things I problematically celebrated was I used to save PTO like they were Chuck E. Cheese coins. I thought I was getting a perfect attendance award at the end of the year or something. Nobody does that. There’s not certificates. There’s no LinkedIn learning badge for missing no days off work.
That is a credible feat in some professions. Like I don’t want my doctor taking that many days off. However, in this field, I had to shift that mindset that I can’t take any days off. And not because, yes, PTO, prepare the others. I had that time saved up. It’s earned leave. It’s accrued. It is there, but I was not allowing myself the access. And I really had to get back to a position where I was giving myself permission to be away, permission to be off.
And that came from having a supportive environment, from a supervisor that leaned in from a compassionate lens to say, “Hey.” At the top of my one-on-one was… And his name was Ryan Winter. He was at the University of Florida. He asked… After he said, “How are you?” His next two questions was, “When’s the last time you took off? When’s the last time you were off? And when’s the next time you are off?” And it helped him keep track of who was out of his office on his team, but it was also positioning us to say, “Hey, this vacation, your time away, your self-care is not only important to you, it’s important to me.”
So, that helped change not only me as a professional, but in how I model the leadership of taking that time off. Because I think we applaud when somebody, “Oh, I haven’t taken time off in three years.” I remember I had a colleague at a university once, and I think they had 600 hours leave saved or something. They were losing hundreds of hours each year. The person was just like, “I love what I do, and I just don’t feel like I can step away.”
And it’s like, well, is that sustainable? And then what models are we setting up for the future generation? Because Gen Z is like, “Nah, we not. I’m going to take my time. I’m going to take my time. Actually, I’m probably going to owe you a day or two because I’m going to make sure I take my time.” But how do we do that in a way?
So, that was something I really had to, and something I’m a strong advocate for of, “Hey.” Even with my colleagues, and they’re on my peer leadership team, “Hey, man, you just came out of room selection, and you were doing all these processes. What can I step in for you so you can get a couple of days off? You can take a half a day off.” And how are we asking those questions, and how we advocate for people before that ask comes?
Because some people are so exhausted, they don’t even have the language or the capacity to communicate, “Hey, I’m tired. I’m tapped.” So, how do we do that, to lean in on each other and to lean on one another to be able to say, “Hey, I got you. You can step away.” And normalize that, too, normalize that, “It’s okay to step away.” Because I’ve been in certain environments where I’ve seen leadership like, “Oh, I can’t leave. I can’t take off,” and it’s not until you become sick.
And that was one of my wake-up stories. So, probably in 2013, when I ended up in the hospital for a week, doctors couldn’t explain anything. I couldn’t move my neck, couldn’t drink water, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t eat. Which that’s really why I knew something was wrong is because I couldn’t eat anything. That was my indicator, like, “Okay, I need to go to the hospital.”
But Crystal, the doctor said something very profound to me that… And I’m a very spiritual man, so I was rooted and grounded, like, “God, what is going on?” But something… I was able to stomach a cup of apple sauce on my fifth day in the hospital. And me and my nurse, my little nurse buddy, we were celebrating, like, “Okay, you got something down.”
And the doctor came in and were floored. They was like, “We have no clue what is going on with you and why your vitals are starting to decline,” but he said something that still sticks with me to this day. He said, “All I can say, and this is not a medicated evaluation, you needed critical rest.” He said, “You didn’t just find out where your wall was. You probably crashed through it.” And he said, “Your body set you down.”
And from that day, even just from the experience of the hospital and not being able to eat and those kind of things, I tried to reposition how I look at rest versus how I look at recovery. And in the same conversation, how do we make room for rest at the start of the conversation and not at the end of everything that we have to do?
Crystal Lay:
Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing that story. I think our bodies will tell us, that headache, sitting in the chair, your backache. And how do we listen to ourselves? And there are physiological symptoms or even attitude, like, “I notice I’ve been short with folks this week, and it’s only Monday.” There’s things that you start to note about your body, and you have to listen to it.
So, this celebration of being here all the time, or like you said, the attendance award, which was coveted in K through 12, and you get this piece of paper, you get this star, it’s not like that in the workplace. So, how do we make sure we’re caring for ourselves? I think another reason why folks sometimes won’t take that paid time off is because, some campuses, you get a payout.
Now, here’s the deal. I wonder if it’s that… I’m veering us down to different roads, so I’m going to steer us back, but just go here with me. That preparation for wherever I move to next, I’m going to need some money. I’m going to need a down payment. So that payout, I’m going to sacrifice my wellness so I can have a little bit of money to be able to get to my next venture because we know there’s some pay stuff out here happening.
So, just more of an assumption. I haven’t done a poll or anything, but I wonder, how much are we sacrificing out of survival now and planning how we’re going to survive later, doing this work?
So, you’ve mentioned in your response, Demarcus, you talked about a supervisor you had. So, how can supervisors better recognize when staff are struggling, even when they’re performing well? Because you could be doing well, but also doing bad. Right?
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Yes.
Crystal Lay:
So, what can supervisors do?
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Yeah. I think, and we are at a very unique position, and so much has happened, especially since COVID. I think we are relearning ourselves. COVID stripped back a lot. It made us look at the work we do differently. It made us look at humanity different. I know, for me, it definitely made me more grateful for humanity, and how am I humanizing people behind the work and behind the process?
So, I think, as a supervisor and the great supervisors that I’ve had and how some of the characteristics I try to emulate with teams that I’ve been entrusted with, is, yes, you have that high achiever, but how humanizing is your one-on-one in spaces that you hold together?
There was a point… And again, only my narrative. There was a point my supervision was based on, “Here’s what I need from you. Here’s what I need. Here’s the deadline. Here’s the task. Here’s this.” That was before they could get in their chair and sit across the desk from me. I have so many asks, follow-up questions, da da da.
And then somebody challenged me one time. It’s like, “Well, what if you flip it?” They was like, “Well, how do you find out how the staff member is?” And I’m like, “Well, I typically ask them when I’m walking them out of my office or whatever case may be.” And it’s like, well, what if you flip it? What if you flip the script? And flip the script is start with the how are you first? Because then, that if you humanize the person, the professional will come out.
So, I think that’s how we can look and pay attention to tells from those high-performing professionals that may not be doing okay, and may have skipped out on a PTO, may have taken on all the tasks. They continually put their hand up. They continually say, “Yes.” And I was told long ago, “How many times are you saying yes to everything else and you’re saying no to you?” And how do we start to flip that? And how do I empower my team to say, “It’s okay, I got you.” And I think we just got to lean in.
One of the things that I think is a practice that I try, that is not perfection, that truly is a practice, is, “How do I infuse compassion into my leadership?” even when I may not be fond of the staff members, or the staff member… I’m waiting on this year and last year transition report from a staff member. How do I humanize that person that’s in front of me or humanize that person on my team, and saying, “Hey, something else is going on here” or, “Are you overperforming and overachieving because you are trying to distract yourself that you got some health things going on”?
Or that you need to pay attention to X, Y, Z. “I noticed that you are great on this committee and this committee, but every time I ask you, ‘How are you?’ or, “You seem tired,” or, “That’s your fourth cup of coffee today. And I’m not judging, but you also told me you don’t drink coffee like that.” So, how are we paying attention to the tells? How are we paying attention to what’s not being said and how things are being done?
And I also think we bring into the conversation of a psychological safety, and that is different per staff member, per environment, per day. And I want to say, when I am meeting with staff, whether it’s a conversation in our office or whether it’s on a cool place on campus that they like, because that’s how I try to switch it up at times, like, “Well, let’s meet in a place that one of your favorite places on campus.” Is that space psychologically safe?
Because I could say, “Dr. Lay, how are you doing today?” And you can give me the performative answer, “I’m good.” And it might not be me. It might be because my office or the space we’re meeting is not conducive and for me to bear myself, for me to be vulnerable with you and say, “Hey, I’m actually not doing well.”
I just came off a mental health breakdown in November, and I couldn’t explain it because I didn’t have the language for it. I just felt heaviness in my chest. I honestly, at one point, talked to my wife, was like, “I don’t know if it’s the stress. Is this a heart attack?” I did not know the threats that exist around when it comes to health about Black men. And I’m like, “Well, I don’t want to be silent about this.” I don’t want to be this loud advocate on Facebook and LinkedIn, and then I’m the one that’s suffering in silence.
So, I did go to the doctor. I did, for the first, time secure a therapist to talk at like, “Hey, what is going on inside of me?” So, I think I was able to tend to myself first. So, I think tending to myself also empowers me to say, “Hey.” I’m leaning in more to the narrative of my staff and my team and say, “Hey, is everything going off?”
And I think one of the things I appreciate about you is you will ask how someone’s going on, but one of the things you do that go the extra mile is you hold space. We don’t often hold the space to receive the response when somebody says, “Actually, I’m not doing okay.”
Because sometimes I’ll be guilty. Sometimes I say, “Hey, how you doing?” I’ve already heard their response before they open their mouth. “Oh, I’m good,” and I’m steady moving. How many times did I miss somebody feeling flush in their face, or their body language changes, or they look like shoulders heavy and that I can say, “Ooh, you’re actually not okay. Come on, let’s go walk and talk.” How do I just hold space? “Even if you don’t have the words for it, we’re going to sit in silence right here. We’re cool.”
So, how do we do that? Some of it is space and grace because I think, in the business of student affairs, we have not always treated the people with priority. So, I think sometimes we get into this checkbook mentality of like, “I got this staff and this staff and that staff.” And that’s human. It does happen, but how are we stopping that kind of checkbox, that routine, is to lean in to folks and say, “Hey, how are you really doing?” and holding the space to hear and receive what they have to share.
Crystal Lay:
Thank you, Demarcus. I’m hearing having compassion, not just for others, but also for yourself. I’m hearing, again, this theme about listening to your body and also naming where you’re at. You’re like, you told your wife, like, “Hey, something feels off.” You talked about reaching out for therapy.
It’s hard for helpers to ask for help. So, what a beautiful testament of the importance of saying, “I need this, too,” because you want to be your best self. You also talked about identity pieces. There are different things that you’re navigating because of your identity. So, what does allyship look like?
And I think the other piece you talked about is folks are holding things that we may not know anything about, and sometimes work might be their safe place. We talk about, “Oh, PTO.” Maybe sometimes people work so much because that’s the safe place, and home is not a safe place.
There’s all these things. And so you never know that unless you take a moment to really engage with that person, within appropriate boundaries. And I’m like, “We’re referral agents. I’m not a counselor.” But how do you pay attention and notice and name, so folks feel like they matter?
We’re not a transactional field. And I hope we never go so far off into that area where it feels like we are replaceable. And I know sometimes folks feel that way, and so how do we get back to the heart of our work?
So, now, you talked about supervisors. You talked about other colleagues and professional staff. I’m wondering about your student staff, where are there things that your student staff or students that you’re around, they’ve been teaching you about wellness that maybe you weren’t seeing as a professional staff member?
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Yeah. One thing I will applaud this and the upcoming generation is that I feel like most of them, even if they don’t know what wellness is, they are holding a space to question what this looks like. I didn’t know that working until 10:00 at night on a Friday was what I shouldn’t have been doing because I thought I was just trying to be the best professional I is. Nobody sat me down. That wasn’t our manual, saying, “You need to be in your office till 10:00.” I thought like, “This is what I need to do to go the extra mile.” And I think they’ve been able to really question and help the global and local humanity to say, “Wellness, it needs to be embedded into what we do, who we are.”
So, I appreciate that. Whereas, we talk about boundaries and boundary setting differently, and generationally, they are having the conversation. “Hey, here is what my boundary. Here is what the impact is. Here is how I’m being impacted.” And I think I’ve been able to take that and learn from them and sit with them, whether it’s at a program or whether it’s in common, meeting one of our students at a coffee shop. And we’re just talking about catching up on life and then saying, “Hey, I had to also reach out to my therapist,” or, “I access these resources on campus.”
I think a lot about our student leaders, especially in the resident advisor or resident assistant role, who… One of the things we’ve shifted in our training is before we start talking about what kind of resource they can be to others, we talk about what kind of resource they be to themselves.
And that is a part of what we call a Care Day. And our Care Day is basically [inaudible 00:25:28] them, and talks about caring, it talks about advocacy, but all of that regards self. “What are the resources on campus that are available to you as a student and student leader?” before we start talking about door decs, before we start talking about, “What’s your program slate for this year, and how are you going to meet requirements?” “How are you doing, and how are you going to do this role? What are you going to need before you need it?” And how do we help them that?
They’ve been very vocal. I mean, they are very vocal at times, but I applaud that because I think they had a voice. They have a voice now that I did not have as a student and as a young professional, particularly to question some things. And I think sometimes we meet questioning of practices and protocol as like, “Well, you’re challenging my experience and my expertise.”
Sometimes it is like, “Hey, have you thought about why do we do this?” And I am very much from the old school framework of, “Because I said so.” But they’ve taught me how to look at things and also to think about, when we are designing processes and spaces, as much as we are thinking about who is contributing to the conversation, how are we also thinking about who’s not in the room.
I think, holistically, as individual as some stereotypes are out there about our students these days, I think I’ve met some wonderful student leaders who have challenged that stereotype and say, “No, I think about the people who are not here. I’m going to advocate for the people who are not in the room just as much as I advocate for the people who are in the room.”
So, trying to take those into practice has been really eye-opening for me and really grounding because as I stay longer in the field, I feel further and further away from that freshman class. And I’m like, “Okay, what are y’all on? Pokemon? Go jump up, down?” I don’t know what it is these days, but they help find that connection. I think they’ve really pushed the conversation of wellness almost as not optional, that we have to think about this. There’s research out there about how this generation, particularly Gen Z, really cares about them understanding transparency and clarity and the context around something, but they also value psychological safety. They value being in a place of wellness where they’re working at.
Whereas, I think, when I was a young professional, I accepted that they were two phenomenons and they were two separate things. If I want to be well, I go to the doctor and I go to the gym. I never thought about wellness at work. And I think they’ve shifted that conversation in a way that’s necessary, especially for the sustainability of the profession and the sustainability of higher ed in general.
Crystal Lay:
Now, the wellness has been the thread throughout our conversation. And your article, going back to anchor, everything was tied to move-in. And it sounds like we have an opportunity to not only create space for folks to care for themselves throughout the year so they’re not so tired or pushing through when we get to move in, but also we have an opportunity to share these pieces with students when they arrive on our campus.
So, I feel like there’s this wealth of knowledge. It’s like, why would we keep it to ourselves? How do we start to influence this generation of students that’s coming to our campus? Because they stay the same age, we get older. Every year we have these 17, 18, 19-year-olds coming to our campus.
So, with the wellness pieces in mind, if you could redesign move-in from scratch, and you could take it from how we’re involved as pro staff, how we’ve set up for it, or anything that comes to mind, what would you do differently, Demarcus?
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
I think one of the things that I’ve seen in a successful practice that I would do differently from a design-thinking standpoint is to have more conversation, mutual conversation, and planning spaces between moving decision makers and training decision makers. And that’s just one caveat.
I think one of the most impressive things I’ve seen and that I will continue to advocate for at every institution I’ve been at was a colleague when she made adjustments. When I was in North Carolina, she made adjustments to our training schedules because every year we started to see Our student staff, particularly, A, people were having what I call that church nod in training. You go tap them on the shoulder like, “You okay? Go get some water and come back. Get yourself back together.”
But I started to sit with students. And you say learning from students. I’m sitting with students, like, “Hey, man, what’s going on?” He’s like, “Man, it’s just a lot. We’re in training till 5:00, 6:00 PM, and then we got door decs, and we got those things.”
So, my colleague, one of the things… She led like a three-prong approach, and one of them was how do we simplify processes? So, not all budgets are created equally, but we had a budget at that point that we actually worked with a vendor to produce door decs, to take that back. It gave us back three to four hours in training because students were saying they were staying up to 2:00, 3:00 AM doing door decs because, A, it’s a passion point. It’s a connection point for them between them and the residents.
And some of them, they was like, “Well, why did y’all do that? We really love doing door deck.” I’m like, “You can do all the extra door decs you want.” But it also helped us from an inclusivity point because now, every hall, everybody has the same door dec engagement, same door dec.
And also the caveat, that vendor also sent us extra. So, when somebody room changed, that door dec traveled with them. So now, when I’m walking on a hall, I’m not the odd person out with no door dec. I have my door dec in hand or my RA has already secured it from the community, and it matches the theme of everybody else.
Now, we gave those who were really passionate, our door dec protestors, they… We gave them an opportunity to say, “Hey, you can still do your door dec. You can still be creative.” They end up turning their first door dec into a party.
And now it was a great way because I remember a RA came and said, “Hey, Demarcus, I know I was one of the ones who was giving y’all pushback, but I really appreciate it because, A, I get a extra program out of the way, but some of the names that were on my roster were not the honored names of my residents.” And they hadn’t had that conversation with their parents yet. So, now they were able to take that identity and honor their true identity in that door dec by creating a custom door dec with that RA. And they said that creates such a respect bond because to say, “Hey, you didn’t just guess. You invited me in.”
But also scaling training. I think scaling training because I call it the kitchen sink cookie effect. Everybody goes to Panera. It got everything in it. I’m probably eating stuff that I’m allergic to. I just don’t know because there’s so much stuff in there, but the Panera cookie is good to us until it’s not.
When you talk about scaling training, there are so many things that we… I will say that we are well-intended. We want to make sure our staff are prepared. We want to make sure they have as little questions as possible before the residents arrive. We want to make sure they know all the ins and outs of their job. But if we’re having a full-out hour and a half duty conversation in August, but somebody is not on call till October, are they really retaining that information? Are they going to be able to apply that?
Whereas, if we scale it down, talk about the nuts and bolts of crisis management, care management, but then have a continual development session in September, October. Especially if we have data that says, “Though that honeymoon is over, crisis starts to creep and rise,” if we’re able to be more responsive with that type of scalable training, we saw a 100% difference with our staff. In one year, our staff looked like zombies on Training Day, like they were in… I mean, on move-in day.
Crystal Lay:
Wow.
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
You don’t want that for the human, but you also, “What?” You ever go to somebody house and they sleepy? You’re like, “You knew I was coming. Are you not prepared for me?”
Crystal Lay:
Right. Right. Yep.
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
I think it’s the type of way. I feel like I should go back. Let’s try again.
The next year when we scaled training, cut it off at 4:00, we were very specific what they should and should not be doing after 5:00 and told them, say, “Hey, these things that we’ve taken away, we’ve actually scaled them out for professional developments. And here’s why, here’s what that looks like.” I had so many high-fives on that move-in because RAs were like, “I have never felt like this. Oh, my gosh, I feel like I have so much energy.” I was like, “Well, can you do this?” And it just felt like the energy and spirit was so much higher.
So, that really sat with me of like, “We made these small modifications, and it has this big impact.” So, if I’ve had this big impact with our student staff, that’s going to trickle down to this welcome home is now a big impact, and then how they got introduced to the campus is now a big impact.
So, you start looking at all other things, and what are other things that we can modify? What are other things that we can partner better with students to say, “How do we deliver this? How do we unpack this? How do we modify this? How do we sustain this?” And start to really figure out what are those processes that are sustainable and what are those things that we are doing out of comfort or tradition?
Crystal Lay:
So, in our day-to-day work, Demarcus, we’re here for student success. And in our conversation, I’m hearing you say that we need to be just as intentional about staff wellbeing as we are about student success because there is a trickle down. That’s what I’m taking away from this.
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
Yes. I tell people all the time, for the first half of my career, yes, I am here for the students. Always will be, but something shifted in me, and it doesn’t come from a place of deficiency. It comes from a place of development and fulfillment. I’ve seen how people poured in me. I’ve seen how supervisors care. But then I’ve talked to colleagues who do not have similar or parallel experiences, and it’s like, “Wait. Oh, so this is not common? Oh, so these are unicorn experiences?” Why are we not talking about this? Why are we not talking about the how, and how can we, again, redesign our thinking?
So, yes, I am very much always a pro and vocal advocate about reprioritizing professionals in the business of student affairs. Because as we both know, and I think we’ve shared this, at one point in time, in our leadership journey together of not only you cannot pour from a empty cup, you should not. I don’t want the bottom of a empty cup. So, how we continue to replenish and repair and refuel our professional staff? Because if I only come to you with ask, but I never asked you, “How are you refilling your cup?”
That goes back to that conversation you asked me before of me looking through that high performer and saying, “Wait a minute. I’ve asked you to do this, this, and this. No, you haven’t taken off because I haven’t made space for you to take off.” So, I also have to be mindful of my ask and conscious of my ask, as well. And I think that is where we partner better together with our aspiring professionals, with our students, with our student staff, with ourselves, of saying, “All right, how do we center wellness?”
Because, again, I thought it was two different conversation when I was coming up in the profession, in my early years, of, “No, wellness is a outside after-five thing, not wellness at work.” It sounds like such a foreign concept, but how do we make this a new culture, a new design of how are we taking care of people?
And I’ll be honest, Crystal, especially when you talked about bringing in identity, I want to celebrate somebody being 40 years in the field. And I want to mourn somebody who I missed their health issues, and now I have to celebrate their life because now they’ve succumbed to health issues because the field or conditions were not conducive for them to have a healthy lifestyle. We can’t take life or humanity for granted. We don’t have as many people spending 40 years in the field anymore. So, you don’t have that long-term latitude leader that’s like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been doing this since 1900s.” It’s crazy to think about when you say that out loud.
But I just want us to be healthier. I want the field to be healthier. I want us to be more holistic because I want to look back with my sons, Demarcus Jr. and Isaiah, and when they think about higher education, and they say, “Daddy, was it like this when you were younger, when you were a professional?” And I want to say, “No, son, it’s better,” not, “It’s the same.” No, “Ooh, I recognize that. Ooh. Yeah, they used to do that when I was in the heyday, too.” That’s not a bragging point. We should be better.
And I think we… Because I’ve also linked with my studies of the high turnover rate, and the high burnout is also linked to the lack of retention and wellness that’s there because people are, individually, trying to figure this out. And either this field is going to be healthy for us, or it’s not, and I want to be an ambassador of healthy practices.
Now, wellbeing does not mean we will not do hard things. It does not mean we will not make hard decisions. We make hard decisions because we’re dealing and supporting real life people in process. But how are we doing it? How are we taking care of one another, taking care of ourselves while we’re making these hard decisions? I think it has to be an increasingly more important and more common conversation.
Crystal Lay:
Thank you so much. That’s really powerful. How do we care for each other? How do we care for ourselves and then the future generations? And you’re talking about looking at your boys and legacy. So, in addition to your article, which I’m going to add to the show notes, are there other resources that you would recommend for folks who want to learn more about what you’ve talked about today?
Demarcus Merritt, Sr.:
At this time, I’d pass a couple of other things that I’m working on right now when it comes to wellness. I am currently reading Simon Sinek’s book on The Golden Circle, and right now just working on recentering my why, but I’m recentering my why with wellness in mind. So, what does that look like?
So, I invite people, if you want to go on that journey, I would love to have conversation and dialogue. Look for a conference near you. But yeah, that’s one of the things I’m working on right now, but I invite any conversation. I want to learn from other, like how are people centering wellness in their work, and how are they creating that life-to-work harmony? Because I think if we can lean in and learn more from each other, it can be more of a best practice, of a better practice.
Crystal Lay:
Yes. Oh, my gosh, better practice, because we say best practice. It might not be better practice. Oh, I’m writing this down. I’m going to have some Demarcus bumper stickers with all these amazing sayings.
So, thank you so much, Demarcus, for everything that you’ve shared today. You’ve given me so much to think about, and I’m so grateful. And I know folks will definitely take away some really good stuff from listening to this.
All right. And I want to thank everyone for spending time with us today. If you have an idea for a guest or a topic that you would like to have here, please reach out to us at RoomPact. Take care.
