Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

The topic of social media and scholarship came up yesterday in the Research Institute of the NASPA Western Regional Conference in Oakland. One of the questions posed was, “who defines a legitimate source of knowledge?” As mentioned yesterday, when speaking with academic administration or faculty, one would probably cite academic journals, not blogs, as they are not seen as scholarly publications. There are certain standards in the academy of what constitutes scholarly writing. I can accept the idea that blogs may not yet be considered scholarly publications but what I will not accept is the idea is not blogs are not legitimate sources of ideas, whether they are considered scholarly or not, especially ideas from those who have been marginalized and whose voices have not been heard.

As one who has felt marginalized throughout my life and career, my blog offers me the voice to be heard. No one interrupts me when I am in the middle of writing a sentence. I write when my mind is free and when I want to. I often write my posts between midnight and three AM. Dr. Larry Roper, the former Provost for Student Affairs at Oregon State, said this when he spoke at UC Santa Barbara years ago, “Please do not steal my pause…the best comes after the pause.” This is a challenge I’ve faced as one who needs the time to think and finds myself being interrupted in mid-sentence when I’m speaking.

Even worse is that some of my ideas are quickly dismissed when I am expressing my perspective that may not align with mainstream thinking because of my upbringing and cultural background. Social media, especially blogging, has allowed me to contribute to the conversations in the field of student affairs, higher education, and technology. It has also provided me the medium to share my shared experience as an Asian-American. Some of the topics I write about resonate with others as I get emails from others who tell me they can relate, including this recent post on my challenge as an Asian American leader and assertiveness.

I don’t apologize for my thoughts, even as they may sound ridiculous to others. Why should I? I have a perspective like everyone else. Whether they are “right” or “wrong” is in the eye of the reader, but they are perspectives nevertheless. I have gotten tired of waiting for others to allow me to speak because I may not have the three letters after my name or because I don’t sit in a high enough position at the university. I think marginalized folks can relate to the frustration of being silenced or dismissed. Blogging has allowed me to contribute my thoughts and express them how I want to. When I blog, I don’t always know how readers will interpret them, and I know there are consequences to my writing. However, what I write are my ideas shaped by my experience and struggles. No one will tell me, nor should they, that my personal truth as the way I only see them is not valid.

When I started blogging, I intended to share my thoughts and considered it a public personal reflection. One of the unexpected outcomes has been collaborating with other student affairs and technology professionals who share common interests with me. I’ve had discussions with others about the current and future of student affairs and how technology should play in how we serve our students. As I’ve discovered during these collaborations, there are other folks like me who have ideas, yet they don’t have the medium to express them. My blog has allowed me to contribute to conversations and connect with others.

If you’ve felt marginalized and your voice silenced – consider blogging. No one’s going to interrupt your thoughts while you’re writing, and yes, there are consequences to what you write, but at least you’re sharing your unique ideas for others to read. Your ideas are too valuable to be kept in your head!

Image courtesy of Carol Dinh.

Student activism was the topic for this week’s #sachat session on Twitter. This is a weekly chat session for student affairs professionals and students interested in the profession. Coincidentally, the event I am facilitating called “The Roots and Identity of the API Community on Campus,” to be held next week, was also announced on Facebook today. The chat and the event reminded me of my student activism days at UCSB back in the 1990s.

Back then, I was deeply involved within the Asian American student community to challenge/work with the administration to improve student services to better serve the needs of Asian American students and the student body in general. Some of the group’s efforts were directed towards making student services more culturally sensitive and for the counseling services experience more accommodating to Asian American students who may have come from cultures and family upbringings where professional counseling was a foreign concept or frowned upon.

Another major effort the students undertook was establishing a physical space for Asian American students to have a place we can call home. After many years of working with the administration, the effort resulted in having a room identified as the “Asian Resource Center,” which led to a building now called Student Resource Building, wherein several student service departments and resource centers for marginalized student populations are located.

One of the most memorable moments as a student was when I called my mom, letting her know I was involved in a student protest. My mom was furious at me for being part of it. She was also scared of what would happen to me. She yelled at me that I would go to jail. Her reactions were because of what we had seen in the Philippines growing up. When we left the Philippines in 1984, it was about the time of the People Power Revolution that deposed Ferdinand Marcos, the President of the Philippines back then. During that time,  we witnessed protests on the street in Baguio City, where I grew up. My parents were never politically active, so I never participated in the protests. My parents were also adamant about me not getting involved because of the fear of being arrested or other consequences.

Looking back, one of the benefits of getting involved with student activism was developing my identity as a Filipino-American. Coupled with Asian American courses, including a Filipino-American Experience course, my involvement within the Asian American community allowed me to learn about Asian American history and develop my racial and cultural identities. Being aware of Asian-Americans’ struggles throughout history, oppressive laws like anti-miscegenation and racial discrimination and segregation practices, and how Filipino-American leaders like Pablo Manlapit, Philip Vera Cruz, and Larry Itliong led movements to fight injustices led me to explore what it meant to be a Filipino-American. I became keener on the portrayals of Asian-Americans in the popular media. I also became more sensitive to micro-aggressions I faced every day. I noticed how I was followed when I entered stores. I noticed how my White hall mates insisted I only got accepted to UCSB because of affirmative action.

While I didn’t know it back then, I was going through an identity development process during my days as a student activist. As Kim’s Asian American Identity Development Theory suggests, I had gone through the following stages, including ethnic awareness, White identification, awakening to social-political consciousness, redirection, and incorporation.

After graduation, I found a job at UCSB; I’m still at UCSB. As a professional, I became a staff advisor to several organizations, including the Filipino-American student organization Kapatirang Pilipino, Pilipino Graduation, and Pilipino Cultural Night (PCN). It’s been interesting to mentor and observe the student leaders and watch them go through the similar identity development process I went through. I hope their experience as student activists will help them find themselves and in their careers as it had done for me.

As of yesterday, I had been in my department’s Acting Executive Director role for one year. I lead an IT organization in a higher education institution. The day before, we held our quarterly department meeting to review our accomplishments and upcoming projects. As a typical practice after events, I asked for feedback on how the meeting went and how well I did. The staff I spoke with had positive comments. One staff shared feedback that made me think about my leadership role as an Asian American and the perceptions of leadership in higher education and even in this country. The comment that made me think about these topics was this “Joe,  you were certainly much more assertive and confident yesterday. You’re a lot different from when you started last year. My initial concern was because you’re so nice, I didn’t know how well you’d be able to deal with other directors and those more senior than you when it came to conflict. You’ve adjusted well, and I see you as more confident and assertive.”

Throughout my career, one personal trait that’s been perceived as negative regarding my leadership style has been my assertiveness or lack of. From the feedback I’ve received, I’ve been seen as not direct and not confrontational when dealing with conflicts. Whether that’s because of my personality or cultural upbringing, I don’t know why I have not been seen as “assertive” as other folks would like me to be. However,  when folks assess my assertiveness, they probably compare it to other leaders from their experience or what they see in popular media.

I grew up in a Filipino household that values harmony, and conflicts are dealt with in not-so-direct ways. When it came to conflict, saving face or preserving the dignity of those involved mattered a lot in my family and the Filipino culture. In my career, these approaches have conflicted with how those I work with expected me to deal with issues. Because I have not always been direct in confronting issues, I have been seen as weak and unsure of myself. Perhaps, others have expected me to be dominant and controlling. I’ve been more inclined to use influence and persuasion to lead. The challenge for me then has been reconciling my personal tendencies with the workplace expectations when it comes to being an assertive leader. The challenge has been determining when to use the style I’m more comfortable with vs. what others may consider assertive.

As I think about this issue of assertiveness, I wonder which opportunities I missed because I was not seen as an assertive leader. Moving forward, I wonder how this perception will shape my career. I also wonder about my prospect of moving up the management hierarchy in higher education where there’s a glaring lack of Asian American leaders who can mentor me, where my qualities may not match the Western qualities associated with leaders, and perhaps bias against me because I don’t fit the prototypical leader that hiring committees are comfortable hiring.

I’ve been in far too many conversations when new ideas are immediately met with “that’s not possible because …” and with those conversations come the quick death of what could just transform organizations beyond imaginable. When thinking about future possibilities, ideas should not be framed in how we see things as they are now. Granted that no one knows what the future holds, I do know that the reality we see today is not how it will be in the future. Given this case, why not think of the future as an optimist and consider all that could be possible instead of limiting our thoughts because of the current constraints? A popular Wayne Gretzky quote goes something like “skate to where the puck is going and not where it has been.” Leadership is about the future and not maintaining the status quo.

When having conversations about ideas, I’ve noticed that folks immediately get into the mindset of scarcity and managing constraints. Often, the mindset is about “we don’t have enough resources to do that” or “how can we do that when we need to give up …” While these constraints need to be considered, there are times and places for that level of conversation. When I hear those feedback, my response is “even more reason why we should be thinking differently. We cannot choose to stay on the same path, or situations may become worse.” I’ve also responded with, “was there ever a time when we had enough resources? We will never have enough resources, but it’s about being resourceful with what we have.”

A colleague who’s proven himself to be able to implement innovative ideas on campus once told me ideas often start with “wouldn’t it be cool if …” and sharing them with other folks who share the same enthusiasm or who may be able to provide support.  Keeping this in mind, when I’ve had conversations about new ideas and I’m met with skepticism,  sometimes, I’ve had to say, “I don’t know how we’ll do it, but wouldn’t it be cool if we could do that?”

I used to think, “it’s not possible here in our organization anyway, so why to bother thinking about an idea.” That mentality stopped me from exploring possibilities, and it frustrated me. But, I’ve come to find that while my ideas may not be implemented at my university, there really is no one stopping me from thinking about possibilities and sharing them with the world. Many of the ideas I’ve shared on my blog will never be implemented at my university (now) for many reasons, but they are fun to think about.

On a personal note, my wife and I commute to work for about 30 minutes every day, and we often use those times to dream about possibilities. We dream about an exciting future ahead of us. It’s not costing us anything, so we don’t limit ourselves when we think about the possibilities ahead of us.  Will they happen? Who knows, but I do believe in the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies. One can continue on the path of “it will never happen because …” and things indeed will never happen, but with an optimistic perspective, there’s the chance that what we think about and pursue may just happen.

I was asked by a colleague once whether it’s worth it for high-ranking student affairs leaders such as deans and other senior student affairs officers (SSAO) to be spending their time on social media given all the amount of work they must do. This question is like asking whether any SSAO should even be attending student activities on campus to engage with students, build relationships, or at the least listen (“lurk”) to get a sense of what students are talking about given the amount of work they must do. Can you imagine any SSAO making any effective decision impacting students by spending all their time in their office and not having any contact with them? One would find that concept ludicrous, right?

One only needs to look at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even Yik Yak and Yeti on any given day to see how much college students use social media to express themselves, communicate, and even study together. SSAOs would be wise to spend some of their time just “lurking” to understand what students are talking about. They would see patterns of issues given the time of the year. They would also see the behaviors displayed on social media that should drive the educational programming their campus should be doing. They would see opportunities when they can provide assistance or encouragement to students needing some help. They would also see feedback on programs and services their organizations provide. If SSAOs want real-time and unfiltered feedback, they might want to read students’ reactions on social media from time to time. There are students on social media who are not members of the active and engaged student leaders from whom SSAOs interact and get feedback. Social media provide SSAOs with a wider set of perspectives. even those they may not want to read and see beyond what they typically get from student leaders.

Another important reason why SSAOs should spend some time on social media is. Because of their influential position within their organization, SSAOs can shape their organization’s attitude towards the use of social media and technology. Through their use of social media, SSAOs can message their organizations that social media does have a beneficial role in their jobs and it’s okay to use social media in the workplace. A few years ago, I encountered strong resistance from some people in our student affairs organization about using social media in our workplace. I was frustrated because while I realized the value of social media in communicating with students, I had difficulty convincing my colleagues to accept social media as part of our work. I asked our then Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Dr. Michael Young, to sponsor a divisional social media initiative. As part of that effort, Dr. Young and his office created his Twitter account and a department Facebook page. In addition, he also sent a memo to the division explicitly encouraging the staff to embrace social media as a way to communicate with our students. Dr. Young’s support of social media is documented in this parents newsletter (2012) article about our division’s use of social media. According to Dr. Young,

“We have to try to keep up with our students. We have to continue to evolve so that we can thoughtfully and adequately serve them.” He also said, “Our strength is our ability to communicate with our students where they are and in their language,” explaining that “organizations that are aligned with their interests, instead of the interests of the broader community they serve, will fail.”

In student affairs, we have a saying that “we need to meet where students are.” Our students are on social media. SSAOs failure to engage on social media can mean failure for student affairs organizations to thoughtfully and adequately serve them, as Dr. Young once said.