Idealist

Hal writes:

I have been teaching a section of "Intro to College Life" this semester at UWP. The basic premise of the class is to assist students in making the transition from high school to college during their first semester (which, in the end, helps with our retention rate). We cover topics such as time management, cultural competency, academic registration, health and wellness, and other topics.

This upcoming week I am teaching on personality profiles and learning styles. I am a big fan of Kolb's learning styles, which gives me great insight as to how my RA staff learn and react to situations. For a "homework assignment", I am having my students take the Keirsey temperament online, which is similar to Kolb's theory.

When I took the survey, I fit in the "Idealist category". Do you think this describes me?

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Sound like me? Other famous Idealists include Oprah, Billy Graham, Princess Diana, Plato, and Emily Dickenson.

I think this a great way to learn about yourself, learn about other people, and learn how different personality types can work together.

If you are interested in taking the free survey, click here. When you get the results, post them as a comment on this blog. I would be curious to hear what you type is!

A Tale of Two Families

Hal writes:

The alternate title to this blog could be "A Residence Hall Thanksgiving". Anna and I have hosted Thanksgiving the past couple of years, but this is the first time our families have merged for Thanksgiving since Thanksgiving 2003, shortly after Anna and I were engaged. I have more photos than what is included below, but I can only fit so many on to the blog before I publish it.


We'll start off with a group picture. In the picture avoe you have myself and Anna (Platteville, WI), my parents (Two Harbors, MN), Lindsay (Chicago, IL), Beth (Springfield, MA), Dale (Suisun, CA), Sandy (Shell Lake, WI), Jay and Tabby (Twin Cities, MN), and Kat (Duluth, MN). We literally had people from across the country join us for the holiday.


Traditionally, carts like the one pictured above are used to assist with students moving in the hall at the beginning of the year. I used it to bring the food for the feast from our apartment to the multipurpose room.
Although the table cloth did not quite reach the edge of the table, we had enough space to eat from and Anna was able to use a lot of her china. Food was set up on side tables and it made for an easier "get up and get it yourself" buffet style for eating. In addition to the wonderful food, Dale brought some wine from California. (Don't worry, everyone was of legal age to consume alcohol and the RAs didn't have to stop by because we weren't being too noisy.)

Since Anna and I claimed our apartment to watch "CSI", the "Grey's Anatomy" group watched their show movie theater style in the lobby area on the large plasma screen TV.

Turkey make Jay sleepy...

Today we all went to Galena for some shopping (excpet Jay and Tabby had to go back home yesterday). The rest of my family went to Chicago and everyone else will be leaving tomorrow morning. That way Anna can get back to her homework and I can... well... I guess I can eat leftovers and fall asleep watching football this weekend.

New Viking song

Hal writes:

A high school classmate, Paul, e-mailed me about a friend of ours from THHS. Andy is on a quest to change the song that is played just prior to Minnesota Viking kick-offs. If you are not a Vikings fan, but are interested in football, Scandivanian affairs, or music, you should check out this article from Minnesota Public Radio.

If you want to sign the petition to change the song, sign up here.

If you want to know more about Andy's day job, where he and his wife create art from using coffee beans as the medium, you can find out more about their art here.

And finally, a picture of me dressed as a Viking. This photo is when I was "Chief Fun Hater" and "Director of Ridiculousness" for Tammy Jo's (jumping in photo) fake graduation ceremony at Wartburg. She was unable to attend her actual graduation because of her new job in Guam, so we put together a fake graduation for anyone who wanted to graduate with her.

Eat, change, sleep...repeat for a year.

Hal writes:

This weekend Kevin came down for a visit. Oh sure, there are the traditional elements to our weekends together: Tequila Lime chips, antlers, meat breath, meh, etc. But this trip Kevin was able to meet some of my Platteville friends and that helps when I talk about one or the other, everyone has a picture in their mind who I am talking about. (Plus, Kevin aided in the male domination of board games on Friday night when it was men vs. women in "Buzz Words", a game my parents got Anna and I for our anniversary last summer.)

On Saturday we made the trek to Madison to see Brian and Brianne and meet their son for the first time. Here is a picture of me and the little one. (Note: Any comments about how "natural" this looks or any other comments of similar nature will be deleted immediatlely.)

The title of the of the photo below is "Male Birth Control". That is how Kevin felt about the situation. When Brian offered Kevin the opportunity to change a diaper, Uncle Kevin passed. (Uncle Hal observed at a distance.) Not that Kevin doesn't enjoy children, he just knows he has a few things to do prior to having a child. Silly things like to meet and marry the women of his dreams in addition to graduating from seminary and becoming employed as a pastor this next summer.

Below is a picture of father and son. Brian and Brianne were really good about just letting Kevin and I hold the baby and not being overly concerned about our child handling skills. Similar to RD Nolan and Hilary, they are comfortable knowing that Kevin and I wouldn't intentially break their child and it was nice that we didn't have to treat the baby like a bomb that was ready to explode. A few tears were shed by the baby (probably when he looked at Kevin's mullet) but we just took turns passing him around and when he calmed down we were able to get a few smiles.

Anna and I are hosting both our families for Thanksgiving this year. Only a couple of days before all my students leave and both clans come to Platteville.

Facebook

Hal writes:

For those of you who are not on a college campus, you may not be as familiar with Facebook. This online social network began as a tool for college students to meet each other (like a limited version of Myspace) and then expanded to high schools and now, to the best of my knowledge, is available to the general public.

Since Facebook is not going away any time soon, campus administrators need to deal with it and work with it in a positive fashion. Part of this is helping students to realize the messages they post could be seen by many people, and not just a small circle of friends. (In a similar fashion, I think that there are about four people who read this blog, when there could be many more who do that I just don't know about.)

This fall during RA training we talked with our RAs about the dangerous aspects of Facebook and how to make a good impression through pictures, things they write, and groups that they belong to. We warned them, generically, that as students from UWP graduate and join companies, those companies could in turn use Facebook to look students up prior to interviewing them for jobs an internships. This was, until now, just a theory on our part.

Tonight as I was preparing for hall council, a former RA stopped by my office. She informed me that she was fired from the Kwik Trip (local gas station) because of a Facebook group she belonged to. To read more about the situation, you can look at the UWP student newspaper The Exponent. Click on the article about Facebook in the "News" section. (Oh, and also making news this evening is the "Girls Gone Wild" film crew is coming to Platteville next week. But that's a different story.)

Now, I do have to say that I am a little excited about the possible nation wide media implications (and/or legal implications) that this story has. There are a number of reasons why I feel that the students should not have been fired, but I also feel that there were things the students could have done to prevent themselves from being found out in the situation. There are too many factors on both sides for me to comment about, but I could make some arguments either way.

In the end, be cautious with your postings. What I tell my students is, don't post anything that they would not print out and put on their residence hall room door or post on a sign in front of their parents house. Because people do see things online.

I'll be curious to hear your thoughts after reading the article. Please post some comments!

Want my parking space?

Hal writes:

Converting negatives into positives.

Positive:
Staring this evening there is a Penny War taking place for a campus-wide Thanksgiving Charity Drive. The basic premise of the penny war is each wing of my building has a container located at the front desk. If you put pennies in your wing's container, you get positive points. If you put silver coins or bills in any other wing's container, they get negative points. Each night the points are calculated and one wing is eliminated. (I should add that each day the point totals go back to zero, so there is some strategy.) All the money collected goes to a local charity when the event ends November 16.

Negative:
There is a tiny parking lot outside of my building (with only space for six student vehicles). Across the street from my building is a parking lot that is not completed yet (room for 200+ vehicles, but nobody can park there yet). Students are having a difficult time with this, so they choose to ignore parking regulations, such as not to park in the fire lane. In doing so, some get tickets between $25 - $100, depending on the offense and they in turn complain to the police and housing people. Parking is a problem at all colleges, but I am in the midst of frustrated students, frustrated police officers, and a frustrated fire marshall.

Combo:
I am going to allow one of my students access to my parking spot for an entire week. How do I pick? Well, there is going to be a drawing (must be present to win). But, only the wing that wins the Penny Wars gets to put their names in the hat. Tonight is the first night of the Penny Wars and I just posted publicity about the chance to win my parking space. My hope is that students spread the word and that they are motivated to donate money to the Thanksgiving Charity Drive. I just told my RAs about the contest, so they are knocking on doors letting residents know. I'll keep you posted as to whether or not my plan works.

The photo below is part of the advertisement. As you can see, my parking space is very close to the front door of Southwest Hall.


WANT MY PARKING SPACE? Go see the poster at the front desk for more information.

National Student Conclave

Anna writes:
Last week I spent a few days in Dallas Texas at the American Physical Therapy Association's National Student Conclave... I had a great time attending clinical sessions and hearing speakers about health care issues. 14 of my classmates were along... and we had a great time! I was the head of all of the fundraising for the trip, so it was especially great to see everyone having a good time after all the hard work.
Unfortunately, the school work piled up even with 14 of us away, so I don't have time to write a detailed blog about our trip...but here are a few pictures for you to enjoy anyway!


Group photo in front of the "boots"

Kim, myself, Molly and Steph (my roommates for the trip) in front of the cowboy boots:

Lounging in our hotel room in the evening:

The whole group at Champs to watch the baseball game:

Our group had "BIG SMILE" contests...you had to maximally exert ALL of the muscles in your face to achieve the best "BIG SMILE". Here is my attempt:

And the winner is...

Hal writes:

I was waiting for a more formal picture, but the UMR web site hasn't provided one for me yet. While at the conference this last week, my name came across the microphone on more than one occasion (and, not surprisingly, never pronounced the same way twice). The first two came during drawings for prizes. The first time I won a box with flavored coffee, pralenes, and rock candy from New Orleans. My second prize was the game "Cranium" (which Anna and I already own, but I'm sure that it will come in handy as a last minute prize at an RA function).

But the fun awards came during the closing banquet. My friend KJ and I were announced as the winner's of the Case Study Competition (which made working on it until 2am the night before well worth it). After the obligatory handshakes we stepped off the stage to get our photo taken. In the process of smiling, our names were announced a second time, this time our program "You Might Work in Residence Life If..." was awarded a Best Program at the conference award. So the audience chuckled as we held our smiles before returning to the podium to collect the second award.

Here is a photo of KJ and I (with a burrito from Los Amigos) from this summer when we were investigating downtown businesses for a RA training topic.


Today I went to my 8-hour White Privilege workshop that all full time faculty and staff must attend at some point during the summer. My group was 90% faculty, but RD Trapper went today as well so I wasn't flying solo. I really didn't get any new information about identity development (thanks to the extensive coverage of the topic at WIU in my Masters program) but I did get to meet some new faculty members, which was fun. But 8 hours made for a long day...

Public shout outs:
* Happy birthday Jeremy!
* Happy birthday Jim!
* Happy 5th anniversary Mookie and Leslie!