[S2E7] Katie's Beautiful Mind

[S2E7] Katie's Beautiful Mind

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Annmarie Caño: Welcome to EmpowerED to Lead, a Wayne State University podcast for academic leaders who are committed to empowering their community to succeed. I'm your host, Annmarie Caño, associate provost for faculty development and faculty success at Wayne State. In this podcast, we'll explore the personal journeys of academic leaders, both current and emerging, to learn more about how they've developed their careers. We'll speak with faculty and staff about their work and how they have empowered themselves and others along the way. By doing this, we hope to empower listeners like you as you continue on your leadership path. Today, we're speaking with Katie Turner and Angela Zanardelli Sickler. Katie Turner is the Academic Initiatives Coordinator within Housing and Residential Life, as well as the Community Director for the Thompson Home. This is Katie's fourth academic year with Wayne State. In her new role as the Academic Initiatives Coordinator, she is responsible for partnering with departments and individuals on campus to bring more academically focused programs and initiatives to the residence halls in order to promote student success. In addition, she works to support and bring structure to the five living-learning community programs in Housing by partnering with the coordinators of these programs and the learning communities team. Angela Zanardelli Sickler is the Associate Director of the Study Skills Academy with the Academic Success Center. She works with students both individually and in the classroom in an effort to create independent learners by offering customized study plans to address their specific needs. Angela takes a holistic approach to student success by combining evidence-based learning strategies with self-management exploration. In addition, Angela is the creator and curriculum designer of FYS 1010 Learning with the Brain in Mind, and she takes great pride in hiring and training the program's 37 instructors. Thank you for being with us today, Katie and Angela. Angela: Thank you. Katie Turner: Yeah, thanks. Annmarie Caño: We'd like to start off with what you love about your roles at Wayne State. Katie Turner: Okay. Angela: Do you want me to go first Katie Turner: Yeah, sure. Angela: Hi, I'm Angela. They didn't know, right As the Associate Director of the Study Skills Academy, we offer several services to students, mostly undergrad level, but several for also graduate level. They are one-to-one study skills counseling. We have a workshop series. We offer procrastination accountability groups and success in the sciences groups. We also run FYS 1010 Learning with the Brain in Mind out of our Study Skills Academy. My favorite aspect of my work is learning new evidence-based methods to improve students' learning performance and then finding an opportunity to share the information with students. An example would be using that information to revamp the FYS curriculum or sharing with staff and faculty the information to assist them in the classroom or with their work with students. The other thing that I really like is the challenge of discovering a study strategy based on recent research and cognitive science and then finding a way to creatively more fit into a lesson that appeals to students. What is interesting is that I did not think students would like the nerdy brainy part of how we learn, and that has been the most well-received aspect of our study skills program. Because once they understand this is based in research and this is backed by science, they're like, \"Oh yeah, now I guess I'll manage my time,\" or, \"All right, well, I'll give it a shot.\" But I think that a lot of study skills programs, in general, can be rather surface level. Annmarie Caño: And students seem to want to know, \"Why am I doing this\" Angela: Right. Annmarie Caño: If you don't give me a good reason for why this is useful or why I'm doing it, then I'm not sure I want to spend my time on it. Angela: A few years ago, I was teaching a lesson and I went off on a tangent. They were arguing with me about ... I can't remember what it was about. And I remember giving the brain science behind memory. How we move information from short to long term memory and how that relates to sleep. They were listening and I thought, \"Oh.\" And they started asking questions and questions and questions, and suddenly, they weren't bored. I'm like, \"Do you like this part of it The cognitive psych part\" They're like, \"Absolutely, now I'm going to do it.\" So then, FYS was born. Annmarie Caño: Yeah. Great. Angela: Yeah. Annmarie Caño: Great. Angela: It just appealed to them. Annmarie Caño: Yeah. How about you Katie Katie Turner: Many things that I really like about my job. This seems like cliche, but obviously the students. In my role as a Community Director and as the Academic Initiatives Coordinator, I get a ton of opportunities to talk to students really about anything that could be going on. I come to contact with students many different ways. They drop by my office, they get into a little bit of trouble and we just have to talk about it and see what happened. My student staff I get to interact with, we have constant one-on-ones and meetings. I think that those interactions with students really do inform everything that I do. It's very inspiring because you're sitting there and you're talking, you started at one place and you ended up in a completely different place. I try to write down all the ideas and how that comes to be. That's what I really like about my Community Director work. And how it informs my Academic Initiatives work is really just reaching out and seeing what is there that we can provide and give to students. What exists, what can I get my hands in Who can I talk to you about being involved and getting housing involved, what services are they doing that I can connect with That is what I really love most and what I really have been able to do. Our housing department is growing and changing and learning every year. It is hard, but that is why I come back every single year is because there's a new challenge. There's something else to develop, new ideas. I've always felt very supported in my creativity. If I can look at the best practices, make a pitch and do it, usually I can do it. I don't want to put anybody in a bad place, but I can't think of any times if I've been told no, not to do something. That's what I really like about my work is I'm supported. Annmarie Caño: Yeah. It sounds like for both of you, there's an element of being able to provide something to students that they might not have had before, whether it's a rationale for why they should try these different strategies for studying or providing resources about how to connect them to the rest of the campus community. There's that connection piece, but there's also the ability to put your own personal stamp on it and use your creativity in ways that sometimes people are not able to do that for whatever reason, because of the system or the structures or particular supervisors. You're both able to be creative and now, you're able to be creative together in a new partnership. I'm wondering if you could share with listeners what that's looking like. Angela: Yeah, it's actually a relatively new partnership and you're right, I think that the autonomy that we both have in our individual roles has really lended itself for us to expand in this way and for us to meet students by collaborating in various ways. Our learning specialist, who is part of the Study Skills Academy team, Kalyn Griffin, reached out to Katie or Katie reached out to Kalyn. Katie Turner: Yeah, Kalyn had sent out all of the information about the programs for the semester. Angela: I see. Katie Turner: Kalyn and I have connections from graduate school. Angela: You went to Eastern together. Katie Turner: I was like, \"Yes, Kalyn!\" Angela: She's incredible. She's just absolutely dynamic and has been an asset. We had a meeting about how we can bring one-to-one study skills, counseling into Housing. Meeting students where they are. Katie Turner: Yeah. I felt incredibly, really excited and supported because Angela's team was able to come and be in our residence halls at 8:00 PM until 10:00 PM. I was like, \"Wow,\" because we're thinking when do students feel inspired and motivated to possibly get their stuff together so that they can be more successful. I know for me as a student, it was always at nine o'clock where I was like, \"Oh my gosh, I got this thing. I'm worried.\" It was really special to be able to plan something and bring it so late at night. Angela: Yeah. We're actually planning a debrief meeting about how that went this semester and how we can collaborate again next semester to make sure that we are meeting students with the information that we have, but where they are most comfortable. Annmarie Caño: What was the program that you did at nine o'clock at night in the dorms then Angela: We had a study skill specialist available for two-hour blocks of time on Monday and Thursday for two weeks in a row, correct Katie Turner: Correct. Angela: Katie set up a system using Calendly to have them, which I've been using now. It's awesome. Katie Turner: Yay! Angela: Yeah, I think it's great. I just sent it out to people and then it goes onto my calendar. I don't even have to put on my calendar. Pretty amazing. But anyhow, you basically sent this out and students could sign up and you created a beautiful flyer. From your end, do you think it was ideal Katie Turner: Yes. In this new year, I'm just like, \"Okay, foundations, partnership, definitions.\" I think something that's been really important for myself is holding myself accountable to doing the things that myself and more so Housing and Residential Life will do. I think it went really well, and what I appreciated about our meetings is that it was very intentional about, \"Okay, so your team's going to do this and our team's going to do this, and w