In college everything I did was about music. I mean…everything was about music for me. I was a radio DJ for three years on our college radio station: KRUI . I hosted a Hip Hop radio show every Friday night from 10pm-1am. The show was named (renamed each year) after my three favorite A Tribe Called Quest albums (can you guess them?). Most of my friends were music heads and the vast majority of our conversations were debates about this band or that hip hop group. My residence hall door was constantly open and my stereo speakers were usually playing my newest album from the local record shop The Record Collector (If you’ve ever seen the John Cusack movie Hi Fidelity you know the kind of record shop I’m talking about).
Music was constantly on my tongue. If I wasn’t singing along with my headphones I was using music as my key to unlock new friendships and make social connections. When I saw someone with a The Roots CD case in their backpack I’d spark up a conversation with them about my favorite Roots album, Things Fall Apart (titled after the book by Chinua Achebe). As an extroverted guy who loves to make new friends, music gave me a reason to introduce myself. Although, instead of extending my hand for a handshake and stating my name like most people do the first time they meet someone, I’d look down and read their T-shirt and ask “Did you see Atmosphere when they were in town last week…Slug was awesome?”Music is still a key for me today. I remember the first time I met Luther Young, an RA who has been in Scobell House the last two years. It was my second day as a House Fellow and Luther was talking with John Hannon in the Student Development Office. I was waiting to meet with John and as Luther was on his way out of the office he mentioned to John that he was going to see a Ratatat concert that upcoming weekend. I immediately spoke up and told Luther that I love Ratatat. Then I extended my hand (I’ve matured since college) and introduced myself as the new House Fellow for E-Tower.
I have worked to incorporate my love (obsessive love) for music into how I connect with students (and many other people too). This past year I sent out a weekly music quiz (which was about all anyone seemed to read from my weekly emails) and towards the end of the year I created a music blog for E-Tower, which I try to update weekly. With these two small weekly gestures I hope to connect with the residents in E-Tower on a different level. Music has always been personal to me. It is a big part of my identity and certainly my memories. Every time I hear Rocky Racoon by the Beatles I imagine myself cleaning the house I grew up in with my sister and brother. We cleaned every Sunday afternoon while listening to my mother’s records (I mean real records…LPs) and were rewarded with the best family meal of the week.
So…what’s my point? To paraphrase Bela Fleck: Do it Your Own Way. If you hope to craft genuine and meaningful relationships you must first be genuine. Know yourself and know what makes you tick. Use your passions to connect with other and build relationships. Obviously the caveat is that every relationship you build and nurture shouldn't just be about about you and your interests. However, if you use your interests, skills, and passions as a way to connect with others you’ll probably create plenty of connections and learn a lot of cool things along the way.
lucas
As I was driving over to Wheeling, West Virginia this weekend I realized that I promised Lucas (my blogging partner for this week) that I would get a paragraph to him contributing to our CA Training Blog. First of all, I am not a blogger and I don't regularly read blogs, so why I volunteered to be first in this new initiative, I am still trying to figure that one out. I did recently watch the movie Julie & Julia, so I hope that I can recreate a simple recipe for interactive blogging that adds a little bit of spice to my otherwise basic 'blogging' broth.
(Back to driving and reflecting) My mind wondered into thoughts about the CA-HF roles, building house communities, leadership philosophies and styles, and all of the new opportunities that are being developed in our division of student affairs. It's ironic that the conference theme for this event that I was attending was entitled "Mountains of Opportunity." What a great connection to what will be unfolding for us as house communities in the weeks and months ahead! For me personally a few of my 'defining moments' have happened on our near mountain ranges. Whether it was building a school in the Andes Mountains of Peru where I got to witness one of the world's signature glaciers before it ultimately melts because of global warming or when I decided to take a trip with friends to Yellowstone National Park where I paid tribute to my grandfather and his love of nature. I also discovered that you can find a restaurant/bar dedicated to the "Steelers" anywhere-- even at the base of a mountain entrance into Yellowstone! But another such mountain adventure involved West Virginia. I was given the opportunity to take a group of Carnegie Mellon students to McDowell County, WV for an alternate break experience (side note for movie fanatics-check out the movie October Sky this was where the main character grew up). At that time McDowell County was the 6rd poorest area in entire country with the 5th highest child poverty rate in America and one of the lowest levels of educational achievement in the nation. Our service experience was based out of a non-profit group Big Creek People in Action that addressed family, children, and economic concerns. The week long experience changed me forever in so many ways, but more importantly the exposure that I was able to give to this diverse group of CMU students helped me to redefine my approach to service-learning and community impact in so many ways as well. All of the students, especially the international student participates, got to view aspects of America in a very different light and as a group we were able to see poverty in ways that many of us never imagined. But we also got to witness community pride and openness in ways that only these types of meaningful experiences could create. Whether it was while doing manual labor to fix flooring and installing new walls in a family's home or creating the first Multicultural Day experience for a local elementary school, all of us walked away understanding the power of one. One conversation, one moment of sharing of oneself can have powerful impacts. As a leader, we all have these 'defining moments' in our life. They help us in developing our philosophies and motivate us to take on new challenges. What has defined you as a leader? How will this influence your vision for your relationship with your staff? Your residents?
Lastly, I have to connect this back to my recipe. So here are five (5) ingredients for effective leaders:
1. Be courageous enough to shift paradigms and see things differently. Change and flexibly help you to 'move mountains' when there may be a need to do so.
2. Help others to find meaning in what you may ask them to do. By investing in the individual members of your staff, we model for them the process of creating meaningful relationships. And when asked to do something that they may not really want to do, because of the relationship they respect the request.
3. Enable others to Act by Encouraging the Heart! Now this is classic Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Challenge, but my favorite two initiatives. Involvement in the process (vision) helps the individuals you are leading to grow and it demonstrates the level of trust that you have in them to do their jobs well. Now some you may have to "encourage" them to take up the challenge, but when they do they become better leaders because of it.
4. Reward and Recognize Success. A simple "thanks" or praise goes a
long way in continuing to motivate those that you lead. And it ties back to encouraging the heart through recognition.
5. Never be afraid to share of yourself. Your fears. Your trials. Your challenges. But also your joys. Your passions. Your Successes. You are continuously defining yourself and the leadership opportunities that you are given aren't always easy mountains to climb. Isn't it great that you have CA-HF colleagues who can help you along the way as you begin your 'mountains of opportunity' adventures.
Well, I guess the drive to West Virginia was as "wild and wonderful" as they proclaim it to be.
Shernell M. Smith
Check out these cool pics of mountains:
http://www.mongabay.com/images/peru/cuzco/Urubamba_1018_0563.JPG
http://www.visitusa.com/westvirginia/images/spruceknobpic.jpg
http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Yellowstone_National_Park.htm
Book recommendation: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
(Effective leaders listing adapted from an article from www.reslife.net by Shawn McGuirk)
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