@therealjoelp Please make use of this national treasure in an upcoming blog. http://t.co/8AJ4tzrcnj—
Adam Welker (@AdamWelker) May 06, 2014

OK Adam, I will.  The above husky is obviously what I look like on a daily basis… grumpy and disbelieving.  However, today’s post is almost not grumpy… which is weird, for you and me.

#mindblown

On June 20th, fresh off a hugely successful ACPA Pre-Conference program, There’s Something Funny… About Higher Education… comes to Boston to bring the funny, bring the thinking, and bring the development to the, like, bajillion schools in this region.

There are 1 million schools in this area… I swear it.

There are super limited spots available for this very cheap, very awesome professional development workshop this summer, which you can register for here.

Here’s the thing I’m going to do as part of my piece and involvement with this workshop coming to Boston, and as a loyal minion of CronkNews, which is sponsoring this workshop.

Whenever one of my freelance articles gets posted on Cronk.

After talking about There’s Something Funny during my keynote at the Northeastern CSDA Graduate Program End of Year Banquet, I want to take another step in offering something to our field’s #SAgrads, more than Chickering Chicken Pizza, Duty Phone Dubstep, and guilt about working less than 19.9995 hours but more than 20.103 and a half hours during your Assistantship.

I will pay the registration fee for 1 incoming, current, or recently graduated student affairs grad student or even a new professional/faculty member in their first year of work.

I believe in the funny.  Our field has way too many serious issues, and we take ourselves way too serious way too often.  Between issues of mental health and inadequate resources for our students, being totes responsible for administrative bloat, and needing to address the sexual assault crisis on our campuses, we need to have a laugh at some point and we need figure out a new way to solve our problems that don’t drag us deeper and deeper down.

CronkNews, and now There’s Something Funny, is that funny for me.  It’s that chance to take a step back from the tumult in order to take quite a few steps forward.  Borrowing from Tina Fey, IDEO, and others, this workshop is an easy chance to get some really valuable professional development.

So, back to my New England grads and new professionals.  If you know you are available for the afternoon of June 20th, please go to this Google Form, and answer me a few questions.  I will make the hard choice based on who makes me laugh and think the most, but will value every response I get.

If your responses are as awesome as the Conan North Korean missile test skit, you’re well on your way.

I honestly have no idea how this will go.  I may get 1 response, 0, or 5.  I’m cool with any of those (well, maybe not zero). I’m jazzed that this workshop is coming here, I’m jazzed that I have the opportunity to help out, and I’m jazzed that hopefully through the funny, we’ll get some of our ish figured out.

Please apply by May 30th at 5:34:26 PM EST.

This is actually what is happening when you submit your application.

For this week’s Humpday Grumpday post, I’m going to subject you to reading my thoughts about what I’ve been reading.  So, get reading.

Let’s check out what I’ve read in 2014 so far over on my Books page.

This is what your interwebs is doing when you click on that link above.

Let’s break up my readings into some categories to get down and dirty in their details.

Higher Education/Work/Social Media and Tech Ish

College (Un)Bound – Jeffrey Selingo [3.5/5]; The Idea of the Digital University – Frank McCluskey [3.5/5]; The I’s Have It: Reflections on Introversion in Student Affairs – Amma Marfo (illustrated by Sue Caufield) [5/5]; Play at Work: How Games Inspire Breakthrough Thinking – Adam Penenberg [2/5]; What Happens In Vegas Stays on YouTube – Erik Qualman [3/5]; Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All – Thomas Kelley [4.5/5]; Rewire – Ethan Zuckerman [4.5/5]

Out of this set of books, I definitely enjoyed Amma’s The I’s Have It the most, because if you know Amma, it was basically like hearing her in your head as you read – she has a knack for writing in a way that is easy for the reader to flow through, and is just as casual and informative as when you sit down for a cider with her.

Reading Amma’s book is like her whispering knowledge into your ear… which is A LOT LESS CREEPY THAN YEEZUS DOING IT.

Honestly, the biggest let downs were Play at Work (a concept which has so much potential, but which is seriously let down by the books structure and lack of followthrough) and Erik Qualman’s What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube, which I feel like was a repeat of the last three years of any conference presentation on digital identity, social media, and the internet from other colleagues.  Yes, Qualman is a thought leader in this area, and has some sick videos that explain concepts well, but this book was a let down.

The ones I most highly recommend would be Creative Confidence and Rewire.  Creative Confidence was written by the founders of IDEO, and was a required reading from Leah Westcott of CronkNews.com in preparation for #TheresSomethingFunny (which if you have not registered for, you are in danger! Or if you are a grad or new professional, you are also in danger if you haven’t applied for my Polar Bear Scholarship).  Rewire, a look at the modern digital cosmopolitan, is a tour de force on data, news, communication, modern global events, basically all the things that are amazing and should be read about.  I highly recommend both.

These books are approved.

History/Architecture and Urban Studies Stuff

America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – Sarah Bradford [4/5]; The Architecture of Happiness – Alain de Botton [4/5]; Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families – Anthony Lukas [4.5/5]

I’m going to up Architecture of Happiness here big time, because this was my first full-length foray into my recent and hopefully lasting obsession with the urban condition and urban design, particularly how they relate to campus ecology theory.  Recommended by Eugene and Adam Welker, his fellow Knowlton School grad and all around top-notch Gap model, this book delves into how architecture influences human use and the human condition, and was a quick, but deep and thoughtful read.  Expect blogs about this book and Creative Confidence down the line.

Common Ground is also a must read on many fronts – the urban condition, history, and Boston culture and history.

Fiction/Sci-Fi Realness

World War Z – Max Brooks [4/5]; The Road – Cormac McCarthy [2/5]; The Casual Vacancy – JK Rowling [4/5]; Ready Player One – Ernest Cline [4/5]; Pastoralia – George Saunders [3.5/5]; The Engines of God – Jack McDevitt [4.5/5]

 This one is tough, but I’m going to go for it.

Sci-Fi-ish Breakdown: The Engines of God > Ready Player One > World War Z >>> The Road

Obviously, you can tell I hated The Road, sorry.  World War Z is a very different, but very real, and very engaging zombie book.

Ready Player One is a must read sci-fi book for anyone even remotely into social media, computers, and the future of digital humanity.  It’s like Second Life on steroids, and it is very good (although it feels young adult-ish sometimes in dialogue and plot).

The Engines of God may be the best sci-fi book I have read in years, trying to think back and figure out another book that made me flip the pages as fast as I did through McDevitt’s start to this series.  Part archaeology, part space travel, part Star Trek exploration, this book is a must for anyone who even remotely enjoys sci-fi.

Like I said, sci-fi realness.

So, there you go.  I’ll probably do another one of these in the fall.  Please recommend me some books in the comments as well!

Merry Humpday Grumpday to all.

I’ve been trying to think of a number of blog posts for these next few weeks, and other than my rants against Old Navy, my non-desire to connect every part of my life to Hashtag SA, and my subpar breakfast at O’Hare Monday morning, my brain has been racked for grumpy topics.  So, I settled in on finally getting around to delving into what I’ve been reading, starting with Creative Confidence by the Kelley Brothers.

I am also very grumpy about the omission of Landycakes from the US Men’s World Cup team.

This was required reading for me prior to There’s Something Funny by humor overlord Leah Westcott, editor of CronkNews.com, which, if you live in New England and have any connection to higher education, you should register for.  In fact, if you haven’t, you are failing at everything.  And if you are a graduate student or new professional, why haven’t you registered for my There’s Something Funny Scholarship!  I will pay your monies for you!!!  Apply for the scholarship by this FRIDAEEEEEEEEEE!

The gif that never stops giving.

One of the first pieces I keyed in on was their talk on failure and getting people to build up the courage to design and create without bounds.  Talking about how jugglers get over their fear of screwing up and dropping their juggling instruments, they talk about the concept of “The Drop,” gleaned from John Cassidy, creator of Klutz Press.  The Drop is simply starting out learning about juggling by throwing the balls into the air and just letting them drop, and repeating over and over.  You get more used to the balls hitting the floor than you actually effectively juggling them, so the fear of them falling slips away.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a situation where this opportunity to just leap was fully, truly, unequivocally available to me – I feel like I’ve always been in a situation where there is some expectation of success.  What could we or I have done if that expectation was not there, where could my mind have flown off to?

See, even Thor practices The Drop once in a while.

One of the other pieces in the book that struck me, and my own personal discomfort with public service and volunteerism on our campuses, was their thoughts on human-centered design, a huge aspect of IDEO and the Stanford D School’s philosophy.  Service learning, for me, at its core tries to hammer into our privileged brains that we are not going to a community to do service for them, but we should be travelling to a community, learning from them, learning what is their most basic needs and desires, and working alongside them to craft a solution that is workable and lasting for them, and not for our resumes.  The solution should not require us to be around, but should be lasting for that community so that generations to follow can benefit from the work of their predecessors.

The example the Kelleys showcase to illustrate this point is a company called Embrace, which was creating infant warmers for parents located in rural communities who did not have access to basic resources and needs for child care.  They could have cut costs significantly by using different materials, but after actually travelling to India, their primary site and community they sought to serve, they found that the bottom line would negatively influence the final product that these families depended on, and the changes were scraped.  This care for human-centered design is so key in my mind, in any field, and something we often forget about way too easily in pursuit of the easiest path (I can still be grumpy with questions that students can google though).

These are only a few of the concepts that I keyed in on in this book, and their processes.  I highly recommend picking up Creative Confidence, registering for There’s Something Funny, and then figuring out how to do creativity better in your everyday (it’s still fun to me to think about the fact that you can learn to be more creative by reading a book – totes).

If you are a manager, create opportunity to fail greatly.  If you are lowly minion at the bottom of the food chain, pick your battles, but fail fantastically in situations where your job doesn’t depend on it.

Throughout all this though, make sure the human/animal/end/alien/whatever user is always the center of your attention.

Falling… I mean, failing, with style!

Final thought? Student Affairs and higher education is not a field where you can fail without consequence and often is not focused on the human user.  We are failing ourselves spectacularly there.

So, as you may be aware, if you follow me on twitter, or read this blog, I am very excited for CronkNews to come to town with their new workshop, There’s Something Funny.  I have been pitching, begging, and generally doing everything a polar bear can to get people to register.

Stahpppp washing me!!! I have to go do There’s Something Funny work!

I even decided to offer a scholarship for free registration to the workshop, detailed in this previous post.  I had no idea what to expect with this process, but I was super amazed and pleased that a few grads and professionals decided to go ahead and apply for this thing.  Their applications were each uniquely them, hilariously funny, a pleasure to read, and boded well for what this workshop will bring us all together to do.

These applicants didn’t just answer my questions, they gave me the schematics for a ROFLCopter.

One of our runners up, Justin Townahhhhhh, is a retired Wahlberg brother, although he retains the rights to their accents.  His favorite color is pineapple, and he is currently a graduate student at UMass Lowell, where he also holds a position as Lead Head Assistant Temporary Project Liaison of Residential and Athletic Beard Trimming.

Oh, you will do some high-soaring in our field Townahh.

Our other runner up, Paul Gordon Brown, is a PhD candidate at BC… British Columbia Broccoli Chicken, not Boston College.  He is a former wild newt wrangler, despises anything related to technology, and maintains an extremely popular blog titled “I Despise Anything Related to Technology” which he manages from his IPhone 10 (he has one, you don’t, so get over it).

Paul’s IPhone 10, which you don’t have… punk.

Our winner of the Humorous Polar Bear Scholarship of Humor though, good for 1 payment of $75 dogecoins so they don’t have to pay for registration is…

OMG, GIVE ME THE WINNER’S ENVELOPE YOU EVIL SCIENTIST!!!

… Bethany Tuller!  Bethany is a recently graduated grad student who is looking for gainful employment in the goat photography field… or something… I don’t know, but her application had a lot of goat mentions.  She is looking for a job, so you should probably hire her right now, even though I just saved her a ton of money with this scholarship AND by switching her to Geico.  The quote that I’m stealing from her, because that was in the fine print of this adventure, and embroidering on a pillow for my non-existent work couch is:

Sure, serious stuff happens, but we don’t work at the Pentagon. Let’s have fun.

“Elmo contacts the Pentagon” or “It’s Bethany’s world and we are all just living in it.”

I’m beyond ecstatic that Justin, Paul, and Bethany took some time to fill out this application, and this process or not, I know that both Leah W. and I are both reallllllllly eager to see these three folks at There’s Something Funny on the 20th!

We also hope to see you there too!  Make sure you check out TheresSomethingFunny.com faster than immediately, register, and bring your Green Book to Revere on the 20th… where we will instruct you to do as such:

*SuperBlogTurboLifeHack: Skip to 1:45 since the YouTube skip ahead embed code isn’t playing nicely*

… oh, we aren’t doing that to Chickering and Kohlberg…?  Oh, heh, my bad.  

… well, in other news… Congrats Bethany and Thank You Thank You Thank You to Paul and Justin, and to them and to the rest of you in New England, see you on June 20th in Revere for There’s Something Funny!

Please find below a post about architecture, something I have learned through osmosis by dating an architect, drinking lots of wine with architecture students, and spending late nights keeping Eugene company while he works on architecture projects.  Architecture.

Step 1: lolchitecture. Step 2: Click the image.

So, when I got on my recent, and still going strong, kick about urban design and particularly how it applied to the urban college union, I reached out to said architecture students and friends for some suggestions.  Both Eugene and Adam Welker (who’s Memory Card podcast you must check out) suggested as my first book on architecture The Architecture of Happiness, by Alain de Botton, a disturbingly heavy book for how small it is.

That physical observation would carry through into its contents though, as well, as Happiness proved to be a short but very heavy, dense, and fulfilling read.  Lots of thoughts about it initially, that have been reformed and reflected upon as I’ve delved into the subject a bit deeper, talking over it with colleagues, reading articles and other books.  So, if you will allow me, I would love to explore some of the concepts in Happiness and how we might be able to connect them with the current state of the urban college union.

One of the first topics that stood out to me in the book was a discussion about what buildings can do to us, how they can influence us, and how it is “architecture’s task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be.”  If that does sound goo-goo-ga-ga student development theory, I don’t know what does.

But sensitivity to architecture also has its more problematic aspects… if our happiness can hang on the colour of the walls or the shape of a door, what will happen to us in most of the places we are forced to look at and inhabit? (p 13)

I think this concept of how the design and feel of a building can affect our happiness or ability to get things done resonates at a time when lots of unions are being renovated or reconstructed, but also budgets are tight, and many campuses are focusing those funds elsewhere on campus, allowing a student center to take on deferred maintenance.  We tell ourselves and we tell our students and our colleagues and the public that our unions are the heartbeat of campus, the student living room.  That’s a tall order for buildings that don’t look it, are not designed to fit the bill for a modern student living room, and what does that mean to our campus’s messaging and support for it’s students?

I currently work in a campus center that is designed in the brutalist style, which let’s just stop and look at that word for a couple of minutes.  Nothing says community like brutalist architecture.  It’s a Boston thing, as our City Hall is also the same style of architecture.

By the standards of a lot of union construction going on right now, the lack of windows and the lack of what I can only call “internal seeing” (I’m sure there is some actual term for it) makes an older style union, especially in the light of newly constructed unions, a less inviting place.  Internal seeing is the ability inside the building for users to see each other across multiple spaces and up and down multiple floors, either via open space or glass.  I got to visit my old stomping grounds, The Memorial Student Center, at Texas A&M this past fall for the first time since graduating in 2009.  The main lobby used to be a confined, tan, 1 floor rectangular hallway space.  No openness, no internal seeing.

This is looking up from the lower floor into the open lobby area of the new MSC.

This amount of light, internal seeing, and space was something I never thought possible after living in the old MSC for years.

The other concept I wanted to touch on that is big in modern union construction is flexibility of spaces, which is also exposed in de Botton’s quote above.  Happiness means very different things to each person, and so essentially, for a union to bring happiness to our students, our spaces must reflect this diversity, these options, these multi-faceted pieces of how people find happiness and how they use spaces personally.  Up until this book, my thinking on space flexibility was all about programming and ensuring union spaces could be maximized for programming via structural flexibility.  Now, de Botton has me thinking about how our spaces actually communicate to our students individually, and whether they say “Welcome!” or “GTFO bro.”

This scene keeps popping into my head thinking about this.

The other piece I’ll get into in this post is the concept of going beyond just a basic functionality in our buildings, as de Botton puts it “we are in the end unlikely to respect a structure which does no more than keep us dry and warm.”  We get even deeper into this with a quote from John Ruskin about how we seek two things from buildings we encounter:

We want them to shelter us.  And we want them to speak to us – to speak to us of whatever we find important and need to be reminded of.

I think this is also one of those themes that is constant in modern unions, the desire to ensure the story of the institution and the students is being told.  Whether its the history or the current events that we hold dear, storytelling through design is a must it seems in current union design and redesign.  Whether it is walls of history, alumni stories, or celebration of campus resources like at the Ohio Union, or it is the recent renovation of the UW-Stout Memorail Student Center which offered a chance to bring more light into a space and to tell the entire timeline of history of the campus through images.  We want our buildings to tell our stories, but also to tell our students they are welcome.

If you need advice on how to tell a story, check in with Ms. Lippy.

de Botton invokes Ruskin again later, saying that

Buildings speak – and on topics which can readily be discerned.  They speak of democracy or aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or threat, a sympathy for the future or a hankering for the past.

How should our buildings speak?  Should they speak in one way only, or must the building balance what it says to honor both the tradition of what it stands for but also the future of what our institutions are shooting for?  I think we can easily agree that they should say “Welcome” but do we know what that truly looks like, and what other values do we want to ensure they are saying to our community?  Openness, transparency, the quest for knowledge, San Dimas High School Football rules?

What?

Ok, it’s not really a debate.  It’s just my opinion.  But, for your entertainment, I shall now determine who will win the World Cup of 2014 based on team kits.

Only the most advanced science will determine these results!

So, to look at how the whole thing will go down, here is a handy graphic bracket showing how groups play each other once the Group Stage concludes.

Click to make big.

Group A: Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Cameroon

Brazil= Home Classic Yellow is classic and looks solid. Away Blue looks nice, and should show up well both close up and further away on the TV.

Croatia= Ignoring the creepy twin effect, Home White Check is legit, and a well-played edition of Croatia’s classic checked kits. I also enjoy Croatia’s away blues with Red/White check side effects. Well done overall.

Mexico Home: I actually don’t like this. It’s just a big meh to me. Like, I can see where they were trying to go with it, but it just seems like a half effort (let’s throw some thin dark stripes on it Yahoo!)

Mexico Away: I can easily say I heartily dislike this kit. The color is just all wrong (if you are going to go highlighter, go full highlighter), and the design, AGAIN, is just lazy.

Cameroon Home: I like it. Puma does a good job with balance, the design looks great up close and far away, and it’s the same design as the Away, which I appreciate.

Cameroon Away: Again, a balanced kit from Puma. Keeps the spirit of Cameroon’s colors, and is the same kit design as the Home but has a different spirit because the drawings on the away are much more subtle.

 Teams Advancing: 1. Croatia 2. Cameroon (which just BARELY beats out Brazil)

Group B: Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia

Spain Home: This is how you stripe a shirt. Plus, Spain gets all the gold since they won in 2010.

Spain Away: It’s like Adidas was like “NEONNNNN,” but then didn’t know where to go from there. Dang.

Netherlands Home: Because Lions. Orange, yeah yeah. Super simple, whuuuut? Not your typical Netherlands kit. It works though for some reason.

Netherlands Away: Minimalist and simple, and yet complex. Yaaaaaaasssssssss.

Chile Home: Simple. Too simple though? Like the collar, but that crest should not be an iron-on.

Chile Away: Meh. Too simple. And the tummy design shows up more on the white… which begs me to ask the question… why?

Australia Home: Classic yellow and green. That collar looks super awkward and uncomfortable though.

Australia Away: Again, another classic navy for the Aussies. The same collar design which I appreciate, but its such an awkward collar.

 Teams Advancing: 1. Netherlands 2. Spain

Group C: Colombia, Greece, Ivory Coast, Japan

Colombia Away: I actually like this. A little close up detail on the chest, mesh highlights to break up the fabric monotony.

Colombia Home: This yellow isn’t terrible, and the design with it is simple but catches the eyes in all the right ways in my view.

Greece Home (white) and Away (blue): Meh. Classic. Simple. Simple. Collar. Simple. Simple. Meh.

Ivory Coast Home: Not bad. Classic Ivory Coast orange. Like the shoulder details, love their stylized crest.

Ivory Coast Away: Basically the same. Green.

Japan Home: Classic Samurai Blue. Love the stylized rising sun textures coming from the crest.

Japan Away: Continuing their trend of a highlighter kit, its the same on the front. I want to highlight a brilliant design on the back of both kits, the classic brushstroke element on the shoulders. That’s care and storytelling in design.

Teams Advancing: 1. Japan 2. Colombia

Group D: Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy

Uruguay Home: Classic sky blue. Love the sun stylized fabric backdrop for the national crest. Just enough good color (sky blue, gold) to make the simplicity seem complex.

Uruguay Away: Thank goodness there is something on the sleeves to break up the monotony. This is too simple.

Costa Rica Away (white) and Home (Red): Same design on these. The design on the chest somehow mirrors Costa Rica’s crest of circles that I enjoy. Classic coloration for the Ticos.

England Home: So white. Very white. Much white. Wow.

England Away: A stylized red kit, with a homage to the English flag with a subtle St. George’s Cross design.

Italy Home (blue) and Away (white): Not bad. Like the Italian colors on the sleeves of the home and the button collar. Love the red and green Italian side piping on the aways. A nice update on their classics.

Teams Advancing: 1. Italy 2. Uruguay (they are being taken through solely on their home kit)

Group E: Switzerland, Ecuador, France, Honduras

Switzerland Home (red) and Away (white): Same template as Italy just minus the collars, and on the home a large Swiss cross watermark, and on the away a design of smaller Swiss crosses. They’re ok.

Ecuador Home (yellow) and Away (blue): Same template for both, which I appreciate. Each with stylized design over the whole kit and surrounding the crest. Not too shabby.

France Home: Nice and simple with a large collar. The denim look is a nod to Nimes, the birthplace of denim design.

France Away: Grey thin hoops and a hipster collar. These are a-ok.

Honduras Home (white) and Away (blue): THE BIGGEST H IN THE WORLD! And that’s all I can say.

Teams Advancing: 1. France 2. Ecuador

Group F: Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Nigeria

Argentina Home: Adidas does a great job on the classic sky blue/white stripes of these kits, with a unique fade design with additional diagonal stripes. Catches the eye.

Argentina Away: The play of horizontal and diagonal stripes here makes for a splendid away kit.

B and H Home: A classy blue home for Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the classic three Adidas shoulder stripe that actually works.

B and H Away: A simple white. Some basic blue templates. Not great. Not bad.

Iran Home (white) and Away (red): They both have the cheetah design, which is a huge cheetah. The red away has a nice extra green design on the chest.

Nigeria Home: Thank goodness it is not just a block of green. Some simple lines and color variations make this worth while.

Nigeria Away: I can’t decide whether I like the brighter green on this, or if I wish they had gone with a darker green.

Teams Advancing: 1. Argentina 2. Iran (yes, the Cheetah won me over)

Group G: Germany, Portugal, Ghana, United States

Germany Home: Everything yes about that chest chevron. Color, design, balance. Yes.

Germany Away: Lol whut. Large hoops to echo previous green versions.

Portugal Home: Classic crimson-ish for Portugal here with not too shabby of a stripe design although it does not translate well to the sleeves.

Portugal Away: Ok.

Ghana Home: That collar is giving me a lot. And… I kinda like it.

Ghana Away: Puma is getting repetitive with these main template block designs doubling as horizontal stripes. But this works out well for Ghana.

USA Home: Yeahhhhh, not bad. Collars, though? *shrug*

USA Away: These have… *cringe*… grown on me. I don’t mind them. They are not bad. *breathes heavily* That was hard to say.

Teams Advancing: 1. Germany 2. USA (beats Ghana by just a teensy weensy bit)

Group H: Belgium, Algeria, Russia, South Korea

Belgium Home (red) and Away (black): I like the design of the Home and 3rd, with the crown overlay and cut-off stripe with the crest. However, can I just say the Away is completely screwed by the selfishness of the kit maker’s logo breaking the sash!?

Algeria Home: Mehhhhhhhh.

Algeria Away: Super Mehhhhhhhhh.

Russia Home: A nice dark red for Russia. The watermark is the Kosmonauts Museum, and on the back neckline is written “Let’s Go” which were Yuri Gagarin’s words during launch.

Russia Away: Continuing the space theme, the blue curve design is the view of Earth from space. This kit is very purty.

South Korea Home: Classic red. Very simple, too simple.

Korea Away: Nice stylization with the red and blue neckline and sleeves. But does not save Korea’s overall design.

Teams Advancing: 1. Russia 2. Belgium

So, let’s recap and look at what we’ve got going on in the Round of 16:

Round of 16

Croatia v. Spain

Japan v. Uruguay

Netherlands v. Cameroon

Italy v. Colombia

France v. Iran

Germany v. Belgium

Argentina v. Ecuador

Russia v. USA

Advancing to the QuarterFinals are:

Croatia, whose kits are just better on average than Spain.

Japan, which easily beats out the simplicity of Uruguay.

Netherlands, who blows Cameroon out of the water with immense design.

Colombia, the shocker of the Round of 16.

France, classic beats cheetah.

Germany, beating out Belgium who is undone by a selfish kit-maker and a third that is the same as their home, when thirds HAVE to be different and completely unique.

Argentina, the multi-stripe action they have going on is magical to me.

Russia, with their space designs are not garish but just right when it comes to designing for an international stage.

So, let’s get to the QuarterFinals.

Match ups are:

Croatia v. Japan

Netherlands v. Colombia

France v. Germany

Argentina v. Russia

And my winners for this round are:

Japan, whose mix of classic and bold, traditional and modern, just makes me smile.

Netherlands, who end the dream run of Colombia.

France, in a very tough decision, that saw Germany’s red black hoop aways sink their progress.

Argentina, in the battle of classic but modern design v. Russia’s idealized and very pretty designs.  Argentina’s design and how their striping interplays on their kit wins out.

So, our SemiFinals looks like this:

Japan v. France

Netherlands v. Argentina

Moving into the Final Match in Rio de Janeiro on July 13th is:

Japan, whose bold design outdoes France’s classical looks at the final hour.

Netherlands, in the toughest decision I’ve made today, but overall, their classic orange is well done, and their away fascinates me.  Argentina just barely falls short, just barely.  This was easily the tightest matchup of of the entire World Cup of Kit Design so far.

So, our Finals pit

Japan v. Netherlands

This is a tough decision, but looking at these two teams up against each other, in the end, I have to go with…

Netherlands

In the home kits, which both have classic colorations (Orange for the Netherlands, Blue for Japan), Netherlands’ classic wins out in my opinion there.

In the away kits, which are both unique, more modern designs (the geometric blue shadings for Netherlands, highlighter yellow for Japan), I again feel that Netherlands comes out on top there, with something a bit more unique, pleasing to the eye both close and from far range, that just beats out the Japanese highlighter away that have been a hallmark the past few years.

So, congratulations Netherlands!  Even if you don’t win this year, you won my fashion bracket!

Final Fashion Bracketology

http://www.footyheadlines.com/2013/12/2014-world-cup-kits.html

To make you all grumpy with me this week, I shall again visit The Architecture of Happiness, which I started going over last week.  Written by Alain de Botton, this was the first book I read in my recent spree of architecture, urban design, and urban studies readings, all hopefully tying in with the greater picture of the urban union experience.

wait for it… wait for it… the bigger picture is coming…

One of the concepts that stood out to me later in de Botton’s book was the concept of home, which he gets into on page 107.  There, he states:

In turn, those places whose outlook matches and legitimates our own, we tend to honour with the term ‘home.’  Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name… We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability.  We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances.

Folks in ACUI I think will get why this page stood out to me, and how the talk of home and what it represents jumped off the page.  In the student union business, we often say our buildings and all that they do and stand for represent the ‘living room’ of campus, a place away from the res halls, the labs, the classroom, for students to relax, learn, work, eat, learn, congregate, nap, meet, plan, learn, and learn.

… not the home I was going for… I guesssss.

While we do hope to challenge views and encourage exploration of ideals in our student organizations (especially being founded on the debate society ideals), we do so in ways that develop and create new opportunities for growth, and in a comfortable environment where hopefully mistakes can happen and be learned from.

What especially sticks out though, is why it is so key that multicultural and GLBTQ centers be a cornerstone and essential piece of the student union experience.  For many GLBTQ students, including myself and many others at Texas A&M, the GLBTQ Resource Center on campus (which was not in the union) was that ‘home’ in the ‘psychological sense,’ because our other homes on campus, our rooms or our classrooms, were perhaps places of danger and discomfort.  To have a ‘refuge’ like a GLBTQ Resource Center housed in a building that is created for that greater purpose says a lot, and is something I think ACUI needs to ensure its members remember and strive for in our work with campus partners and in our renovations.

I’m currently reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, another Adam Welker suggestion, and I found a parallel with something de Botton discussed in Happiness, relating to balance.  Jacob’s discusses at length the concept of ‘urban diversity,’ which gets to an idea of balance that de Botton alludes to on page 195:

Beauty [of balance] is a likely outcome whenever architects skilfully mediate between any number of oppositions, including the old and the new, the natural and the man-made, the luxurious and the modest, and the masculine and the feminine.

The new Emerson College building in LA. Gif via Archinect (link if you click on the gif) h/t Matthew Marano

Meshing Jacob’s ‘urban diversity’ with de Botton’s discussion of beauty through the balance of old and new comes something that urban unions and campuses must actively deal with in how they inform, alter, and add to (or detract from) their immediate urban community.  If our campus border lies on a street with overwhelming amounts of older and classic architecture, does value lie in creating a new, more modernly designed union than staying with the homogeneous design of the area, offering some visual engagement and breaks in the look of the street?  Granted, I do realize that this is only one aspect of what creates vibrant urban communities, but as we assess our facilities and our design, we should be striving for something that moves us forward rather than perhaps keeps up the usual.

Beyond the urban campus though, I think this concept of balance translates well into many union or campus center designs that attempt to balance the old and the new in their buildings.  Coming to mind are UConn’s Student Union and the Mass College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Griffin Center, both of which add new, glass-heavy structures to older, brick-heavy buildings, to mesh and celebrate the old and new, the tradition and the future of what these buildings stand for on campus.  Even simple nods to old structures, such as the Ohio Union using reclaimed wood and stone from the old union to build and furnish aspects and rooms of the new union, evokes balance.  This balancing of the old and new adds a vitality to our environments that engages the user, and opens a book to tell us a story, which is what de Botton wants architecture to do.

I don’t know Davos, just keep reading me the story.

So, let’s go to the next step, and one that seems counter to the points I made above about buildings being a refuge.  Near the end of the book, de Botton introduces the Japanese concept of wabi, which identifies beauty with unpretentious, simple, unfinished, transient things.  He illustrates wabi with stories of Japanese appreciation for the look of unfinished pottery or the look of a moss-covered walkway when Westerners only see a walkway that needs to be cleaned immediately.

where could wabi exist for you? for our students? for our faculty?

Beyond this concept of wabi, which I experienced firsthand over in Japan, de Botton develops around this idea of embracing the peculiar, the out of the ordinary, which, if I’m reading it right, may inspire someone else, or may inform future communities much more potently than our current ones.  “It is books, poems and paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge,” which leads me to ask: why can’t our unions do this?

add some peculiar to the regular. how would it influence the student experience?

How can unions, through architecture, art galleries, involvement experiences, offer up to students “the confidence to take seriously feelings” that they would “never have thought to acknowledge?”  I said above that unions could and should be a refuge, but at the same time, they can and should be a point of challenging and developing students and communities.

Our mission is to help students delve deeper into their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and experiences, and unions can offer up that opportunity with both an environment that supports development but also has elements that challenge them into growth (yes, I’m pulling in challenge and support).  I think even if our unions trend more towards the classical or the traditional, they must have peculiar elements: a room that is exclusively saved for art exhibits, a computer lab that is tucked into a uniquely built space that gives off a different feel than a standard lab with rows of computers, an amphitheater that can serve multiple purposes and as a background in many different ways.  This is the power of architecture and design to give us the confidence to tell our own stories.

What’s the peculiar in your space?

The World Cup rolls around every four years, and it’s a glorious time.  Soccer on the global stage is a thing to behold, but in the beauty of the game, we cannot let certain things get lost.  There is a darker side to football, fed by greed, hatred, fear, and more.  And as we celebrate John Brook’s 86th minute header against Ghana on Monday, we also need to be sure that we are reflecting on all the things that make up that moment, that some of us are privileged to view.

My favorite may not actually be the goal itself, but the genuine and real emotion shown by a player who found himself on the right spot on the right time.

I got to watch this match with Mike Zakarian over at Champions in Kendall Square, where they not only had the windows open, but also had the AC on, they had about 8 large flat screen HD tvs behind the bar alone, and the place features a lot of lighting elements in its decor.

I enjoy this, while Ghana has to slow their economy and borrow from neighboring Ivory Coast just to ensure that the grid can handle the power demands of the country tuning into this match.  A/C? Not even in the discussion.

So, this post is going to be more of a resource share, because I hope that while we all enjoy ourselves in watching each country’s best shoot for glory and recognition of their talent and hard work, we can also realize how footy represents the perilous state our international community finds itself in.

Much like the curve on my favorite goal of all time, I’m throwing a curveball on your World Cup euphoria. Goal from Shunsuke Nakamura of Celtic.

One of the first works on the global atmosphere of soccer which I read while at A&M after a good friend of mine had gotten me into English soccer and I was convinced I was going into International Affairs was How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer.  This book’s tagline is “an unlikely theory of globalization” and it really is more history and sociology, but 100% a great read.  There is a ton of sociology and psychology research out there about the group think that comes with crowds and sports, but it gets magnified in World Cup settings, or in rivalries that have very real historical conflict, both hidden and out in the open, that defines them.  His chapter on Red Star Belgrade is eye-opening on the greed and power of group think in the sport, and is an incredibly important history to understand behind the game.

On the subject of the international, take a few minute to take this beautiful quiz from Slate and NASA and see if you can identify the countries playing in the cup this year.

Did you realize today that as we watched the definition of a perfect 0-0 draw between Mexico and Brazil that multiple people have been murdered and scores more injured in a terrorist bombing in Nigeria?  I saw only 1 tweet about it, and that was from the BBC if I remember correctly.  Why, in a moment of international triumph do we have to be cut down by hatred?  The murder of a soccer fan anywhere is an affront to fans everywhere.

We also all know Sepp Blatter is basically the poster-dude for a lot of what is wrong with FIFA these days.  If you need any sort of introduction to Sepp or FIFA, you should watch John Oliver’s AMAZING breakdown on his new show, Last Week Tonight.  Even if you have seen this video already, you should watch it again.

That video pairs well with this Slate piece on a report that the US was contacted and asked to prepare an emergency committee should FIFA decide to drop Qatar as the host of the 2022 World Cup.  Stahl’s proposal is a good one, a valid one, and may be the only way to end Blatter’s Putin-esque reign over FIFA.

Speaking of the Qatar World Cup in 2022, did you know that hundreds, with some reports saying near 1000, of migrant workers have died in connection with World Cup construction or in connection to poor working conditions in Qatar?  Estimates are that we are on pace to let 4000 migrant workers die so that 32 international teams can play some footy.  We have started wars for much much less.

This last article from Slate was one of the most fascinating I have read so far though, and may be far-fetched, but may not be.  I don’t know if it is because I run in tight Twitter circles, but to me, the backlash against Boston even thinking about exploring a bid for the 2024 Olympics is overwhelming.  Why should we go into debt for a month long celebration in order to get a new transit system?  Why can’t we actually finance a transit system for the people without this extra mess that comes with it?

For a city that is also one of the worst in the United States when it comes to income inequality, and yet still is building many more luxury condos than affordable housing and public transportation infrastructure to just meet the needs of modern Boston, it is pretty presumptuous of city leadership and business leaders to move forward on this month-long party.  Much like the 2022 Winter Olympics, I would be highly interested in Boston taking a special public referendum on this subject, sooner rather than later, so we can save as many pennies as possible to fix our ailing infrastructure and address our failure to serve the poor, rather than try and win the proven corrupt selection process.

Why does the Olympics and the World Cup need to travel around the world?  Can we select an area, close to major transit centers, somewhere in Europe, and build permanent structures that are consistently used and cared for to host major global sporting events?  Why inflict this decision and this financial burden and corruption on a new area every four years?

2008 Kayaking Venue from Beijing Olympics… I do not want this sitting in my Boston Commons… and why are we asking Brazil to build stadiums that will serve no purpose afterwards?

Why.

Hahahaha, you get it? Get it? Because Luis Suarez bites people during soccer, but when you read, you are figuratively biting into a book!!  Hahahahahaha.

Not Luis Suarez.

So, imagine my joy when a couple of cool things (soccer, brackets, and books) all got mashed up into one bigger, cooler thing yesterday when I stumbled upon it: The World Cup of Literature!   Much like my fashion post a couple of weeks ago, this project, from Three Percent at the U of Rochester, pits top international fiction from each of the 32 World Cup countries against each other.  Also like my fashion post, the results are quite different from what’s happening on the pitch.

Via 3 Percent – click to see bigger and such.

I did not recognize like 90% of these books, but they are all pretty much now in my Amazon Wish List queue.  Although, I have been planning to read Japan’s entry, 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami for some time, and will get to it during July vacays.  Seriously, if you have not read Murakami, you are missing out.

What do ya’ll think?  Like the list?  Have ya’ll read any of these?  Go USA!

My reading face.

One of the books I recently worked my way through was John Maeda’s “The Laws of Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life,” hoping that it would not only shed some light on how to make the work of higher education simpler and more effectively meaningful, but also inform some of my love for good design and technology.  I love minimal design, and while Maeda does touch on this, he touches mostly on how to make processes simpler, make technology more responsive with less action, and more.

Most of my .gifs are action packed, but a simple .gif can be just as powerful

Later on in his book, Maeda touches on the aspect of “Trust” when it comes to simplicity in design.  Invoking the fact that technology is making processes simpler by the day because we have put trust into our Gmail’s ability to suggest the correct additional contacts after we type in one name, or we put trust in our phone’s auto-correct system, because maybe our thumbs aren’t the most agile.

As I was puzzling this post out in my head, I told friends that I was about to compare higher ed to the amazing documentary, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.”  I’m getting to that.

Nom.

On page 76, Maeda invokes, as part of his chapter on Trust, the concept of omakase, which can roughly translate to “I leave it up to you,” where you are leaving your meal up to the sushi chef, who is a master of their craft.  They are able to read your disposition, gauge your reactions to a certain piece, and alter their menu to deliver the best possible series of sushi to you for your meal.

This part of the chapter, and thinking on the documentary on Jiro, got me thinking about what simplicity, and particularly trust can bring to higher education and student affairs.  Are we trusted to be masters of a craft, or do students trust us to give them the best possible information at all times?  Are we good enough that students and other folks around the university can say “I leave it up to you?”  Is that what we should be striving for?

Is there something to this in how we advise/connect/collaborate?  Obviously, there is no one-size fits all philosophy to communication with each student or staff or faculty, and what works with your student government president certainly won’t work the same with your programming board president.  Additionally, in my working with graduate students when it comes to alcohol at their events, once I get to know them, our conversation shifts, and the alcohol approval process is simpler, because trust is formed.  Processes are made simpler by trust.  And our field relies so much on trust.

TRUST FALL!

Getting back to our boy Jiro, just as he preps his fish for weeks, getting them to the right texture and flavor, I’m expected to be prepared for upcoming meetings, and there is weeks and months of preparation for a program, because the experience should be just as enjoyable for the audience.  In my job, I serve as a consultant to over 460 organizations on event policy, regulations, and other processes.  Just like he reads his customers, sees how they pick up their sushi, how long they chew, and then adjusts the experience to best suit the individual tastes of each, I hope that I can achieve that ability to effectively read and serve the students I work for and with.  It’s a lofty and pie-in-the-sky goal, but I think it’s a good one.  I think nothing but good experience for all involved can come from it.

I’ve been blogging a lot based on current books I’m reading and how they relate back to the student affairs or college union experience, and if that isn’t your cup of tea… my bad, but…

I don’t know when I’ll get back to writing funny things or things completely unrelated to college unions, urbanism, and other such things as such… such.

So, my current read while riding the T is The Great Good Place, by Ray Oldenburg (my at home read is 1Q84, a book larger than Mongo by Haruki Murakami).

Spoilers.

I’m not even half done with The Great Good Place, and yet, I am compelled to blog about a couple of passages already because it has been overall a great read.  Oldenburg explores the concept of the ‘third place’ in this book, the place that is not our home, and not our work, but another place, where we go to relax, gather with folks familiar and new, and essentially shoot the shit with.  The third place, in history, is the basis of community and is a cornerstone of informed and well-debated views and opinions.  Even though Oldenburg often oversimplifies societal problems, the third place and its decline in recent decades has increased the disconnection within our communities that we so often see today (want an example of overgeneralization – I just got done with some thirty pages of an ode to the 1950′s Leave it to Beaver soda fountain).  Think- complaining about people only staring at their phones at dinner rather than talking with friends and having good conversation – ON STEROIDS! OH NOOOOES!

Which one is your local?

So, you are probably asking yourself… omg, Joel is advocating for a pub in every Union (ok, maybe I am), but what I really want to examine is how our unions can potentially serve as this third place for our campuses, our student, staff, faculty, and local communities.

I found the ‘third place’ concept through this article, written by Loren Rullman and Jan van den Kieboom, where they indicated a third place often has the following characteristics:

…they are typically free or inexpensive to use; food is commonly available; they are easily accessible and proximate to first and second places; one can expect to see regular users; the ambiance is welcoming, comfortable, and playful; rules are few and neutralizing to hierarchy and status; and conversation is the primary sustaining activity.

A couple of passages and thoughts popped out to me when considering the union’s role as campus and community third place, particularly this one in a chapter focused on Main Street USA:

By their definition, a core setting in a neighborhood or community is that place where one is more likely than anywhere else to encounter any given resident of the community… in the common vernacular, [it] is ‘where the action is’

This sounds awfully familiar to how we view our own campus centers and student unions, that they are a hub of activity, drawing students from all areas of campus and academia into a building for a variety of reasons and where they can be exposed to new opportunities and ideas.  Art galleries, events, marketing, post offices, dining, student organization space, finance and ID card offices – they are all likely to find homes in our buildings and are all likely to lure campus community members only to offer them something new once their primary activity has been completed.  It’s where the action is, it’s the hub, the living room, or the heartbeat of campus.

What’s your hub?

So, now that we have a basis for understanding unions as a third place for our campus community, what happens in those third places that benefit our students?  In another area of overgeneralization from Oldenburg, he talks about the negative influence the 24 hour news cycle and television news media has had on the democratic and political participation process in our country.  TV offers a wide breadth of information in an efficient manner, but it does not offer the opportunity that a neighborhood tavern or a union lounge does to immediately “question, protest, sound out, supplement, and form opinion locally and collectively” upon hearing news.

This is something that I think is key for the student union experience, especially in our heritage and founding as debate societies, and especially in the UK context of a student union, an advocating and policy-making body that directly influences the student experience.  The union has to be a place where, with support, views and opinions can be challenged and folks can get out of their comfort zone in a productive way as local, national, and global events play out and become part of the current social landscape.  I’m all for concerts and stuff (and don’t get me wrong, they have their place and I love planning me a good concert), but some of my favorite programming that I have ever done was serving as an emcee on panels talking about What’s Next for places like Libya, after the fall of Ghaddafi, and Fukushima, after the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, and giving tours of 3 Ohio-based panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt while at Wooster.  I sincerely enjoyed the opportunity to continuously engage students who were at the top of their game in topics they cared about, wanted to know more about, and could spend hours talking about.  I don’t really care if we consider ourselves co-curricular or extracurricular in our unions, but we need to challenge, we need to be mindful of current events, and we must help students realize their place and role in what is going on.

The 24 hour news cycle also does not give us the local flavor that a third place can, informing us more “about a school bus accident in a South American country than of the actions of a local city council, which will have a far greater impact upon our lives,” and which we can easily see in issues like local voting rights for college students.

This article popped up in my Twitter feed from another master of the overgeneralization, Jeff Selingo, decrying the fact that the new student union at Miami University features lamps that cost $1035, but offers an interesting perspective into how institutions are funding new construction in different ways.  Granted, any chance most people can get to tack on another #adminbloat hashtag, they’ll take it.

What I found interesting from the article was further down, talking about why we are seeing new unions being constructed nowadays, in the recent financial barren landscape, with more modern, comfortable amenities and services that feature elements more conducive to the millennial student experience rather than the 1950′s malt shop student experience.  Dan Hurley, a spokesman for the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said “With regards to students, those buildings have served as a nucleus of student activities, academic programming, activities, cultural and entertainment activities,” which is backed up by supporting statements from the Miami student body president about its usage and benefit to campus life and experience (granted, how much of the SBP’s statements are scripted… you should read for yourself to decide).

I am not one for unnecessarily raising the bill for students to attend college, and if a union can be renovated or reconstructed to be made a better third place for this generation and the following generations (there is a reason why the field has been screaming FLEXIBILITY these last few years) in a sustainable and cost-effective manner, I’m all for it.  We need third places on campus, for all our constituents, and we in the student union biz are uniquely suited to serve as such.  So, let’s do it then, huh?

Sit down… let’s conversate… wait, how did you just sit in that chair? What the hell? Why? #Riker #dealwithit

I’m on vacation… So… Like go read someone else’s bloge. Or, you know…. Get back to work.

K bye.

I’ve been struggling for a topic for a couple weeks now while making my way through a couple of longer books, and finally settled on developing further a quick bit from my presentation with Jessi Eaton at ACUI’s 2014 Annual Conference.  

So, I present a portion of a longer piece, All I Need to Know About Student Affairs, I Learned from Star Trek, which looks at the USS Enterprise as a Student Union, and how the two can compare in their mission, operations, spaces, and resources.

This is low quality, but perfectly hilarious.

You may be like, zomg, Joel’s gone off the deep end, but just bear with me, this is a fun topic I think.  And yes, I realize there are some significant differences, especially when I have to wait 15 minutes for a grilled chicken sandwich in the food court when Picard just gets to roll up to a Replicator for a “Tea… Earl Grey… Hot.”

So, let’s get to it shall we.

Ten Forward

“Ten Forward is the hub of the ship’s social activity. Everyone on board comes here.“

– Jean-Luc Picard

Ten Forward is a lounge and recreation facility located on Deck 10, section 1 of a Galaxy-class starship. (TNG: “Power Play”, “Deja Q”) Ten Forward has much the same function as a mess hall on smaller starships.

~From Memory Alpha

Freaking Wil Wheaton.

“Data, for the 4th year in a row, since getting Spot the cat, suggests ‘The Cat’s Pajamas’ as the theme for the ship’s annual StarBall.”

My reaction when “holodeck funny gif” only returns super inappropriate, but funny, Riker/Holodeck/Rule 34 images. So, no gif for you.

This is one of my favorite comparisons because currently in the union construction/renovation biz, flexibility is the key for ballrooms/multipurpose rooms/etc. and if there is any space on the Enterprise that screams flexibility, it’s the Holodeck (srsly, think about it: Shakespeare <—> Boat <—> Worf’s Klingon Ritual Space).

We are going through a major look at how much construction or spaces cost these days, and flexibility gives us the best bang for our buck.  A ballroom that can serve in many different styles, structures, layouts, and functions will also beat out, cost wise, a tiered, fixed-seat theater.  That is what the holodeck offers to the Enterprise, a chance to relax, train, learn, reflect, or play a little Jazz Trombone.

You know what I’m talking about Riker… you creep.

So, just like a holodeck, think about if you have a space in your union that is the definition of flexibility, a space that can be utilized for most any event and can succeed in almost any configuration.  This will be helpful in offering space for unique events and more users, and may be more cost effective than other room types.

 

The Enterprise in Crisis

There are no gifs easily accessible of saucer separation on the interwebs.  Not cool dude, not cool.

What am I trying to get at here though?  The Enterprise and the Union in crisis.  Whether is it a major disaster event in our city, a weather related shutdown on campus, or a power outage, often our Unions are the safe place and the gathering place for the campus community.  We often have plenty of power backup, we often include essential systems, we often have dining and food operations, and we have lots of space for folks to gather for safety.  The Enterprise has a similar function, the Battle Bridge and the separation of the saucer section.  In order to save the maximum number of people on board, it is sometimes necessary for a major evacuation to take place via the saucer section and for essential staff to remain behind for the fight or for protection on the battle bridge.

I remember at Wooster, even though none of my responsibilities resided in the campus center, I was essential staff during a major weather emergency, and the gathering place for the campus community for ultimate safety was the campus center.  We are a gathering place for our community, we are there to serve the campus community, and so we need to be well-versed in how to serve our campus during crisis.

 

Would love to hear your thoughts on how the Union relates to the Enterprise, or other sci-fi concepts, and of course, a big thanks and hug to friend Jessi for helping me develop these concepts from the get-go.

Enjoy August, peeps.

I submit this YouTube Video without comment.

I previously wrote about some of my thoughts on Ray Oldenburg’s “The Great Good Place” in July here, and wanted to develop some more thoughts on how the student union can serve as a community third place based on some of Oldenburg’s later chapters.

So, as Great Good continues, the author moves into exploring specific famous third places of the past, like the English Pub, French Cafe, American Tavern, and coffeehouses of various sizes, shapes, and nationalities.  In a section on the English coffeehouse, we explore the concept that the English gained knowledge of and explore through conversation the news of the community and the world, and that the coffeehouse was the end all be all of this service.  Up until the mid-19th century, the coffeehouse was a daily stop for English men to gather, hear the news, discuss, and argue.

Give me the news!

Oldenburg credits the development of home mail delivery, the daily newspaper, coffeehouse owners going for bad business policy, and other factors as the downfall of the coffeehouse.  A quote stood out to me from this section, included from a foreign visitor observing English coffeehouse culture and life, stating “…workmen habitually begin the day [we are talking everyday] by going to coffee rooms in order to read the daily news.”

In a sense, this is sort of what we hope for in thinking about how our unions can function for our campus and our student community.  It’s why we have services that draw students to our buildings (food, post office boxes, printing services) and its why we have unique and pleasurable spaces to relax, connect, and study.  We want to draw the student community in in order to introduce them to new opportunities and the greater involvement picture of campus life, and in the perfect union world, they are exposed to new ideas and perspectives that provide them more context on their academic work and help to craft a more open and understanding student.

Look at all the things you can look at, experience, taste, enjoy! *Neither I or ACUI endorse installing a candy room in your Union. This would cause both gastrointestinal bloat and administrative bloat.*

This transitions well into a later chapter, titled A Hostile Habitat, which explores why modern urban environments and designs are so hostile to these third places, where the community should be able to gather together at their local.

Oldenburg contends that “the modern urban environment accommodates people as players of unifunctional roles… it reduces people… allowing them little opportunity to be human beings.”  Wow, that is harsh.  Borrowing from architectural critic Wolf Von Eckardt, who you know you can get behind 100% because his first name is WOLF (*Does not apply to Wolf Blitzer), Oldenburg explains “what ails us… is not that we are incapable of living a satisfactory and creative life in harmony with ourselves, but that our habitat does not offer sufficient opportunities.  It hems us in.  It isolates us.”

West Wing Walk and Talks are bifunctional, so they are not allowed.  Be sad about that.

But, that’s supposed to be the beauty of the college union – the fact that there are a lot of functionalities crammed into one building, so that students, even if they aren’t that over-involved student leader, are in the building often, and hopefully in a vibrant and active atmosphere that we have fostered, are exposed to new learning opportunities and experiences.  The union fails if it is unifunctional, but multifunctional will take on a different look on each campus (a rural campus union will serve a very different role than an urban campus union), each era of student culture (game rooms and smoking lounges may not be the highest priority anymore), and will need the commitment of the community to ensure it stays updated and functioning to the highest degrees for our multifaceted campuses.

When it comes to our buildings, we have to ask each and every constituent to consider “Does this place offer sufficient opportunities to explore, grow, and live?” and if the answer is no, we may need to go back to the drawing board to better understand what our spaces need beyond just the basic architectural and engineering requirements.  I’m not advocating for over the top everything to please every constituency, but we really have to understand how the environment influences the user, because if our whole mission is based around exploration, we need spaces that encourage that, rather than hemming us in.  That’s what works.  That’s a lot more important than mosaics of your mascot or Starbucks on every floor.

But, uh, your SGA does not need this in their office.

I think I’ve got one more blog post that can come from this book, so stay tuned for that.  It’s about space.  Not Neil DeGrasse Tyson space, but like, TLC’s Trading Spaces space.

So, I’m returning to the Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg again this week, because I’m currently reading Academically Adrift, and I can’t even wrap my head around a blog post for that, because it’s not like I’m…

but more like…

…so you’re welcome for that (I don’t do statistics vs I do story time!).

Where were we?

Oh yeah, back to The Great Good Place, looking at a particular passage that I found interesting which is also from the “Hostile Habitat” chapter that I spoke of in my last post on this book.  In a section labelled A Tradeoff, Oldenburg speaks to a shift in American culture and the concept of the ideal space, quoting architect Dolores Hayden:

The dream house replaced the ideal city as the spatial representation of American hopes for the good life.

Oldenburg also writes that the model city was to be a cure for social ills, but the dream house has emerged since then as an escape from them.  So, we gave up?

This chapter reminded me of the Truman Show a lot.

These ideas and claims of a reversal from ideal city to ideal home is echoed in Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” which I have blogged on previously and which is a must read on these subjects.

I would love to see and figure out how this change in culture, the push to suburbia, and the ideal of a personal home over the ideal of a communal city, has influenced the urban college campus and the urban union, and will have to pocket that question until I get the time to actually get into that research later on in life.

Later on in this section, it gets even more interesting as Oldenburg delves into the changing definition of adequate space was for Americans, stating that since 1950, our houses have gotten bigger and bigger, so that at the time of publishing, on average, the typical American home has 2 rooms for every person, compared to 1 room for every 1.5 people in an Israeli household.

Hey Luigi, maybe if you didn’t have a whole mansion to yourself, it wouldn’t be so creepy.

So, this concept of the larger American space has always kind of fascinated me, and this article from Apartment Therapy caught my attention years ago, and spurred one of my first blog posts on space (and really, one of my first blog posts ever).

There is, of course, a lot that goes into why Americans have so much space or want so much space, including Manifest Destiny, the push to suburbia, a very material culture (think the export of Hollywood and McDonaldization of the world), that is its own sociological endeavor.  One of my all-time favorite books on this subject is Material World by Peter Menzel, which goes around the world to explore what it looks like when families from various countries move all their possessions in front of their home.  Americans are likely to have more XBoxes than other families are likely to have pots and pans.  For a visual learner like myself, this really reinforces the concept of space, idealized spaces, and the importance of stuff for me.

I think this is an area rich for research in exploring how unions came to be built in their current form, and why renovations or rebuilds are needed on 1950s and 60s era unions (think GI Bill).  As cities push the envelope and explore the idea of micro units, what does this mean for urban residence halls and urban unions?  Does our multifunctional ballroom have a lot in common with the newest 256sq ft micro apartment, while our 250 fixed seat theater has more in common with Kobe Bryant’s mansion?  Hmmm.

This…

vs

This?

*Sidenote* I highly recommend the episode of Gadget Man featured below, with my favsies Richard Ayoade, but which looks at the concept of a 12m squared house at about 15mins in.  Very interesting concept and ideal of space.

Hello.  You have probably been directed to this blog post by an automatic posting on Facebook or Twitter.  However, this is not a real blog post, as I am currently at Jury Duty.

If you would like an analysis of my experience, might I highly recommend My Cousin Vinny.  This blog is suspended until I am no longer doing my civic duty of dutiful civility.

Kthxbai.

They said no shorts or tank tops… sooooo… I’m going with this number tomorrow.

Jury Room Reading: Theodore Rex – Edmund Morris

It’s been busy. I also went through a spell of books, some of which were good, and some of which were Academically Adrift, which left my soul and my interest and my creativity adrift.

However, recently, I’ve gone through a series of books, been reading some articles, and been playing some video games that finally got me back on track with the creative kick.

Fallout 3 on PS3

Slate articles related to Project Hieroglyph, a project to use Sci-Fi to create a better tomorrow.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

whoa.

I’ve been immersing myself in a dystopian extravaganza, a rather exciting desert of post-human existence.  The World Without Us helps to inform some of the aspect that appear in Fallout and A Canticle, particularly how nature responds or is unable to respond, and just how bad the nuclear situation could get post-human.  While Weisman does tend to drag and teased my urban design sensibilities way hard in the initial chapter, his look at the response of the natural world to the sudden extinction of humanity (but the very material and hazardous waste future we leave behind) is an interesting non-fiction take on the dystopian story.

A Canticle spends the first third of it’s length getting me all worked up about the discovery of a fallout shelter post-deluge, which is so Fallout, and which I would read all the books about.

I was sort of upset that it wasn’t the focus of the book, and to be honest, it lost me until the last few chapters, which made the book well-worthwhile, and highly recommended.  So dystopian, so anti-“Project Hieroglyph,” and I love it.

I didn’t plan it out this way at all, I’ve just been grabbing books off my to-read shelf based on my mood after finishing the book before it.  I lucked out that these two came together in this order, that I’ve been playing Fallout again, and Slate had been running this really interesting series of articles on sci-fi’s influence.  I do look forward to picking up a copy of Project Hieroglyph to check out how the future of sci-fi can improve humanity, but until then…

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of hosting ACUI Region VIII’s annual Drive-In Conference, which focused on Veteran Services and Campus Community this year, and took place up at the very beautiful new University Crossing building at UMass Lowell.  This was a topic that was not in the usual wheelhouse of ACUI programs, but I was able to rely on the knowledge and experience of awesome presenters, colleagues, and the UMass Lowell Veteran Services Office to make learning happen.

Unlike these puppies, no one was confused and the learning was real.

It was an interesting day, with a lot of good knowledge dropped, especially by student panelists throughout a couple of our sessions.  I think it was a mix of we needed to hear some of these direct observations of student veteran life and experiences, and there was a certain amount of frustration that the student panelists were also looking to vent.

A couple observations…

Don’t recreate the wheel

Throughout the day, a lot of the themes I kept hearing were similar to issues we faced in other areas… first-year student services and experience, orientation, medical affairs and mental health and wellness, and correlations with the GLBTQ student experience on many college campuses.

Orientation to the campus, to services, to the surrounding area, to work-study jobs, are all essential services we provide to our first-year and transfer students, orienting them to these basics of life at a particular institution.  I think what we heard from our panelists was that because our student veterans are considered adults, rather than students, they get lost in these introductions.

One of the things they all agreed upon that was extremely helpful was early registration, at the same time as seniors on some campuses, for a variety of reasons: ability to get classes essential to moving through an academic plan as quickly as possible (which many may want to do), gives them other time to schedule work, appointments, etc once they have their academic scheduled and figured out.

This also goes to staffing.  A lot of frustration was vented by panelists that veteran services at some schools is just a bullet point on one person’s job description, and that forms, processes, and policies interact more with our student veterans than our people do.  You don’t have to add a full fledged staff for a Veteran’s Center if your budget doesn’t allow it, but creating a solid network of staff and faculty knowledgeable about the laws and resources that govern the student veteran experience, so that while they have to fill out all those forms, their experience is guided by people rather than a step-by-step list and policy.

Avoid negative networking

While it seems that a Veterans Lounge is a well-appreciated and very beneficial space need for the student veteran community, giving them a space to be themselves and communicate without a wall up, it can have its downfalls.

One issue to watch is that this safe space saps too much of their time and attention, keeping them from extending themselves beyond that space.  While identity as a veteran should be embraced, talked about, and reflected upon, and transferable skills should be the focus for their development while at your institution, it should not be the sole area of identity development for these students during their time on our campus.  Just like we don’t expect one dimensional development to be the norm for our traditional students, we shouldn’t be ok with allowing student veterans only the opportunity to flex their veteran identity muscles.

Modern 3D movies suck… but development along multiple dimensions of identity does not.

While they may be older than our traditional students, I heard multiple times students talk about how their involvement in student organizations was beneficial to their own experience as students, and many of those organizations were co-curricular (for example, Student Finance Society for one of the business majors).  There is also the opportunity for student employment to capitalize on the skills of management, budgeting, supervision, and more that they honed during their years of service.

While veteran lounges and organizations are an ESSENTIAL support mechanism, they are not the only support mechanism and they are not the only outlet for student veteran activities and involvement.  Diversify the audience that uses these services (dependents, community, faculty mentors, etc.), and diversify the experience of our student veterans, so their understanding of resources and opportunities is broader and more well-balanced.

Get out of their way

No, I’m not comparing student veterans to busses… and the gif I actually want to use is linked to this image… but it has a language in it… so, it’s hidden… but by all means, click through, and get my real bus-drift.

So, take the above bolded statement with a grain of salt.

Overall, one of the best ways to ensure a thriving student veteran community is to stay out of their way – once you have a solid and professional group of student veterans making the lounge feel like home, providing advice and mentorship to each other, and advocating for their own community to campus leadership, you just need to step back and let them do work.  This group of students developed and matured in what could be argued one of the tightest knit communities in any workplace, and their commitment to each other is stronger than my commitment to a bold roast coffee every morning.

None of my gifs are actually veteran related…

Granted, we need to step in every so often to help right the ship or get the train back on the tracks.  For one instance, see Bolded Statement #2.  Some of the lighter issues where we may need to help out include reminding our student veterans that their dress uniform is not appropriate interview attire, as well as reminding them that colors outside of green and grey do exist and would look good on them (this is an actual suggestion from one panel on transition issues – they’ve been wearing a uniform for the past few years and that can wreak havoc on your closet’s color spectrum).

Some of the heavier issues are mental health, family life and personal life issues, and a higher ration of suicide amongst returning veterans.  We are not mental health professionals, but its darn good professional practice that your division embraces training tools like QPR, Mental Health Response Teams, etc. beyond just the folks who hold the Dean on Call phone.  These are issues that the entire staff should be educated and trained on (can we ever be truly prepared?), and not singularly for our student veteran community, but for every student, staff, faculty, and community member we engage with.

So, take some time, assess where your campus and division stands in addressing our student veteran populations – which will continue to grow and continue to bring new resources, successes, and challenges as we draw down from certain engagements – and come up with a P-A-L-N like Sgt. Bilko to support and engage this community in the campus experience.

So this year saw quite a bit of new-ish things for me: 1- a desire to learn more about the urban condition, and to translate urban studies and urban architecture into how student unions on urban campuses influence the student experience, and 2- lots of reading at home and on the T (I count 2014 as the start of that, because the latter half of 2013 was marked by reading all 5 books of the Game of Thrones… which I mean… I guess it counts).

When the T suddenly stops and you rip a page…

The end of the year is a fun time, because all the great book lists come out, and my Amazon Wish Lists grow longer and longer.  Much like the World Cup of Literature that I blogged about earlier this year, finding new books is a fun fun thing.  So, I wanted to recap some of my reads this year, and then throw out some of the lists that I have found useful thus far.

Me at the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse Sale this year…

I’m going to pull this info from my Goodreads, so you can check out my lists over there for more info.

Books that I rated 5 out of 5 stars this year:

Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection – Ethan Zuckerman

A Tale for the Time Being – Ruth Ozeki

1Q84 – Haruki Murakami – This book is over 1100 pages long, but it made my favorites list, which hasn’t been added to in awhile, because it felt like only a couple hundred pages.  Murakami’s style and themes aren’t for everyone, but for some reason, his books suck me in, and 1Q84 is one of the best examples of that power thus far.

How to Be Black – Baratunde Thurston

Bossypants – Tina Fey

The Architecture of Happiness – Alain De Botton

Theodore Rex – Edmund Morris

The I’s Have It: Reflections on Introversion in Student Affairs – Amma Marfo – It reads like Amma is whispering sweet, intelligent somethings in your ear… but in a non-creepy, and respectful of your personal bubble, way.

Yay for 5 stars!

Those were my top books this year, that I read, not necessarily written/published this year, so check them out if you want.

Or not…

Here are some cool lists out there for other best books to read:

Via NPR Books

Via Slate Staff

Via Electric Lit

Apparently, Kid President also has a book thing happening, I dunno.

So, let’s set up a reading date sometime?