Tag Archives: student affairs

Impossible Shoes to Fill

Posted on July 12, 2025 | 1 comment

“I’m the new dean of students at Ripon College” is a statement that has not been uttered in a quarter century, but I have permission to say it today. Yesterday, my friend and mentor, Chris Ogle, retired after an extraordinary forty-five year career (including the last twenty-five as dean of students), and it is an indescribable honor to be entrusted with the opportunity to carry on his legacy. 

Although I have only worked at Ripon College for a single year and am brand new to this particular role, I have served as dean of students at three previous institutions in three separate states, so it is familiar work. And the succession challenge is somewhat familiar, too: two of the three administrators that I succeeded went on in time to be college presidents, so I know what it feels like to crawl under the microscope. But I confess that following Dean Ogle feels like uncharted territory.

Chris Ogle graduated from Ripon College in 1980 (including and concluding a hall-of-fame athletics career) and immediately transitioned to a full time staff role. So if you do the math and include his four years as a college student, yesterday ended forty-nine consecutive years on campus for this legend. 

The longevity itself is extraordinary, but the person is even better. To know him is to love him. Nobody loves students more. Nobody is more disarming. Nobody tells better stories. Nobody has more historical knowledge. Nobody has more wisdom. Nobody is more beloved. Although he is not on social media, it was no surprise that the press release regarding his retirement generated hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of well-wishes and special comments of how he changed lives and inspired others. The press release also shared that the rotunda in the heart of campus would be named in his honor, so fitting for someone who represents the very heart of campus.

Imagine following someone like that.

Serving as the dean of students at a college or university is a unique experience. My wife once tried to explain the role by comparing it to a high school principal but at the college level. That’s a pretty solid analogy, but there is nothing exactly like it. You get to walk alongside so many impressive human beings at such a special time in their lives, which includes incredible high moments and devastating low moments. It is simultaneously beautiful and heavy work, and I absolutely love it. I know that Dean Ogle did, too.

I am prepared to tell my team and everyone that cares to know that the bad news is that there is only one Chris Ogle. The potential good news, however, I am honored to say, is that working together this past year revealed that we share a common vision for student affairs work, so I don’t think that there will be whiplash when it comes to leadership style. Regardless, a legend has retired, and we will do our best to carry on the work.

Today somehow feels both momentous and natural, mixed feelings in the very best of ways, leaving me in a good place both emotionally and quite literally. In fact, while knowing fully that I have impossible shoes to fill, in a certain sense it feels like my complicated past has somehow culminated in this special challenge at this special time in this special place.

So here we go. If you see me walking around campus wearing clown shoes, remember that I’m the clown; it’s just the size of the shoes that I am learning to navigate.

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Portfolio in Pictures

Posted on June 2, 2025 | 6 comments

I saw Doc Hollywood in the movie theater way back in 1991, but it stuck with me over the years. In fact, I have repeated its storyline many times now, but it wasn’t until a year or so ago that my Malibu buddy, Dillon, recognized that it is basically the same storyline as the 2006 Disney Pixar movie, Cars. Must be a pretty good yarn to generate two popular movies.

I share that storyline often because a particular scene generated a personal tradition that I maintain on the back of my office door. In the original movie, the young arrogant doctor arrived at the embarrassing epiphany that the old crotchety doctor knows much more than he suspected. It was a hard and surprising lesson. Later, after learning that truth, the wise old doctor opens an antique armoire in his office to show pictures of the hundreds of babies that he had delivered over the years in that small town that were pasted inside that piece of furniture. The old doctor explained, “Well, this is my portfolio.”

For good reason, although I don’t remember the specific occasion, I remembered that scene during the 2012-2013 academic year, my second working in higher education, and my first in a major administrative role. It occurred to me then that my personal portfolio — what truly matters — would be comprised of each student that I have the honor to serve and see grow into their respective futures.

At the end of that academic year, I made a poster of a collage of pictures taken with students over the course of that year together. And in a sort of homage to Dr. Aurelius Hogue in Doc Hollywood, in place of an antique armoire, I taped my poster to the back of my office door. I told myself that I would look at it from time to time and remember what truly mattered.

I have looked at it more times than I can count, and I now have eleven additional posters taped to the back of my office door for each of the years that followed. Twelve posters for twelve years at three institutions, all filled with precious people and special memories. And I just received my thirteenth in the mail from my first year at Ripon College. If all goes as planned, there are many more to come.

Old Dr. Hogue told young Dr. Stone (aka Doc Hollywood) during his shameful epiphany, “I doubt you’d know crap from Crisco.” But later, discovering a suddenly willing protégé, he taught him gently that it is the people that matter more than anything. The people — “. . . this is my portfolio.”

That’s what the back of my office door says to me.

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Legal Education

Posted on August 19, 2023 | 6 comments

I answer Student Affairs when asked my profession and Higher Education as my industry. That’s how I see the last dozen years of my life, but the truth is I didn’t realize that Student Affairs was a profession until I joined it. My introduction to this profession came at my very own law school immediately following graduation and bar exam at the unconventional age of forty, but I have had the pleasure and opportunity to engage in such work at two other institutions of higher education since. But now, pun pathetically intended, I have returned to the scene of the crime to work in student affairs in a law school setting,

My law school colleagues use another term of art: Legal Education. That has always cracked me up. We’ll say that we work in legal education, like all the other education forms are illegal education. I enjoy the work. I have enjoyed all three of my professional stops in higher education, but having survived the unique ordeal of law school myself, I feel extra helpful here. So maybe I should just say that my field is Student Affairs with a bit of a specialty in law.

For those unfamiliar, I am not faculty. The academic classroom is the faculty habitat and the centerpiece of higher education, but student affairs professionals are the folks that complement the academic mission of a college/university/professional school by nurturing the formation of mind, body, and spirit in the students outside of the classroom. I love what I get to do.

We just finished “Launch Week” at the Caruso School of Law. It was the tenth annual Launch Week, which was especially fun since I was involved in launching Launch Week a decade ago. As one might hope, others have taken what we started and continued to make it better and better. The original idea was to blow up “new student orientation,” which always sounded sort of optional, and dive into law school on Day One. It was an awesome week. The new students were noticeably engaged and professional, and the upper-division students that volunteered as mentors were outstanding, most returning to pay forward their past experience as brand-new students.

Yesterday, just after the new students’ first real law school classes, we gathered on Pepperdine’s breathtaking Alumni Park overlooking the Pacific Ocean for a barbecue to close out the week. And since I left, the student government added a little friendly competition among the class sections to the festivities, which included a Giant Jenga war, an actual tug-of-war, and finally, a little dodgeball. Law students can be the least bit competitive, and they got into it, but consistent with the DNA of this particular law school, they got into it with laughter and cheering for one another.

I took pictures and was especially proud of a few I snagged from the Jenga throwdown, where it struck me that it might provide a decent metaphor for what is to come. Deep, particular concentration was required of the students as they worked to dismantle and build upon something that seemed pretty sturdy in the first place, and with each passing moment the pressure of falling apart continued to mount. Sounded a little like law school to me. But the students kept delivering, one after the other, while their colleagues and mentors constantly cheered them on.

And then your whole world comes crashing down. Ha! That was a joke! Okay, maybe the metaphor isn’t perfect.

But my profession believes that you can learn some valuable lessons outside of the classroom, too. Even playing Giant Jenga.

Leslie was selected to be the student speaker at her law school graduation in 2015. I have always remembered something that she said: “A lot of people make lawyer jokes, but when your world falls apart, nobody calls a comedian.” This week, 185 impressive humans began their study of law here in Malibu, and it is an honor to be a part of the team that walks alongside them, complementing their formal studies, cheering them on, being there for the challenges that arise, caring for their wellbeing and personal development, and watching them transform into the people that you do call on in your darkest hour. That, my friends, is how I see my work in Student Affairs in Legal Education. What an honor.

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Office of Student Life, Reporting for Duty

Posted on August 16, 2020 | 4 comments

Professional headshots of 44 team members above (6 more team members not pictured) plus pictures of 12 new hires this summer below (still searching for 3 open positions)

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This afternoon feels part finish line, part starting line, and all sorts of consequential.

In the middle of March 2019 my wife and I said our tearful goodbyes to California and drove across the country to a new life in Tennessee. One year later, in the middle of March 2020, I was leading an effort to evacuate as many university students as possible from campus as COVID-19 began its terrible reign. And for the last five months, both I and my team have worked harder than I thought possible.

This has been the most challenging season of work that I have faced, including working through multiple historic natural disasters—and in a real sense we are just getting started.

My university is one of many that carefully and prayerfully weighed all the competing forces and decided to welcome large numbers of students back to our classrooms and residence halls for a new academic year, and the preparatory work to do that well has been intense. Although both my housing/residence life team and security team literally never left campus for a single second—and my other teams have worked nonstop remotely as well—early tomorrow morning is when freshmen begin moving in our residence halls in significant numbers. And this week of move-ins and new student orientations build to the first day of fall semester classes one week from tomorrow.

So this afternoon feels like a big deal.

I am confident that we have prepared well and that we will love our community well, but in a COVID-19 world we have all discovered that we cannot predict what happens next. So I cannot say with confidence, nor should I predict, what the next few months will hold. What I do know is this: regardless of what happens, if I grow to be an old man and sit on a porch someday with folks from my team who lived through these past few months, we will look back and remember with pride that we gave our full hearts along with blood, sweat, and tears—most definitely, tears—on behalf of our students. And what might stand out the most is that we learned that our capacity to do extraordinary work was greater than we had ever imagined.

I find great comfort in that today. To be a part of a team like this is an honor. And knowing full well that the days ahead are filled with great challenges, I am proud to face those challenges with these good people.

Here we go.

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Resilient in Adversity

Posted on March 23, 2020 | 8 comments

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I realize there are a few people who still think COVID-19 is a hoax because I have a diverse set of acquaintances and a Facebook account, but it is safe to say that the reality of the global pandemic has hit almost everyone. And hit hard. No one needs me to list the unpredictable disappointments and challenges that have combined to produce predictable emotions like anger, frustration, grief, and fear. Nevertheless, here we are.

And as we sit in this universal timeout, we find ourselves considering our individual purposes on this planet. For many, like grocery store workers, housekeeping staff, truck drivers, and healthcare providers, there is no longer a question whether what they do is important or appreciated. But as the rest of us reconsider how we work, we are forced to drill down to remember what our work is. I have surely been thinking about mine.

The student affairs profession in higher education exists to complement the academic work of faculty in educating the leaders of tomorrow. We complement by teaching outside the classroom and focusing on “life” competencies. In my new role and with my new team, we identified nine things we are trying to teach—our “mission”—and it is not difficult to understand how each is valuable during this time of crisis. We want every student to be:

* Spiritually disciplined
* Professionally prepared
* Resilient in adversity
* Intellectually curious
* Socially skilled
* Culturally competent
* Physically fit
* Financially literate
* Environmentally aware

Every single one of those matters now more than ever. But today, I am particularly interested in the one that says—resilient in adversity.

Adversity: A state or instance of serious or continued difficulty or misfortune.

Resilience: An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

Well, here we are. Practice is over, and it is game time for RESILIENCE. Even if ESPN is busy showing reruns.

But if any of us needs a little in-game coaching, I offer once again the famed quote from neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, who said: “Everything can be taken from a [human being] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Resilience begins with the choice of attitude—the one freedom that, regardless of any virus, cannot be taken away.

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First Grade for Grown-ups

Posted on October 14, 2019 | 1 comment

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I am one of sixty-four students from around the world here in Alexandria, Virginia, at the 2019 NASPA Institute for New Vice Presidents for Student Affairs. Each of us is the most senior student affairs officer on our respective campuses and in our first two years on the job. That so many of us are here is an interesting statement about both higher education and student affairs.

We were told that this is an institute and not a conference to make it clear that we will not pick and choose among class offerings. No, we will all partake of the same intensive cohort experience, including sharing meals together. Tuesday evening is our only break, and as luck would have it, I get to attend Game Four of the NLCS with my buddies, Steve and Rachel (Go Cards!).

I jumped at the opportunity to be here. When I served as Dean of Students at Pepperdine Law, I did my best to attend the national AALS conference each year because I learned a lot, sure, but more importantly, because of the relationships I formed with people who truly understood what I did each day. I still miss my law school student affairs buddies, but that is what excites me about being here today—the opportunity to connect with more amazing people from diverse places who share the common bond of loving students from the same seat as mine.

I love, love, love diversity. It is simultaneously a challenge to navigate and a gift to embrace. But for those like me who are drawn toward diversity instead of resistant to it, it is worth remembering that we also need those who truly “get” us. What I love about national organizations is that it provides the opportunity for both.

There is just one me, and for that we can all be thankful. But there are sixty-three other people here that have a job like mine, and what a comfort it is to know that and to know them.

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Student Life

Posted on March 25, 2019 | 2 comments

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The plan worked. Starting the new job on spring break week was the right call. New house, new office, new computer, new work phone, new cell phone, new business cards, new driver’s license—even a new car with new a Tennessee license plate—all taken care of last week. But today is the day that I targeted all along: The first day on the job—with students.

I am a university vice president whose area of responsibility is listed as “student life.” I love those two words so much — independently, but especially, together. For those unfamiliar with the lingo of higher education, student life, also called student affairs or student development, refers to the large number of student experiences outside of the formal academic setting. From dorm room to intramural field, from student organization to fraternity/sorority, from career counseling to intercultural experience, from campus ministry to veterans’ services, from student government to campus safety, from disciplinary action to behavioral intervention—all this and more is our world. Student “life.”

We are educators. At times we stand in front of a group of students in some formal way (for instance, I speak to approximately 1400 students in Allen Arena tomorrow!), but our teaching posture is far more often one-on-one, or small group, or even side by side. And the lessons we teach are often the kind that, to risk sounding overly dramatic, the world needs and that you never forget. “Life” lessons.

I am raring to go this morning, and I hope you can catch a glimpse of how I can be so energized about this new work so quickly after leaving such an amazing community two thousand miles away. To put it simply, there are over four thousand students here, and I get to lead a fantastic team doing important work in an exciting place at a crucial time in history. That is why I am ready to go.

Jesus once said about his intent for humanity: “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” (John 10:10, MSG)

Today, on my first day here with students, I aim for that, too. Student “life”—that authentic, permanent, full, and better life that defies imagination.

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