Student Life

Looking through all the posts, I really was surprised by the absence of any Residence Life perspectives (for those of you unfamiliar with the Puget Sound lingo, Residence Life basically equates to RAs). As there are over fifty RAs—or other acronym varieties such as RCCs or GHCs—on campus, I expected at least one to have beat me to the Official Puget Sound blog. Alas, that burden falls on my shoulders.

First of all, for all you who are still wondering what an RA is, here is the definition from ResidentAssistant.com:

1. 1. A RA, is a student who lives in a university residential facility and acts as a resource for the students on their floor or in their area of the building.
2. 2. RAs play a key role in creating an environment for students that is conducive to academic, personal and social growth.
3. 3. RAs develop social, academic and cultural activities for their residents.  A RA is a friend, resource, mentor, role model and community leader in their hall.
4. 4. RAs develop strong leadership and interpersonal skills which build them into strong leaders and give them skills they can use for the rest of their lives.

   

These are the ideal characteristics, but label “RA” usually is accompanied by a variety of unflattering connotations, such as the “Fun Police” or “Dorm Cops.” Since RAs have the unfortunate job of making sure the residents are abiding by school policy—which includes no alcohol or drugs—the “us against them” mentality is a hurdle any RA must deal with.

Now, every RA takes a different approach to getting acquainted with his/her respective floor(s). Some will go door-to-door with cookies or gifts. Some will make it a point to formally introduce themselves to each resident on the first day with a handshake. Some will just leave their door open and hope that the residents wander in.

And some play poker.

For the past two years, I’ve had an all-male floor; thus, the dynamics I have to work with are much different than most RAs. Personally, I have grown up around card games. I learned Bridge, Hearts and Cribbage before I was seven years old. I am the four-time defending champion of our family’s annual Thanksgiving Cribbage Tournament. I enjoy pretty much any card game, from Rummy, Gin, 500, Pinochle, Spades, Five Crowns, etc. etc. etc. And only a few years back, I discovered poker—perhaps the most socially-enjoyable game of them all.

The champion of the first tournament

So poker became a weekly thing on my floors. Residents would come out, enjoy each other’s company, trade a bit of banter, and compete for a spot in the End-of-Semester Tournament. (Video links will be posted at the end).

Spring Semester 2010 Championship Game

That worked great last year, but this year’s floor preferred another game: Hearts. An RAs job is not to tailor the floor to his/her own interests; rather, it is an RAs job to cater to the floor’s interests. So this year, while I didn’t personally participate as much as last year (partly due to my other commitments), the floor played Hearts on an almost daily basis. At least for my floors over the past two years, cards have been an integral part of the community.

Hearts Championship, Fall 2010

And like last year, we still have End-of-Semester Hearts Tournaments. You better believe that I’m hungry for another victory a few weeks from now.
(Important Note: No money is ever exchanged at these games–they are played strictly for the ‘love of the game’ and ‘competitive spirit’)

And you thought this blog was going to be entirely about ASUPS? Well, I guess I gave you ample reason to believe that—but fear not! There are plenty (errr…at least a few) other things in my life worth posting on a blog for the entire world to read about. Such as Kids Can Do!

Look how safe I am, two hands on the wheel...

I’ve been a part of Kids Can Do since the beginning of this year, and it has been one of the more rewarding experiences I’ve had at Puget Sound. It is a mentoring program sponsored by CIAC (Community Involvement & Action Center) that pairs current students with kids around the greater Tacoma area. Basically, I get to hang out with this awesome 8-year-old (his birthday was two months ago, and I may or may not have attended his party) once a week.

I guess he was hungry.

While there are some deep conversations and life-changing moments for both of us, it usually is just us spending a few hours each weekend finding fun activities to do. Almost every time I walk away with new energy and optimism—which is good, since I usually have to spend the rest of the day doing homework.

Hide and Go Seek, anyone?

Anyways, since you’re probably tired of reading about it, how about some visuals? I can honestly say that I didn’t take any of these–they were all courtesy of an 8-year-old with an incredible knack for capturing truly-scintillating moments (such as the one below of Brendan Witt, for some reason looking away from the field).

His first Lacrosse game!

(I’m not going to post his name and/or any pictures of him, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy photos that he took!)

No clue what this was...

(Hope you enjoyed this week’s post!)

Until next time,
Marcus

Spring Break was the first time it hit me.

Spring Break began two days after our inauguration. Inauguration was incredible—both my parents came up, great food was served, President Thomas gave a unique introduction (you had to be there), thank-you’s and pats-on-the-back were shared around the room, and everyone left feeling good, excited about what was to come.

Two days later, on a Saturday morning, I keyed into the office at 9:00am. I had been in a few times before, but this time the office was empty. I went to my office, sat down behind my desk, and began to _______.

No amount of transition or instruction beforehand can adequately prepare you for this position. It is a learn-on-the-go job. Many jobs work like this, with the expectation often being that with time one will improve his/her performance.

But the ASUPS President (and all other Exec positions, for that matter) has only one year in office, and needs to figure it out on the go, diving in immediately. And at that moment, sitting in my empty office at the beginning of Spring Break, I realized how steep the learning curve was going to be.

It's Gotten Easier to Use This

And a month later, I’m happy to say that a lot of the discomfort has faded away. It doesn’t weird me out anymore to sit at a desk with my name embossed on a placard sitting across it, or to hand my business card to someone rather than writing down my contact information. As I mentioned in my last blog, self-aggrandizing is not a natural characteristic of mine; thus, getting acclimated to the little things like business cards and placards was a symbolic stepping stone to feeling comfortable in meetings with President Thomas and Dean Segawa.

A Rare Sighting of President Thomas from my Office Window

It hasn’t been without its fair share of bumps and bruises, though. The balancing of school, ASUPS and ResLife is quite a tall order, one that tends to induce much more stress than I’m used to. Hiring is an exciting process for those you get to ask to be part of your team, but it is never easy to turn away capable candidates who were enthusiastic to be part of ASUPS. And in the past week, I got to experience firsthand the limitations of the public forum for my job.

After being drastically misquoted in The Trail and inaccurately painted as intolerant of the LBGTQ community, my gut reaction was to defend both ASUPS and myself as loudly and publicly as I could. Personally, I am not one to let my character be attacked without defending it (I don’t believe I’m alone); however, my personal instincts had to be set aside. Instead of shouting back, I decided—after talking to multiple mentors—to turn the cheek and take the hit without responding. It was more important not to let the issue escalate, and to remember that it was not worth risking relationships that our administration still looks forward to building upon collaboratively in the future. There was a better, more productive way to go about resolving the issue–and I’m really happy with the way we ended up handling this.

It wasn’t easy, but looking back I truly believe that this is an example of the growth our administration has attained in its first month. Part of being a representative of the student body means placing the best interests of ASUPS and the student body in front of our own individual desires—no matter how hard it is at times.

...so we still goof around at times. so what?

I’m still learning how to do this job, just like the rest of our Exec team. The clock is ticking, and I have a feeling that March 10th, 2012 will come a lot faster than we could ever prepare for. But it’s nice to see evidence of progress, no matter how frustrating the job can be some days.

Hey everyone.  I’m new at this whole journaling/blogging thing, so please have a bit of patience while I get my bearings over the first few posts.  I’m not really a technology whiz, and you can confidently expect more than a few HTML mishaps and mistakes.  Yet while I’m not usually a proponent of the “practice makes perfect” aphorisms, I think in this situation it actually applies.  At least a bit.

Anyways, moving on from the apologetic introit.  My name is Marcus Luther, and in case you didn’t know—and I know that most don’t—I’m the new Associated Students of the University of Puget Sound President (we’ll use the term ‘ASUPS’ from this point forward, to avoid arthritis).  Don’t worry, though, that this journal/blog will consist entirely of ASUPS propaganda and event notices; that is not the goal.  I simply hope to convey what life is like for a student in this position, what my normal day is like, how the ASUPS office works, some of the issues that come across my desk, and how it impacts the rest of my life.  If you’re yawning already—well, we’ll get back to that later.

So how does one become ASUPS President, one might ask?  Well, since I was twelve years old and watched The West Wing for the first time, I knew that my life goal was to be student body president of my eventual fill-in-the-blank uni

Awkward-Smirk Photo

versity.  From that point forward, everything I did was geared towards eventually assuming the seat I now occupy: practicing shaking hands, giving grandiose speeches into the mirrors, making my own business cards with Sharpe markers and construction paper, etc.

Kidding.  Though I’m addicted to that show.

Honestly, I came to Puget Sound to play baseball—I had no preconceived, student government ambitions.  Actually, until Garner Lanier approached me last semester, I really hadn’t thought much about the position.  I have been involved in Residence Life the past two years, am involved in numerous activities, am a member of Phi Delta Theta, etc.—basically, I have a full schedule already and wasn’t looking to take more on.

But being good friends with Dan Miller (the past ASUPS President), I got curious.  I started having conversations with all the current Execs, some faculty and administrators, and a lot of my closer friends.  The more I learned, the more I started wanting a chance to fulfill this role and make a difference on campus.  Thus far, my college experience has been an irreplaceable asset in my life, and I’m infinitely grateful for the opportunity I’ve been afforded—I saw ASUPS as the best way to give back.

Awkward-Laughing Photo

So after getting excited, I worked with Garner to make it happen.  This was a long, rigorous phase (despite the lack of opposition, we treated it as if it were a nail-biter election) that included forming a campaign platform, learning more about individual position requirements, speaking to student groups, creating/putting up posters and Facebook groups, and more.

By the way, I hate taking campaign photos.  Actually, I hate taking photos in general.  Doing a three-hour photo shoot around campus was like having my teeth pulled, then going to the doctor and getting multiple vaccination shots.  And seeing those photos around campus over the next month?  That was like swallowing a five-pound pill twice-a-day.

I’m not a big self-promotion guy, especially via photos/posters.  However, that’s part of the job, especially the election part.

After all that, we were elected.  And then inaugurated March 10th.  And that is how I got here.

In essence, the process simply consisted of me getting interested, educating myself about the potential opportunity, then spending three months making it happen.  I would definitely encourage anyone interested in running to really consider it, and to talk to as many people as possible (including me!) about whether or not it is the right opportunity for you.

Thus far, it has been an incredible experience.  And I cannot think of a better way to give back to the school that has already given me so much.