New to WSU Vancouver, Eric Scott arrived on campus last January joining the department of Student Affairs and Enrollment. In this sit down interview before the start of the semester, The VanCougar asked Scott a few questions about his previous work, challenges with his job on campus and his future goals.
Q: What brought you to WSU Vancouver?
A: This is an exciting campus. It seemed like with enrollment growing with the students that I met here during my time on campus just seemed like it was a good opportunity. But, the selfish reason is, it was a promotion; it was a step up and advancement in my career.
Q: Where did you work before and what did you do there?
A: I was a proud CWU [Central Washington University] Wildcat. I served as associate director for recreation and then I moved to assistant director for the sophomore year experience. It looked very similar to the VanCoug Journey.
Q: Describe your position here on campus.
A: My role is to supervise the Office of Student Involvement, the Student Resource Center and the Student Wellness Center. They all have capable directors and managers within each one. I supervise the individual and I help inform what they’re doing but I’m not involved in the day-to-day. I’m also responsible for assessment within student affairs. I am a goal lead for one of the strategic planning goals within the university, which is student success and really to increase the opportunities provided to students. Student conduct is now coming into my position so that is something I’ll be learning over the course of the year
Q: And you’re also a doctoral student?
A: Yeah. One of the things I am curious about is the role of positive psychology. Rather than studying stress and anxiety and everything that makes us worse at our jobs, I would rather study hope and optimism and positivity, resilience; the things that make us best at our job. So that’s what I’m getting an organizational psychology degree in.
Q: What are some challenges that come with your job/position?
A: I think the challenge has been to find the communication strains, the meetings, where the work is happening and making sure I’m a part of those conversations on the front end. This is going to be a long term position for me. So rather than make short term decisions that may be short sided and achieve success immediately, I’d rather get group buy-in, learn from what they’ve done in the past and make longer lasting change. But it doesn’t come with immediate results. So, in the end, what’s challenging about the position is that I don’t always see immediate results.
I see staff for 90 percent of my time. The other thing I didn’t share as part of my role [see Q.3] I co-chair the student success council and it’s tough to focus on student success without hearing from students.
Q: How do you approach/think about the current student government environment, which has already included a cancelled election, a summer interim vice president and president and now a possible senator impeachment?
A: One, I love that the students are passionate and are finding their voice. That’s the thing I don’t want to get lost in this whole process is you have students that care deeply about what their causes are and they’re trying their best. I think as an administrator that there is support and resources in place to make sure students know their rights while they’re going through the process. That’s the role of the advisors and the leadership is to get them to talk through their processes not to manage their process.
It’s really about the students at this point. I think, in the end, it gets people to articulate what their values are, which is going to be a benefit to us going into the next year because we are going to have a very true sense of what student government stands for.
Q: Are these conversations that are had regarding student government at a higher level within our university? You hear about conversations in the Office of Student involvement. Do these conversations work their way up the ladder in regards to your position here?
A: The chancellor knows. The vice chancellors know. They’re all aware of what’s going on because they’re all deeply interested in what the students are doing. The role of administration is to support students. And student government, rightfully so, has been the voice of students and the hub of student activity since the inception of this campus, so everybody is interested in what’s going on. However, it’s not really the role of administration to jump in and say, ‘this is how we’re going to act.’
Q: What is the role of the Office of Student Involvement in bridging differences that emerge from such a charged political environment?
A: I think the only thing that we can do here and the role of the Office of Student Involvement is to continue to serve as advisors; and advisers are not decision makers. Advisers are individuals that you can confide information in, talk out your decisions that you’re going to make. Ultimately, it’s an individual responsibility that students have to engage in the processes that they have. They have to make that choice of ‘this is what I’m going to do’ and it’s our roles as advisers to give them as much information as they can to help make a decision.
Q: What are some goals you have as the director for student development for this upcoming academic year?
A: It would be great to make sure we are well suited to support the students that we are expected to have. So, if we’re talking about enrollment growth over the next four or five years we need to make sure our services reflect the enrollment growth. A five- year plan is something I would love to come out of the next year with. A five- year plan for staffing, for budgeting, for services that we would expand or cut as a result of what the students say they need. How can we focus on what’s essential for the learners that we have here? Then make sure that our growth is responsible for any services that we need in the future.