EAC 651: Internship Tommy Yandle

My name is Tommy Yandle and I'm using this blog to track my internship progress throughout the semester! I hope to provide some nuggets of knowledge, insight to the college process, and self-reflections that help me to understand my role as the College Candidacy Adviser at the Emily K. Center in Durham, NC.                  Enjoy!

[teyandle]

My name is Tommy Yandle and I have the privilege to work at (and receive internship credit for) the Emily K. Center as the College Candidacy Adviser for the Class of 2019 in our Scholars to College Program. Be sure to check out the next post for more details on the center! 

By completing my internship at the Emily K. Center (EKC), I hope to explore ways to be a better college adviser for my students and their families. I have the opportunity to serve 34 high school seniors from the Durham, NC, area through their college process. Though I have been in this position for the full academic year, this spring semester I want to help bridge the students' transition to college by facilitating conversations surrounding preparation for these next steps. I also want to make sure students and families have access to the information they need to make these decisions while providing sound guidance and support within the decision-making process. I plan to continue connecting this experience to my understanding of how universities support and, at the same time, present barriers to students from underrepresented backgrounds. This experience will help to shape my own advocacy within higher education domains.

My objectives this semester are as followed:

Develop financial aid portfolios for each student

Assist with curriculum development for college transition education

Collect and record necessary data (acceptances, financial aid awards, scholarships, etc.) to inform future practices

I certainly hope to continue cultivating an atmosphere full of learning, help-seeking behaviors, and support for my students as they navigate these next steps in their lives!

[teyandle]

The Emily Krzyzewski Center, located in downtown Durham, NC, is one of the best organizations I could have ever asked to be a part of. The mission of the center states: 

“The Emily Krzyzewski Center is a non-profit organization that serves as a college access hub in Durham, North Carolina, propelling academically-focused, low-income K-12 students and graduates toward success in college through its K to College programs while also offering college information and advising support to any local high school student through the Game Plan: College program. Through broader facility partnerships, thousands of additional students and community members use the Center as a place to convene, learn, and grow.

Founded by Duke Men's Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski and named in honor of his mother Emily, our mission is to inspire students to dream big, act with character and purpose, and reach their potential as leaders in the community.” (Emily K. Center Mission, n.d., para 1)

Specifically, I work under the Scholars to College Program which serves students in ninth through twelfth grades. During the school year, students participate in weekly small group instruction and one-on-one guidance by a dedicated College Counselor (Ms. Kiara for 2019, which you’ll hear more about her later!). Over the summer, students are engaged in academic, leadership, and career-related enrichment activities. Students who reside in Durham County with demonstrated financial need are eligible to apply in the spring semester of 8th grade. They then stay with us all 4 years through graduation! 

Our final, culminating event (as highlighted in the picture above) is May March where we honor our students and their college decisions. It’s a time for celebration, joy, and tears for our students, families, and staff. I’m truly honored to be a part of such an amazing organization that is doing fantastic work within the Durham community. I don’t think I’m ready for the waves of emotions, but I can’t wait to celebrate with the Class of 2019 this year.

[teyandle]

The application of knowledge is the primary tenet college advising. When it comes to working with your students, they depend on you to relay accurate and relevant information to aid them in their process of what to do after their senior year of high school. This direct transaction relies on theoretical foundations of how to best support students in different capacities and how to help them be successful in whatever avenue they choose. I have been a gatekeeper of this information to my students within different capacities for the past 5 years. From working with high school students in a small rural town, to supporting students virtually across the country, and currently serving as a college adviser with the Emily K. Center, these experiences have taught me, and continue to teach, the importance of how important it is to apply our knowledge with our students.

This past Saturday (February 9th), I joined 29 high school juniors from Durham (20 from EKC, and 9 from another access organization in Durham, StudentU) on a trip to Davidson College. Davidson was hosting their annual Junior Day event where high school juniors and their families attend the campus to garner information on the college application process, Davidson specific knowledge, and a campus tour. It had been almost a year since I had been to some sort of informational workshop on a college campus. Since starting graduate school, between classes, my assistantship with Poole, and working at EKC, it’s been incredibly difficult to attend workshops, conferences, and webinars at the same rate that I did while with College Advising Corps. What I realized was that this was the first time I have been able to apply my knowledge in an advising setting outside of direct interaction with the students.

Being at Davidson brought about important moments to acknowledge when thinking of the application of knowledge:

College knowledge in general:

I still know what I’m talking about (for the most part)

Importance of continuing the gaining of knowledge. Things change quickly and to maintain telling students accurate information, you have to take the time to listen.

The importance of nuances that are projected by schools

Students asking me questions about if Davidson was a PWI

How are they processing being in predominantly white spaces, how am I giving them the space to think through these out loud?

How are we talking about it in my advising practices and the overarching decisions to attend college?

The importance of repetition

I’m able to recall this knowledge because of the years saying it over and over, but with new knowledge, new lenses and tools, and new understandings repetition is key for ingraining it into my work and actions.

I need to be aware of how my own biases and assumptions are repeated through my actions as well, how this is reinforced implicitly, especially as my role is that of a gatekeeper of knowledge

As a gatekeeper, how am I educating students to take this knowledge beyond the direct interactions?

Being in graduate school and the exposure I’ve received to theories and scholarship is allowing me to see beyond a direct regurgitation of knowledge - a practice I’ve succumbed to in the past and I’m sure still do in various ways. However, I feel as if I am starting to apply my knowledge more. I’m wanting to think more critically of how I relay information to my students and how I help them grow in the reception of this knowledge but can foresee ways to gain it through tools and not directly from a gatekeeper. It is allowing me to think deeper about the actions I take as a professional and helping to push me.

[teyandle]

One of the major components to the Curriculum Nights in the Spring semester within Scholars to College, is the curriculum itself *cues audience moans of an obvious answer*. We have begun to develop a speaker series within the Spring to help assist our students to navigate the post-secondary realms that they will begin to traverse in the following months after graduation in May. It’s been our goal to have representatives from various offices within institutions throughout the triangle to speak to our students and highlight successful resources and important concepts to be aware of as they begin their journey. Though, this curriculum itself has left a lot to be desired from by both students and staff alike. In the previous year, our implementation of the speaker series concept was similar to throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. From the student perspective, it has been hard for us to implement a complete Spring curriculum when they are still struggling to navigate financial aid processes and enrollment decision-making. However, despite these implementation struggles, I went into this semester with a new mindset. With starting graduate school, and being exposed to many new ways of thinking, I knew we could do something different with the curriculum. This thought began my first intentional usage of scholarly knowledge within my work at EKC.

Prior to starting the speaker series, I wanted to intertwine various learning constructs alongside exposing our students to helpful resources and offices. Instead of applying a curriculum in a “let’s just see what sticks with our students” fashion, I wanted us to use this as an opportunity to think deeper. After consulting with the director of another program that is operated through EKC, Mr. Dwayne, we discussed the potential to interweave Schlossberg's Transition Theory to the application of these resources. In Schlossberg’s theory, she offers a framework to examine multiple transition variables; Self, Strategies, Support, and Situation. These variables are described as coping resources and focuses on the meaning systems constructed by the individual experiencing transition (Schlossberg, Lynch & Chickering, 1989). As our speaker series has been created with the intention of helping our students transition to college, we have not been intentional about how that is done. By adding the framework of Schlossberg’s transition theory as a foundation to the spring curriculum, I hoped to provide more substance for our students in understanding how the exposure to these resources and offices can help facilitate their own transition in these next steps.

However, there was one additional step I wanted to take in alignment with many scholarly studies and articles that have indicated an important step for critical thinking: self-reflection. This step, in my opinion, is one that we have not been able to implement fully with our students because of the same reasons mentioned above for our curriculum implementation. Self-reflection has played a large part in my own personal and professional growth recently and I wanted to give our students the same opportunity to genuinely take time to think and write about the information they are hearing We gathered fresh spiral notebooks for all of the students and, on the first Curriculum Night Speaker Series, we began the journey of a thousand thoughts.

First, I began to set the stage to the transition theory. I wanted the students to understand why we are doing this, and how this framework can help assist them in these next steps to college enrollment. I asked them to use these notebooks to take various notes during the speaker presentations throughout the semester, but to also use these as intentional spaces to record their thoughts. Throughout the semester, after every speaker is done, we have tried to take 10-15 minutes to allow the students the space to think through how the resource/office they just heard from can aid in their transition to college. We have asked them to reflect on how the resource/office can aid in the 4 transition variables, and how they can utilize the resource/office when they are at college.

These extra levels of intentionality, with the help of scholarship, have played a tremendous role in propelling our curriculum and allowing the students an opportunity to process it even further. As the Spring semester begins to wind down, we’ve still experienced some struggles in regards to timing, attendance, individual student struggles through other enrollment processes that have limited being present within the speaker series, and commitments to genuine self-reflection, but for some of our students, it has added extra depth to these topics. As some students groan when it’s time for self-reflection, some have taken every second to record their thoughts and think critically about what they just learned. This has been something phenomenal for me to see.

I’ve reflected on myself to see the privilege and responsibility I have to help cultivate these experiences for my students. Not even including intentional conversations about research surrounding first-generation college students, sense of belonging, and activism on college campuses, I have felt a huge sense of growth in my own abilities to serve my students. Being in graduate school and the exposure I have received to scholarship has been transformational for who I am as a person and a professional. My hope is that I can continue to be intentional about cultivating growth for my students in whatever way that looks like for them. I hope to support them through their next steps with frameworks and tools so that they can grasp all of the scholarly knowledge, including their own scholarship, that awaits them with this next journey in life.

Schlossberg, N.K., Lynch, A.Q., & Chickering, A.W. (1989). Improving higher education environments for adults. Responsive programs and services from entry to departure. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?hl=en&publication_year=1989&author=NK+Schlossberg&author=AQ+Lynchauthor=AW+Chickering&title=Improving+higher+education+environments+for+adults.+Responsive+programs+and+services+from+entry+to+departure

[teyandle]

Every Friday at noon, a Google Calendar alert notifies me of a weekly date that I have with myself. I wish it was a Tom Haverford/Donna Meagle treat yo’ self-kind of date, but it is still just as important. This alert is for a standing appointment to update ACCESS, which is our data system we use at EKC. Though it may not be intentional, taking this time to commit myself to utilize ACCESS on a weekly basis has helped to solidify a sound practice of honing in on technical skills that I’ve needed to improve.

While working for four years with College Advising Corps in both in-person and online capacities, we championed the usage of data and operating with data-driven goals. I have learned the importance of recording, tracking, and valuing data; however, I was able to develop those skills in a full-time capacity whereas now, I’m only serving in a part-time role with limited time between graduate school, my assistantship, and this position. At EKC, we use ACCESS to house all files we need to collect for the seniors (acceptance letters, financial aid letters, student aid reports from the FAFSA, etc.) and we record their college applications and the resulting decisions as well. In my limited time capacities, it has been difficult utilizing ACCESS to the fullest extent for all 34 of the seniors. Primarily, the College Readiness Counselor, Kiara, and I utilize Google Drive to keep track of everything we need for the seniors. We keep countless spreadsheets, documents, and folders to store information pertaining to our seniors and to keep track of everything going on in their individual college processes. Google Drive has been like the battery-based electricity powering our tag-team immediate operation, but ACCESS has been our forgotten power source for investing in the future.

This standing reminder I have to update access has been used as an opportunity to remind myself of the necessities of tracking, updating, and organizing out data in an easily accessible way. Though I can be frustrated at the aesthetics of the program or the draining task of uploading every file individually, I continue to try and remind myself how important it is that this data is accessible and organized for the director of Scholars to College and the future senior classes at EKC. Developing data-oriented technical skills that incorporate a forecast for the future has taken a while to trust. Despite it taking longer while I combat my limited time capacities, these skills are helping me to shape my time management. Instead of looking at this as a repetitive task, I see it as an investment in the future. Not only can access (ba-dum-tsss) to this data help to inform future practices of individuals in my role, but it helps to garner the larger picture of what our students are doing and the goals they are reaching. Without the larger picture to contextualize these day-to-day, tedious tasks, it’s hard to spur motivation.

Every day, I’m learning more and more about how these data management skills go beyond transactional tasks. They are helping me to better my work for my students, for the center, and for my own self and professional direction.

[teyandle]

This past Wednesday (4/17), we had the privilege for one of my professors, Dr. Christopher Travers, and a Counselor in Student Health Services, Bradford Hill, come and speak with our seniors as a part of their transition curriculum. As amazing professionals, they were able to bring so much knowledge, experience, and skills to the table - especially inclusive practice skills. They shared so many words of wisdom and advice for the students in regard to empowering their own consciousness surrounding mental health. However, it was one exchange with a student that I continue to think about today.

The conversation started to circulate around the normalization of asking for a different therapist if one doesn’t feel comfortable with their therapist or if they would prefer someone who holds a shared identity. As one student began to talk through a rationale of how to ask and justify that change, Dr. Travers responded with an extremely profound and simple affirmation. He told her, and the rest of the seniors, that she doesn’t have to justify or explain herself for feeling that way. It was such a simple exchange, but it hit an emotional nerve deep inside of me.

In my role, I think a lot about the identities my students hold and allowing them to amplify these identities in various aspects of the college process, but also in life. Honoring this validation of self within our students has been so important to me. I hope to provide them a space of empowerment where they can cultivate and grow in their self-worth. Even if they don’t have the tools to always articulate it (I’m barely just now learning this at 26 and struggle daily) but there is so much emotion enveloped within seeing them grapple with these constructs while building and shaping the identities they hold.

I have to be incredibly aware of my own multiple privileged group identities in these spaces though. As these students open up to me and share their stories (which is especially applicable during essay writing for applications), I continue to reflect on how I validate their experiences, affirm their feelings, and make sure to not say anything that may be contradictory and undermind what they’ve expressed. Especially as a white male, it’s also been important for me to recognize this and be transparent with my students. I will often be the first to acknowledge the privileges I hold and that when giving advice, this is the lens that I am sharing from. This is when I try to lean on empathy and building a connection with my students. But most importantly, not asking them to explain themselves, validating their experiences, and building space for them to be vulnerable is something I’ve been able to recognize even more this semester and hope to continue cultivating in the future.  

In higher education, we talk a lot about inclusion in our work. It’s safe to say most institutions, offices, and programs will highlight that they champion this construct, but it was in this moment, in a classroom with high school seniors, a counselor, and my professor that I witnessed a pure gravitational pull of inclusion. I felt my students feeling a sense of welcome, a sense of belonging, and a sense of comfort in navigating this microcosm of mental health. As I continue to grow into a better professional each and every day, I know this is something I will hold on to forever. I’m incredibly grateful for my students, the individuals who pour themselves into this work, and genuine moments like these.

[teyandle]

Across the country, May 1st is known as Decision Day because it is the day that most institutions require a student to notify them if they choose to accept their offer of admission. As we have worked through the Spring semester getting closer and closer to May 1st, one of the most important items on our to-do list with the seniors is to conduct what we call Decision Meetings. During these meetings, we speak to our students and their families about their enrollment options, the financial aid packages provided, and any questions on the next steps of their process.

One of the best parts of these meetings is the ability to sit down with our students’ families. We host a parent meeting once a semester and this is usually the only time we have the ability to speak with them outside of small interactions when the students are picked up from the center if they do not drive. However, one obstacle that I’ve faced in creating meaningful interaction in these limited capacities is that many of our students' parents and guardians that come to the center speak English as a second language or primarily speak Spanish. Despite this obstacle, the limited interactions allow for the smallest of small talks, quick smiles, and then waves of goodbyes. Being able to hide behind those sporadic moments has given me the outlet to avoid awkward fumblings with words, the tiptoe of how to speak our thoughts, or even the confrontation of expressing feelings. Initially, I began to think that in these decision meetings I would be forced to run into a brick wall that is a language barrier. Where we would fumble with being able to fully communicate with my students and their families as we cover hefty topics, higher education jargon, and navigating feelings of change and transition. However, as they continue to go on, I have been allowed to see the privilege of connection beyond language.

Communication is at the heart of interpersonal skills. Within this ability to communicate, language gives us a tool to do just that. I’ve been exposed to the Spanish language throughout most of my life in education, but even more recently I’ve been attempting to be more intentional about how I absorb the words and the intent behind them. Though my Spanish speaking ability is extremely limited, I can usually pick apart words and phrases to gain a general understanding of the conversation. I am lucky that my co-worker who supports the Class of 2019 in a full-time capacity identifies as a Latina woman and Spanish was her first language. Her ability to connect with our students and families transcends words, and I’ve seen this in every single decision meeting thus far. Despite my lack of Spanish speaking ability, she’s checked in with me on how we wanted to navigate some of our decision meetings where the families would absolutely rather speak Spanish rather than placate me as the only non-Spanish speaker in the room. We decided that spending time translating back and forth would be just fine to navigate, but it might hinder the natural flow and depths of our conversations. So, we both agreed that if there’s something I don’t understand, or if there is something I want to directly communicate, we can take the time to translate, but we will lead with the assumption that everyone in the room is on the same page.

This was a moment for me to recognize the privilege that I hold in predominantly white spaces where English is a common language. In these spaces with our Spanish speaking families, I needed to check the privilege I held in a communication domain. For us to provide a natural space for them to communicate was incredibly impactful for me. I’ve been able to continually reflect on how empathy transcends a verbal language that we can share. It’s seen in a mother’s demeanor who is nervous for her first child to leave the nest. I’ve had the opportunity to feel the pride a father has expressed in their student for being the first in their family to go to college. We’ve seen brothers and sisters look up to their graduating older sibling with a light of direction, joy, and hope that we can only imagine what transcends beyond all dreams of what the future can be.  

Even selfishly, it’s taught me so much about submerging myself into the things I do not know and to combat the fear of unknowing. Instead of staving off an awkward fumbling of words, I’ve taken it upon myself to not only be more proactive about learning another language, but to share intangible interactions of eye contact, a hug, or even a nod of reassurance. I continue to think about what Charlene Carruthers told us in her keynote speech a few weeks back. Our collective liberation is not about building parallels, but it is about building connections. I’ve been honored to be in a space where interpersonal skills go beyond all soft skills one can learn. I’m privileged to be in a space to go beyond language in efforts to aid our families. I could not do it without the support of Kiara, my other coworkers at the center, and the willingness of our families to come to the table in support of their student.

[teyandle]

In my previous and current work experiences, I have had the opportunity to learn from many great leaders and work in some phenomenal places. Workplace culture is something so incredibly important to me as I think about the complexities of social justice in college access and a commitment to supporting our students. My supervisor at EKC, Camille Wilson, is someone who embodies these values and more organizational leadership skills than I can even mention. She’s allowed me to understand that, yes the organizational culture is important, but it’s how we as leaders, supervisors, and employees shape that culture

Though I would say mentorship is something that I have yet to find, I am not disillusioned by the strong and powerful women I have had the opportunity to learn from. Specifically, in this role, Camille has taught me so many things in the past 2+ years I’ve been working with Scholars to College. She lets the mission of EKC drive our work and is never afraid to put our students and their families first. With four different cohorts (roughly 120 students) to help manage as an Associate Director, alongside supervising four full-time College Readiness Counselors and a part-time College Candidacy Adviser (me!), she is constantly strapped for time and capacity with so much to manage. However, I’ve never seen someone value every single interaction with students, families, and staff as much as she has. Maybe it can be credited to her counseling background, but I attribute this to her leadership. She leads by example every single day, and the kindness and empathy that exudes her work, despite being stretched to capacity, is awe-inspiring.

I see how her leadership has stretched to her staff in so many ways. Even though I’m a part-time employee, I’ve never felt more included and ingrained into an organization. She truly allows us to feel like a family, and we, in turn, celebrate one another. She will be the first to say that we’re just as much as a part of her family as her husband and child are. It helps that we are all driven by a mission to support our students, but there are times when this work is completely draining and even taxing to one’s own mental health. However, it has been this support system, this staff, and this cohesion that has been sowed and reaped upon by our fearless leader that has shaped it all.

We had the opportunity to surprise Camille for her birthday (birthday dinner pictured above!) and it was hard for us all to conceptualize how much she truly means to us. Specifically for me, I can’t thank her enough for the chance to be in this organization and have students profoundly impact my life. I’m grateful for the leadership she embodies, the empathy she leads with, and the heart that she continues to invest in the work every single day. I hope that wherever I professionally end up, I can be an ounce of the leader that she is. Everyone is not perfect, this is true, but when I think of leadership, I think of leading with one’s authentic self. Every single day I’m working to understand what my authentic self looks like, but to witness someone like Camille being their full selves every single day is something that I can’t even express how grateful I am for.

I just hope that I can lead a life that honors her and the trust she puts in me.

[teyandle]

When applying to graduate school, I knew I wanted to learn more about higher education so I could be a better resource for my current students, and the future ones I will work within whatever capacity that may be. I’ve been privileged to have access to these spaces of higher learning, and I’m thankful for my college education helping to spur me to be where I am today. That’s primarily the reason I became involved with college access to begin with. I recognize the privileges that allowed me to operate more fluidly in gaining access to these spaces, but I also recognize it was a struggle trying to navigate it all being the first in my family to go to college. I spent most of my time following what my friends were doing and trying to tell my parents what I needed to do without their full comprehension of the process. However, their support was always there and it’s something I could not have done without to be where I am today.

This foundation is what continues to drive me as I support students to this day. Working with College Advising Corps, both in a high school and then virtually, allowed me the opportunity to help support high school students figuring out what their next steps are and to be the resource that I needed. I wanted to provide that unconditional support my parents showed me, but with the college knowledge capital that I so desperately sought. Working at the Emily K. Center has allowed me to do this and so much more. With the intentionality behind each interaction I have with my students, to the support our staff will go above and beyond to provide, the center has been a space where my professional and personal ethics have aligned seamlessly.

However, more recently I’ve been existentially grappling with my role in higher education as I help support students into these domains. The more I learn about it, the more I understand its faults, the inequities that exist, the problematic origins, and the commodification of underrepresented students, like my seniors at EKC, in these higher education spaces. More importantly, I’ve been asking myself if I’m not only helping my students to see and navigate the pathways into post-secondary opportunities but am I helping provide the tools to navigate spaces that haven’t always been cultivated for them?

I’ve brought up this concept a lot with colleagues, cohort-mates, peers, and individuals I look up to in higher education, and it’s something that many of us are struggling with. Ethically, I’ve questioned if I have been preparing my students for these next steps and how I can I do this better? But one piece of advice has stuck with me and continues to ground me without losing sight of my goals to be a resource for students. Dr. Travers spoke to me once and said instead of tackling the larger system, we can only control our spheres of influence. It is in these spaces, that we can have the most impact; with our family, friends, colleagues at work, the students we work with, etc. I was trying to conceptualize my spheres of influence and it really sank in on one particular occasion.

On January 21st of this year, I was honored to help support some of our EKC students in a local MLK Day of Service event. We volunteered with a local program, Keep Durham Beautiful, that advocates for and creates green spaces in communities that historically have been neglected due to redlining and gentrification. We spent a few hours planting trees and bushes on sidewalk areas, near individuals’ homes, and in community spaces. It was a sobering moment to think about how most of the beautiful wooded areas and neighborhoods in Durham are those centered around White families and access to these White spaces. This was a moment for us to ever so slightly reclaim the equity of the physical landscape and environment for the individuals living in this community.

There weren’t many seniors there, but I spent a majority of my time with three seniors, Gustavo, Leo, and Alexis (pictured above). During this time I spent with my students, we didn’t talk about college. We didn’t talk about the schools they were accepted to. We didn’t talk about how senior year classes were going. Working alongside them, we spent these precious hours talking about ourselves, laughing at jokes, and relishing in the cultivation of community. We even spent our time talking about philosophy (I’ve been teaching them about epistemologies), what it means to be human, and practicing and experiencing empathy for ourselves and others. I couldn’t help but think how proud I was to be in a positive space, doing work for our community, while having the opportunity to see these young adults be a part of something so much larger than ourselves.

As I continue to grapple with higher education and the perpetuation of inequality, this story is a part of my professional ethics. I know the beauty of connection with my students. I know the incredible value college has brought to my life and the education they seek to amplify their own. These are the moments of connection that I strive for which go beyond classroom walls. This is where our spheres of influence are truly impacted. I will always be grateful for this chance, privilege, and opportunity to work with these students because I don’t know what I would do without them.