More Purposeful and Meaningful Interactions

With less than half of the semester remaining, it’s a stressful time for many. Deadlines, assignments and conferences are picking up. Having more purposeful and meaningful interactions can help limit the angst we experience.

One approach is by incorporating the 4Cs into your daily work and conversations. This is true of time spent with other staff members as well as time spent with students. How often do we need to complete a project or come up with a great idea for a staff retreat or program? How often do we try to get it all done alone?

This may come naturally to those of us who frequently work with others, especially students, face to face on a daily basis. However, many of us may need to be more intentional in our interactions: bringing students on board whenever appropriate is a win-win for all involved. Here are few examples:

• Collaborating with students on a residence hall program can help promote the activity and engage the students, helping them to feel like they are being heard and taken seriously. Something as small as choosing snacks together can work to make all feel more at ease.
• Connecting through social media is always helpful, but are we doing it in the best way possible? Asking students for their opinions will never hurt in this area as we can gain insight and spend less time thinking or worrying about our message getting across appropriately.
• Creating plans and lists can help ease anxiety and stress, but so can delegating. What student workers are around to assist with projects or brainstorming? Being creative can unleash a student’s potential or passion in no time, even when everyone least expects it.
• Communicating, as we learned in our 4Cs training, is the foundation of meaningful interactions. Not many things are possible without communication and that goes for both verbal and nonverbal. How is our body language when a student walks into our doorway and we are busy writing an important email, even if you give them the answer they were looking for?

Taking the time to notice our words, our tone and our body language may seem daunting, but being tuned in to how we communicate will help make collaborating, connecting and creating more productive in the long run.

Sara Gothelf
Athletic Academic Coordinator
UTSA Athletics

Four C's Training Schedule for STAFF (SD 415)

• Click to View Training Schedule for SPRING 2014

Any questions or comments? Please send us an email at VPSA@utsa.edu.