Implementing Life Design in the Career Center and Beyond

Meredith Metsker:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Career Everywhere podcast. I’m your host, Meredith Metsker, and today, I am joined by Kerry Spitze and Steve Russell, both of Bowling Green State University. Kerry is the Associate Director of Career Connections, and Steve is the Assistant Vice President and Executive Director of the Kuhlin Hub for Career Design and Connections. Thank you both for being here.

Kerry Spitze:

Thanks for-

Steve Russell:

Thanks or having us.

Kerry Spitze:

… having us.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I’m super glad you’re here, and I am really excited to talk to you both today about how Bowling Green is implementing this concept of life design from the top down campus-wide. As we’ve talked about in a previous episode or two on this podcast, life design and Career Everywhere really go hand in hand.

They’re both all about making sure students are thinking about their career and life after college as early and as purposefully as possible. So I’m so glad you both are here to tell us everything that’s going on at Bowling Green. So before I get into my questions, is there anything else either of you would like to add about yourselves, your backgrounds, or your roles there at Bowling Green?

Steve Russell:

I don’t think there’s anything on my end. I think it’s a common phrase around BGSU that you don’t design alone. So, hopefully, we’ll share with you today just a little bit about our partners that really support Kerry and I to do a lot of this work.

Kerry Spitze:

Well said Steve. I’ve got nothing else to add.

Meredith Metsker:

All right, perfect. Well, before I get into the more specific questions about our topic today, I do want to kick us off with a question I ask all of our guests. And that’s, what does Career Everywhere mean to you?

Kerry Spitze:

I think actually it’s very literal. I take it very literally. Career truly is everywhere. So what we do in every aspect of our lives can be considered our career in a very broad sense. So, literally, everything that we do has an impact. Within higher education, career happens at all points of the student experience.

So it’s not just a concept that is discussed or handled in the career services space but really is going to be addressed inevitably at every level in multiple spaces. So because it’s everywhere, we really can nurture that awareness. We can empower our partners and our students to have those conversations to leverage career development and really make sure that we’re working to be an integrated campus.

Meredith Metsker:

Well said. Steve, how about you?

Steve Russell:

Well, I think Kerry hit the nail on the head. When I think of Career Everywhere, I try to view it now on this campus as really this concept of life design being everywhere. And from my perspective, that takes an even more macro view of understanding some of the principles of life design and applying them everywhere, which I think just simply the only difference is that sets a preparatory tone for the career conversation. So the more we use the same language around life design with our students across a campus, whether that be faculty, staff, administration, the processes we run, I think that is what sets us up for Career Everywhere.

Meredith Metsker:

Great. Love both of those answers. All right, so to get into our topic for today, let’s start off with some context. So can you walk me through what Bowling Green’s strategy is when it comes to life design?

Steve Russell:

Yeah. I think the strategy behind life design has even predated Kerry and I and we’re coming to a campus where President Rodney Rogers acknowledged that this could be a differentiator for BGSU to embrace the entirety of the student experience through kind of a mechanism that is life design. And so he has spent time with the folks at Stanford, understanding their processes. We have some wonderful partners.

My counterpart in our Radbill Center for College and Life Design, Adrienne Ausdenmoore, is very well-known in that space. And so we’re actually coming into a model where the concept of life design permeates all of campus but very intentionally through two particular units. So our Kuhlin Hub is kind of one half, if you will, of a set of sister centers on campus delivering this from really transitioning to college for a student and then throughout their experience as well as then transitioning beyond college.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Kerry, anything to add?

Kerry Spitze:

I can’t possibly add to that. I think that was amazing.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay.

Steve Russell:

And Meredith, we could go into more detail on this. I mean, I think from the strategy overall is really though to make sure that it permeates the full student experience and that it is a holistic process that isn’t something that one portion of campus or a certain portion of a student’s time on campus is devoted to, but instead is acknowledged all throughout their journey with us.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. I love that. So it’s like it’s not just-

Kerry Spitze:

[inaudible 00:05:44]… Go for it. I was just going to say that it really is, I think, one of those things that is a perspective shift for students that will… that can really significantly impact, I think, the way that they approach their academic career as well as how they’re getting prepared for their career afterwards. So I think just having that… those principles from the get-go really allows them to grow, I would say, more quickly into who they are as a professional, which is going to take them a lot farther.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. I was going to say that I love that it’s everyone’s responsibility. It’s not just the career center that’s responsible for implementing life design. It’s everyone, it sounds like.

Steve Russell:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Can you talk to me a little bit about why this is so important, this having life design, and then why it’s so important that it’s coming from the top down?

Steve Russell:

I think we could be here all day to talk about that particular topic just to how passionate we are on this. But I think higher ed has been under fire for this kind of return on investment conversation. And my 2 cents on it is that there’s really kind of a hierarchy of needs that a student has on a campus. And so when we have this mindset of trying to address ROI, a lot of people go to the career center.

But a student has to be in a place to have those conversations and feel like they have a toolkit to do something with a connection that’s made for them. So when you think about implementing life design, I think it’s a deeper, more holistic answer to that ROI question where we’re setting up students to be successful in the spaces that we’ve traditionally hoped that they would be successful in without necessarily giving them the preparation they need.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. And I think you were mentioning in our prep call a little while back that Bowling Green is either one of or it’s the first institution to really implement life design across the whole campus. Is that correct?

Steve Russell:

Yeah. The scale that we’re doing this right now, and again, really permeating the entirety of that undergraduate experience for all 20,000 plus BGSU students. We believe that that’s a place that we want to continue to lead in the higher education landscape.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I remember you saying that there were a lot of universities that are kind of watching this experiment to see if maybe it’s something they can bring to their campuses.

Steve Russell:

And we’re in full support of them. We love having our colleagues come out to visit us here and, in fact, welcoming one of my good friends that will be here with us shortly to kind of talk about how do they do this. This shouldn’t necessarily be a secret. If you really believe in what we’re doing here, and I think a lot of us do, we’d like to see that this is probably for kind of the betterment of society to focus on this as well. So Bowling Green has this kind of mantra of being a public university for the public good. And so that drives a lot of our thinking in these processes as well.

Meredith Metsker:

Gotcha. That’s really cool. Sounds like you’re definitely in line with that mantra for sure. So I’m curious. How is Bowling Green going about implementing life design across campus?

Steve Russell:

I think I’ll take this one, Kerry, and maybe fill in some blanks for me if you would.

Kerry Spitze:

Sure.

Steve Russell:

We have, as I mentioned, these two sister centers on our campus, and the Radbill Center for College and Life Design has a suite of what we call life design coaches who take on the responsibility to not only teach an introductory course for our incoming students but to also then engage with students beyond that for the years to come around conversations that help with, as I said, that hierarchy of needs for a student. So a student is really trying to belong on campus. They’re really looking for resources to succeed in the classroom.

They may need help finding a tutor. They may want to be connected to a student organization. They may need to better understand what it’s like to have a roommate in the dorms for the first time in their life. And I think a lot of those needs are addressed by that center in a way that then because this crosses so many lines on campus, we’re all consistently using the same language to talk to students. So I believe it’s going to be a very smooth transition to anyone that they would maybe refer a student to who could continue to have that conversation. We look at that team a lot as a part of this rollout is to encourage as many students as possible to really develop this toolkit to better understand themselves, to think through what it’s like to address uncertainty.

And ultimately, when students have begun to think and really become more intentional about their student experience, it really leads to that Career Everywhere opportunity. And that’s where I think a lot of people on our team then get to specialize a bit more in thinking through specifically what are the ways that a student can prototype what their future career might be. And Kerry, I don’t know if you want to touch on that at all from what it looks like from your side of things.

Kerry Spitze:

And I guess before I go into that, I think it’s of note to kind of underline the word coach here in this process. And I think when we think of what a coach is there to do is to really enhance and kind of pull out someone’s inherent strength. And I think using this model across campus is indicative of exactly how we’re approaching this. We’re not looking at this, or we’re not having the student kind of think about what is their challenge, what is their weakness, but what is their strength, and how can we leverage that, and how can we continue to work with that student to build their confidence?

And as we think about what it means to prototype in design thinking language, it’s really all about testing out ideas. And while we’re testing those out in very structured, I would say, small steps that are supported, that helps that student really be able to say, “Yes, this works for me. No, I still need to iterate, but all the while, I’m building my confidence that I know how to do this. So when I’m out of the college environment, I’ve already done it. I know how to do it. I feel confident that I’m going to get results because I’ve had that coach with me, stand by me however long that I’m in school and process this with me, debrief it, and help me go back to the drawing board as I need to.”

And so prototyping can happen all throughout on multiple levels, not just career, but all these different levels of their life. And it’s a skill that they’re going to use over and over and over again. So I think the very fact, again, that we’re kind of calling life design coaches, career design coaches, I think it’s, again, very indicative of that collaborative relationship that’s really going to pull on and leverage those inherent strengths.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. I love that. Just giving the students that kind of practice before they graduate is so, so helpful, I imagine.

Steve Russell:

[inaudible 00:13:54].

Kerry Spitze:

Absolutely. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to students in my career and somehow get to a conversation about networking, and we talk about, “What does that evoke for you? How do you feel about that word?” And nine times out of 10, I feel awful. I don’t know what it means. It scares me half to death, and I can totally appreciate that. And so we have used these terms, and we have said, “Do this, do this.” But we’ve never really taught them how to do it. And so this is all about showcasing, “This is how we do it. This is how we can help you.”

Networking is great, but if you’re networking with the wrong people, it doesn’t take you very far. And it can feel very frustrating to be reaching out to someone and not hearing back. So what my team helps with in that respect, we look at who do we have in our network. Who are our employer partners? Who are alumni that we’ve worked with that we can help connect students to directly to have those prototyping conversations, those informational interviews that can then lead to something like a micro experience, a job shadow, whatever that looks like.

And then those different touch points, the career… or the career design coach can then kind of help that student debrief. So I think from our perspective, how we can contribute to that directly is by building out those employer connections and really having build some more meaningful relationships where we can kind of go in and say, “I remember talking to so-and-so from company X, Y, Z, and I think they’d be a great connection for the student. Let’s make that introduction.”

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, that’s really cool. This is all making me wish that I had things like this when I was in college.

Steve Russell:

I feel the same way.

Meredith Metsker:

At least to be a little more practice of all of this.

Kerry Spitze:

Absolutely. That would’ve cut out a lot of time, right, in the process.

Meredith Metsker:

Right. And just general awkwardness trying to figure these things out for the first time. It’s a lot.

Kerry Spitze:

It is. It can be very intimidating, very intimidating because nobody feels like they’re doing it. So yeah, it can be very intimidating process.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s really cool. And I also love that it’s not just that these career and life design coaches are telling students what to do, it’s, “Here’s kind of what to do, but also how to do it, why you’re doing it.” More critical thinking, it’s what… I mean, that’s what it seems like on my end. It just seems a lot more holistic.

Steve Russell:

I think that one, I mean the partnership between these two sister centers really is powerful. And one of the things that I think is so powerful the team of life design coaches talks a lot about helping students to kind of maximize their experience. And I so appreciate that they view it that way because I think when a student gets to a career design coach, and they’re really trying to tease out some of these details, they have a different perspective, really thinking, “How do I maximize this experience,” which is a mindset shift.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So to clarify, there’s life design coaches and there’s career design coaches. They are two separate things, correct?

Steve Russell:

Yes. Life design coaches-

Meredith Metsker:

Okay [inaudible 00:17:20].

Steve Russell:

… are in our Radbill Center and career design coaches are in our Kuhlin Hub.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Can you kind of talk to me a little bit about the difference between those two?

Steve Russell:

Yeah, that’s another one of those where it depends on how much time you have. We like to say in very shortened versions that the Radbill Center is really leading those efforts on the transition to college and really helping a student to establish themselves. Again, everything from supporting efforts around belonging and retention to even beginning stage conversations around career exploration, which guides sometimes some of the advising about which major they really want to be in.

And I think the transition out of college or thinking about what that transition beyond college looks like lives a bit more as the responsibility of the Kuhlin Hub, where a student might have that kind of light bulb aha moment in the Radbill Center and say, “I really want to do this. I think this makes sense for me.” And that’s kind of the hypothesis that they then bring over to the hub to test. And so that’s almost kind of one way to look at it too, is sort of ideate in our Radbill Center with a light design coach and then come over and test that with a career design coach.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So let’s say a student comes in to college, they work with a life design coach, maybe they figure out, “Hey, I’m really analytical. I’m really logical. I like knowing how things work. Maybe I should look into engineering.” And then would they kind of transition to a career design coach for the rest of that conversation?

Steve Russell:

So I think there’s a sweet spot about all of our partners across campus because there are some connections that are made directly from a life design coach. So there are opportunities to connect a student with a student organization or even a student who is in that major, who is slightly further along in their academic path. But I think at the point where a student starts to identify a career path is when we would shift that conversation more to like Kerry said, there are some of these smaller experiences like a job shadow or paying attention to when a company partner comes on campus to have a dialogue about that.

We launched a platform to make sure that students can talk to our alumni that are out in that field in a really kind of convenient way that’s comfortable for them. And so those are the tests that we probably begin to see more frequently in our hub. And then that ranges from maybe what I would call the smallest stair step to some of the largest steps in things like internships, co-ops, and addressing plans beyond college.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. That’s really neat that you have that partnership between the two centers.

Steve Russell:

It’s a… We lean heavily both ways on each other. And I think another important thing to note is we don’t view our process as kind of unidirectional. So sometimes students come to campus, and they really have a strong idea of what their interests are from a career perspective almost immediately. And so there are ways for people in our hub to really help them test that out. And if they test it and have positive feedback and feel good about it, I think it sets the tone for really positive retention for that student and persistence. And it doesn’t mean that they don’t engage with a life design coach about so many other aspects on campus, but it really helps to start dialing them in and creating kind of a tangible light at the end of that tunnel.

So that should they run into some difficulties in college, and most of us do, that they kind of have that idea of, “Why am I here and what am I striving to achieve?” But for the same student that might come to campus, and they’re not even quite sure why they’re here just yet, they may not make a lot of sense to start talking to a career design coach yet. So they might stay in the Radbill Center for a little bit longer until they tease out that idea. Now, if a student comes to us and we provide them a great kind of micro experience, and they test it out, and they come back and say, “Oh my gosh, Steve, I never want to do that ever again in my whole life,” that’s okay.

That’s great, right. We really built this model from a design thinking perspective on minimum viable product. You test it. If it fails, there’s an opportunity to pivot, and we have plenty of time to make those pivots. So if they come to the hub, we create an experience, and they test it, and it’s not positive, they have an opportunity to even sometimes go back to a life design coach to really think through, “Why did I think that was going to be positive, and is there something that I need to make a slight adjustment or did it really give me enough feedback from that experience that I need to make a larger pivot.”

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Maybe I should have asked this question earlier on, but just really quick, for those who may not be familiar, can you just define what design thinking means, especially in this context?

Steve Russell:

Yeah, I think that’s a big topic area, but really, at the core, it has a lot to do with iterative processes and that idea of kind of the scientific method, if you will. We learned it in sixth-grade science class or whatever that was. But I think it resonates today around the first thing that you come up with as a hypothesis, and that’s all you really need is just an idea. And I think one of the goals in this is that students don’t feel that they need to get an idea to 100%. Instead, as soon as there’s an idea, how do you test that? And if you test it in a very small way, we’d refer to that as a minimum viable product.

And so you see design thinking coming from really spaces that were software development and engineering. And it was because you don’t want to build a fancy spaceship on day one. You want to build kind of what the model looks like and test it and test it and iterate and improve. And so that, I think, just to get back to Kerry’s point, is really the idea for us, just like it would be for an engineer, it helps them feel more and more confident in what they’re doing. We want our students to feel more and more confident about that idea over time with those small iterations.

Kerry Spitze:

And if I could just add one thing to that. I think that really creates an environment where we take away the fear of failure. I think especially our students today are very cautious about, “If I do this, if I go this route and it doesn’t work out, it’s going to be awful.” And I think with this type of approach, we build in failure as absolutely an option. And it’s good because it can teach us good things.

So we’re never getting bad information. We’re just… To kind of Steve’s point, we’re confirming or debunking a hypothesis, and then we just go back to the drawing board, or we rethink it. So I think it helps to normalize that we’re going to try things in life. Some of them are going to work out, some of them, and what do we learn from that? So I think it’s a very intentional way of looking at our actions and how we can recover from them, if you will, or kind of foster that resilience.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. That’s really interesting. And I love that you kind of bake in the failure as part of the process because, I mean, in science and engineering that is a key part of the process. We want to fail because then you learn.

Kerry Spitze:

Absolutely. As Steve mentioned, we rolled out a new initiative for our alumni and our students to connect. And one thing that I remember Steve saying at sort of the beginning is, “We want people to go in and try to break the system.” And I thought, “Yeah, that that’s an incredible way of looking at that.” So we want people to fail. Absolutely. We want to try a different way of building the light bulb and see how many times we can get it wrong.

Meredith Metsker:

Great. And better to figure that out while you’re still in school than after graduation.

Steve Russell:

Yes.

Kerry Spitze:

Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. I would love to dig more into this prototyping process that you both have mentioned that you use with students when it comes to their career exploration. Can you just walk me through more of what that looks like?

Kerry Spitze:

Yeah, absolutely. I think an example might be, let’s say, a student is meeting with a career design coach because they’re really considering something like career as a graphic designer in the advertising space. So that career design coach would rather than kind of say, “Okay. Well, let’s look at all the jobs available to you and how to get you there.” It’s, “Let’s break this down. What do you know about this particular field? Why graphic design? What do you think about it? What are your expectations about it?” And then really working to help that student find an industry professional to talk to, to have that deeper level conversation, really learn about the realities of the job, maybe talk about day to day.

Do that informational interview, get those questions answered, which could lead to different questions, which could lead to more questions, which could lead to that kind of micro experience where the student gets more and more information. So let’s say [inaudible 00:27:13] after every touch point, they’re coming back, and they’re saying, “This still looks good to me, still feeling good about it. It’s validating my decision more and more and more.” And so it’s we’re adding more to the plate. “What else can we test to really make sure this is kind of continuing to feel good for you? What would be the next test?”

Maybe the next test would be, let’s have you do an internship. So let’s look at the internships available. Let’s look kind of what could be a good fit for you. And so sort of continuing to really test out those particular ideas at those different steps as they’re making more and more informed decisions about where they want to go. So that, I think, would be kind of a very specific example. I don’t know, Steve, if there’s anything you want to add there or if I missed anything.

Steve Russell:

No, I think that’s one of the most exciting parts about our jobs across BGSU is this idea that every version of prototyping is a little bit different because it needs to be because each student has a slightly different hypothesis. And I think sometimes there are challenges that we face because it’s hard sometimes to scale having a unique prototyping opportunity for every single student, but the benefit of doing it just outweighs those concerns. And I think that goes to what this campus has done around just general buy-in over this topic. I mean, we have a significant number of people working in the Radbill Center. We have a significant number of people that work in the Kuhlin Hub.

Our Kuhlin Hub also encompasses a group that solely focuses on all on campus and part-time roles for students while they’re in college. And that’s such an intentional effort around the prototyping space because so many students will work while they’re in college. And whether it’s because they think of it as sort of an extension of a financial aid component or they’re just looking for a couple extra bucks to do some fun things on the weekend, we need to be more intentional about using those as opportunities to prototype. So if I’m the biology student and I think I want to work in a lab one day, I can work on a lab on campus.

And if I do that and I immediately come back and say, “Oh my gosh, Steve, I never want to do that ever again.” That’s okay. You may have learned that you might still want to be a biologist, but you might want to be in the field. And that’s a really meaningful thing to have accomplished while you were making a couple extra bucks for the weekend too, or while you were supporting yourself through college. Those on-campus roles are something that I think a lot of career centers don’t always consider, and they’re not always in the purview of being under kind of the same roof as ours are. And that’s a really valuable partnership in my view.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s a great point. I mean, you have that opportunity. You have so many different kinds of work opportunities on a campus. That’s a great place to learn.

Steve Russell:

Yes. And again, a safe place to learn too. Places that-

Meredith Metsker:

Right. Right.

Steve Russell:

… are really accommodating about your schedule for school, you’re still going to be a student first. Yeah, I think they cannot be understated the value of just kind of those student jobs on campus.

Meredith Metsker:

So you mentioned scaling this prototyping process, and I’m curious how do you do that. So I’m assuming you have more students than career coaches.

Steve Russell:

Yes, I think we are absolutely in that model right now. I think a lot of what we talk about as a team is this idea of kind of be… sort of high-tech to be high-touch. So how many technology platforms can we effectively utilize so that when it comes time to be high-touch students are best prepared to get as much out of that high-touch, kind of high-impact practice as possible? So we’ve decided to utilize things like VMock as a tool so that our students are best prepared from a resume standpoint that they can practice mock interviews from an on-demand kind of model. And that doesn’t change the fact that they’re then… they’re still engaging with us.

It’s just that our team now is engaging with them maybe further along in their process, which allows us to really talk about and get hyper-focused on prototyping. So that’s definitely a big component for us. And as Kerry mentioned, another platform we utilize, we call it our Falcon Professional Network, but PeopleGrove is the tool behind that. And so, same deal. We’re leveraging our technology partners, not because we don’t want to see the students, but because we know that without them, it would be difficult to scale a model where we’re so focused on prototyping.

Meredith Metsker:

Right. And you don’t want to be answering the same questions over and over when there might be a better way to tackle that.

Steve Russell:

Right, right.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So I am curious. How did you go about launching this prototyping process? How did you build it into the rest of your advising process?

Steve Russell:

I don’t think Kerry and I get to take credit for that one. And I think we are really blessed that the president of our university truly, truly, truly not only bought into this but really was the champion on campus for this. The reason why we have these centers, his collaboration with some very special alumni supporters of the institution who decided to ultimately invest in these projects philanthropically. I mean, it really did come from the top down, and it didn’t come from the top down in sometimes how we hear these sort of negative viewpoints of, “Oh, it was top down.” I really think that President Rogers was able to share a vision where we needed to do more for our students and that this was a way that we could really do that.

And I think there are probably different viewpoints on different ways that you could do it, but I think the most powerful component was the fact that he chose one way to do it. And that strategic choice allowed us to really focus resources, and everyone kind of wrapped their minds around the same vision. We had our Radbill Center staff up prior to the Kuhlin Hub was fully formed. So from a formality perspective, our life design coaches and that center were really newly formed prior to transitioning our previous career center into what is now the hub. So that was sort of the one-two punch if you will. But I think part of that was because his vision included having a first-year experience for our students, and that’s where those life design coaches are really integral in delivering that coursework.

So, from a formality perspective, we kind of went one-two punch sort of the Radbill Center and then the Kuhlin Hub. But I think we also can’t answer your question completely because we’re still in the process of integrating everything that we do. We have a division for student engagement and success on campus, and that unit incorporates people from academic advising, the Radbill Center, our team [inaudible 00:35:19] the Kuhlin Hub folks around the analytics space, our new initiatives around student success and retention, and even as far as the student experience in the residence halls and things like that. And so, really, it’s just been intentional about showcasing to everyone on campus that this would truly permeate the full experience.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I suppose you don’t have to deal as much with getting buy-in when it is a decision from the top. It’s like, “This is what we’re doing.”

Steve Russell:

And I think that it was so many times, we hear from colleagues on college campuses these like, “It’s an unfunded mandate,” and I think this is not one of those. There are resources behind this, and we’re seeing such positive momentum.

Our partners in the admissions space have really engaged with us closely to make sure this is a part of our admissions strategy that students understand this coming into college, and it’s now integrated into the orientation experience for students. And so again, I think we’ve seen positive enrollment trends as well with this investment. So yeah, a little easier to buy into something that really feels good for a lot of the population.

Meredith Metsker:

I bet you’re seeing positive retention trends too with all of this engagement early.

Steve Russell:

We did just officially get the numbers, and we are now at, I believe, the highest retention rate the university’s ever had in its history. So [inaudible 00:36:55]-

Meredith Metsker:

Oh, nice.

Steve Russell:

… that was really significant for us to even just to begin to have touched on kind of just the tip of the iceberg, knowing that we still have a lot of rollout left to go with this process. So that’s really positive to see.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s super encouraging. And to confirm, this all rolled out a couple of years ago, two or three years ago?

Steve Russell:

Life design began as a project on this campus as early as 2019, and people began to enter sort of the space in 2020. Of course, there were aspects related to the pandemic, but the AVP and executive director for the Radbill Center was hired in January of 2022, and I was hired in January of 2023.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay.

Steve Russell:

So a lot of these things are still at the early stages, but I also think that we’re pretty focused on quickly moving forward, and I can say, as still a relatively new employee to this campus, I appreciate the speed that we work, which I think sometimes we get challenged about in higher ed as well.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Yeah, that speed can be difficult to come by sometimes.

Steve Russell:

Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

So we’ve talked a lot about this prototyping process and a few other ways that life design, this whole strategy, is affecting the career center or all of y’all in the Kuhlin Hub. But is there anything else or any other ways that this life design strategy is impacting your work or any other ways that it kind of manifests in your day-to-day work?

Kerry Spitze:

I would say that, especially because we’re kind of a newer team just functioning underneath the hub umbrella, we’re also utilizing a lot of the design thinking principles. I think we are also testing out, “What if this works, or could we do this? How do we think of things a little bit differently?” And then trying them out. And I think we are asking ourselves to mirror the process that we ask of our students. And the benefit that I have found, and one of the reasons I was drawn to this particular role with BGSU and working under Steve is that this creates a very creative, very innovative atmosphere where people can really feel free to try this stuff out and be okay to fail, you know, fail comfortably or fail safely, if you will, and really kind of go back and think through what worked well.

And what can we do differently the next time. How can we build on the success that we had, and how can we really think things through differently? My role in sort of the employer relations space, it can be, particularly in the higher education space and employer relations, be very transactional and almost kind of a management role. We have a platform. We have a job. An internship platform, we manage it, an employer reaches out if they want to come to campus. We help arrange that. That’s very transactional, and it’s fine. It does the job.

And there are other ways that we can really engage our employers in a way that’s going to be much more meaningful, not only to the employer and the energy and the time that they’re taking to come and visit campus. But also for our students, really taking the time to build bridges between our employer partners and our faculty, our employers and our student organizations or student groups on campus, and really helping to make those bridges so that when there is that engagement, that it’s so impactful that it does create something that’s a little bit more sticky than just someone stopping by a table. So we have that opportunity right now to really think through how do we want our work with employers to look and feel different, and that’s just such an exciting space to be in.

Meredith Metsker:

Very cool. I love that. Sounds like there’s just a lot of really neat work that you all are doing. I am curious. You mentioned that even in your team, there’s this emphasis on it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to try new things. It’s okay to experiment. How, as leaders on that team, do you go about creating that psychological safety to operate like that? I’m really curious how you approach that.

Kerry Spitze:

That’s a really good question.

Steve Russell:

That is a great question. If you spend any time with Kerry, myself, other leaders on our team, I know that one of the answers is laughter. Truly. We do not take-

Kerry Spitze:

You got it.

Steve Russell:

… ourselves that seriously. And I think the running joke for me is the most serious thing about me is the suit and tie, and beyond that, everything is very kind of lighthearted. And I think, more practically speaking, a lot of it has to do with setting goals that are sort of north star type of goals that allow for you to zigzag along the way so that people feel confident and kind of proud of the work that they do in the sense of, “I know where our goal is, and I don’t need to go back to my leader and ask, ‘Is it okay to do this? Is it okay to do that?’

Because if I tried to do it and the reason was because I felt like it was going to take us closer to that goal and I failed, that’s okay. I failed in pursuit of what our goal was.” And I think when people have very tiny micromanaged goals, you build a structure where there isn’t as much psychological safety, and there’s this constant really tight feedback loop bouncing back and forth and back and forth. And instead, I think it has built a lot of trust on this team. I feel that way. I feel very trusting of everyone on this team.

Kerry Spitze:

Yeah, I echo that. And I think another aspect is the reception that people provide you when you have an idea or you have a thought you contribute. And I think one of the best ways to engender that kind of psychological safety is to respond to listen. And so we do a lot of head nodding. We do a lot of, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” Even this is just anecdotal and a very small example. But I was putting together something this week that we haven’t done in the past, and Steve walked into my office last week, and he said, “I saw you’re doing X, Y, and Z.” I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “How do you think that’s going to go?”

I said, “I have no idea. We’ll find out. We will find out.” And he just was kind of like, “Okay, yeah, let’s see what happens.” You may have thought it was not going to work out. I had no idea. But the point is is that there was a invitation to move ahead. So even when we may have reservations, we give the space to our team to our colleagues to try it and be there and see how that goes. So I think it’s reception. I think it’s absolutely how people are receiving ideas and kind of open-mindedness, a willingness to be open to those. And by the way, the event worked out very well.

Steve Russell:

It did. It did.

Meredith Metsker:

So it was good that there was that trust because it all worked out.

Kerry Spitze:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Russell:

Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So we’ve touched on a few different things that you all are building or adding into the hub in terms of life design, but is there anything else you would like to add about how you built out these processes? Any advice for other career services leaders who would like to do something similar?

Steve Russell:

I think it can’t be overstated the leadership from the very top and the buy-in at that level is just so powerful and so unique. And so, I don’t always expect that every career center leader would have that. But what I would kind of tell them is it is worth the time to advocate to that leader.

It is worth the time to try to make that one of your goals to try and achieve the buy-in at that level because it may seem like you’re pushing the rock uphill for a little while. But boy, if you can get the rock to the top and it starts going the other direction, and you have a leader of your institution that really, really understands this work, I just think the sky’s the limit, and we are very appreciative of the situation we’re in here.

Meredith Metsker:

I’m curious. If you were in the shoes of a career leader in that position, what would you… at a high level, what would you tell your senior leader?

Steve Russell:

Here’s the way that I’ve described it. I’ve said, every time a new student comes on our campus, they’re going to take a tour just like they would of any other institution. And if they went anywhere else, they would stop by at some point on their tour, and someone would say, “There’s our career center. That’s where you go to find internships and jobs.” And then they would move on. So if we have that, we don’t differentiate ourselves at all to that student.

And so if we can develop something deeper that really showcases how we’re different from that perspective, it serves our enrollment goals. And those enrollment goals are the lifeblood of your institution. And there’s only so many ways. You can have amazing faculty. You can have really cool programs, but those are always niche. This is something that applies to every single student in that experience. And I think it’s felt to me like we’ve already started to make a difference in that space because of it. So I think that really resonates with our president here, with our enrollment folks, and that’s at least one way to advocate of why this is worth reinvesting in.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Yeah. Well said. I’m sure there will be folks listening or watching who will appreciate that particular bit of advice. Okay. Well, I see we’re kind of coming up towards the end of our time, so I do want to be mindful of all of our time here. But Kerry or Steve, is there anything else either of you would like to add about our topic that we haven’t covered?

Kerry Spitze:

We are always happy to talk about it. Always happy to talk about it with our colleagues, so please feel free to reach out and chat with us.

Steve Russell:

Yeah. And I think you just have to start somewhere. It’s been really fun hearing from colleagues around the nation just about, “How do I prototype? How do I find some way to start this somehow?” And by no means are the two people on this call the experts in this topic. We’re a part of a team of people, and those teams are connected more broadly. And if it’s not us, it’s somebody that we know in this space that we’re talking to as well, and happy to make connections.

Meredith Metsker:

Great. Well, if anyone would like to reach out to either of you, where’s a good place for them to do that?

Steve Russell:

Probably LinkedIn.

Kerry Spitze:

LinkedIn is-

Steve Russell:

Yeah.

Kerry Spitze:

… perfect. Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. Yep. That’s a good place. I love LinkedIn. A total nerd about it.

Steve Russell:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

All right, so at the end of every interview, I like to do this, answer a question, leave a question thing. So I’ll ask you both a question that our last guest left for you, and then you’ll leave a question for the next guest. So our last guest was Jackie Warner of Thomas Jefferson University, and she left this question for you. What is your biggest life pro-tip? What is something you do that makes your life so much easier and not a lot of people know about?

Steve Russell:

You got something, Kerry?

Kerry Spitze:

This is very silly, but it has made my life way better. If people enjoy baked potatoes, one way to bake them is to cut them in half and then, on the cut side, rub some olive oil, or whatever kind of oil you want, bake them cut side down on a cookie sheet on a piece of tin foil. It cuts the baking time in half, and that cut side gets very brown and crispy, and it’s just delightful.

Meredith Metsker:

As an Idaho native, I really appreciate that tip. That is… I love me a good baked potato.

Kerry Spitze:

There you go, Meredith. There you go.

Steve Russell:

[inaudible 00:50:54] 5 o’clock.

Kerry Spitze:

Life hack number one.

Steve Russell:

I’m starting to get hungry.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah. I think I’m going to have some baked potatoes for dinner tonight.

Kerry Spitze:

It’ll change your life. It will change your life.

Meredith Metsker:

I mean, potatoes do that. They really do.

Kerry Spitze:

They absolutely do. Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

Steve, do you have a life pro-tip you want to share?

Steve Russell:

Oh, geez. Not one that could top that.

Kerry Spitze:

It’s tough. It’s tough to top a potato.

Steve Russell:

It’s really tough. Pro-tip. Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, as a guy in the workplace, I’ll just say I’ve worn the same pair of dress shoes for like 15 years. [inaudible 00:51:45] I just buy the same pair over and over and over again. It’s like the decision-making fatigue thing. It’s out the window. They always fit the same. They always… I don’t know. That’s not very good. I like Kerry’s potatoes better, but…

Meredith Metsker:

Hey, you prototyped your shoe process. You found one you liked, and you went with it.

Steve Russell:

Exactly. That’s the spirit.

Kerry Spitze:

Let me tell you, if I could find a pair of shoes that I could wear for 15 years over and over and just continue to buy the same. I would do it too. I think it’s a brilliant life hack. I feel like it’s so far beyond anything that I could ever tap into.

Steve Russell:

[inaudible 00:52:24] noted. I have not worn the same pair of shoes for 15 years.

Meredith Metsker:

Just the same style.

Kerry Spitze:

[inaudible 00:52:32] I did get that. Yes. I’m sorry. I did not mean to set it up that, yes, you haven’t changed your shoes in 15 years.

Meredith Metsker:

Well, you heard it here. Potatoes and shoes, those are the premier life hacks. Well, what question would you like to leave for the next guest?

Steve Russell:

Kerry, do you want to lead us here, or do you want me to come up with something?

Kerry Spitze:

How about… Well, I’ll go with my standard, which is a really silly question but one that I get a lot of joy from. Coke or Pepsi. Is it Coke or Pepsi?

Meredith Metsker:

All right, for me it’s Coke.

Steve Russell:

Okay.

Meredith Metsker:

[inaudible 00:53:14].

Kerry Spitze:

Thank you.

Steve Russell:

I’m there with you. I’m a Coke person. Yep, yep.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. We’ll find out what the next guest is.

Kerry Spitze:

[inaudible 00:53:22]. Yes. Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

That will be in the same vein as a previous question we had, which was… is a hot dog a sandwich.

Steve Russell:

[inaudible 00:53:30].

Meredith Metsker:

So we’re in that same food theme.

Kerry Spitze:

That’s actually a very intriguing question. I don’t know where I would land on that. I would say no.

Meredith Metsker:

I think I said we’ll just go outside of the box, and I said it was a taco. Wasn’t either a sandwich.

Kerry Spitze:

Oh.

Steve Russell:

Wow.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah.

Steve Russell:

See that’s out of the box thinking. That’s what we’re looking for.

Kerry Spitze:

Yes. I like that.

Meredith Metsker:

These are the important…

Kerry Spitze:

I like that.

Meredith Metsker:

… the important questions.

Kerry Spitze:

We talked about the wrong stuff for 45 minutes, right?

Meredith Metsker:

Oh, I love it. Well, that’ll be a good question for the next guest. Kerry, Steve, thank you both so much for joining me on the podcast today. This was such a fun conversation. I learned a ton. I know our listeners and our viewers are going to just get so much out of this. So thank you very much again.

Steve Russell:

Thanks for having us. Yeah, this was fun.

Kerry Spitze:

Thank you. This was fun.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. We might have to do an episode 2.0 here in another couple of years to see how it’s going.

Steve Russell:

Yes. Count us in.

Kerry Spitze:

Yeah, that sounds great.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. Well, thank you again and have a good rest of your week.

Steve Russell:

Thanks, Meredith. You too.

Kerry Spitze:

Thank you, Meredith. You too.