Andy Cornelius (Northwest Nazarene University) on Building Inclusive Communities in Higher Education

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Andy Cornelius to discuss strategies for cultivating student leadership and inclusive communities, emphasizing the balance between individual empowerment and collective impact within higher ed. 

Transcript

Voiceover: Welcome to Illumination by Modern Campus, the leading podcast focused on transformation and change in the higher education space. On today’s episode, we speak with Andy Cornelius, who is Director of Campus Life at Northwest Nazarene University. Andy and podcast host Shauna Cox discuss strategies for cultivating student leadership and inclusive communities, emphasizing the balance between individual empowerment and collective impact within higher ed. 

Shauna Cox (00:02):Andy, welcome to the Illumination podcast. I'm so glad you could join me today. 

Andy Cornelius (00:07):Thanks, shauna. Glad to be here. 

Shauna Cox (00:08):Absolutely. So we are here to talk about empowering student leaders, fostering community, all those great things that are really important to an institution. So I want to kick off our conversation and ask what are the core principles that kind of guide your approach when empowering student leaders and trying to build a vibrant and inclusive community? 

Andy Cornelius (00:31):Such a good question. I think of it in two different areas. So the first one is that every student leader has a unique voice and perspective on the student experience. And so my job working in a student affairs role is to validate and honor the individuality or the uniqueness of each student leader. Now, on the tail end of that though, my other responsibility is to kind of help give them a long-term vision and legacy for the goals they want to accomplish. And so I feel like my job as part institutional historian and also futuristic in a way to show students where our student leadership community has been, why some of the decisions that we make are in place, but then also helping them cast a wider net to think about their long-term impact and their goals, initiatives and dreams for the institution. As I totally believe, and I'm full believer on this, that students have the ability to impact their institution. 

Andy Cornelius (01:29):The role of student affairs is to provide the pathways for them to accomplish those goals. If I am strategic about honoring the uniqueness and individuality of each student that I come in contact with while also maintaining a long-term vision and goal and kind of train for them to hop on, it feels like it meshes pretty well, at least at this point in my three and a half years of my current role. And so I really try to honor the individual, but also kind of plug them into a greater story and narrative of their student leadership experience that can help give them some confidence, but also challenge them to think outside of their current context and think, okay, what are students in five years going to experience if I do this very thing? 

Shauna Cox (02:09):Yeah, absolutely. I love the way that you're just like, that's just what I do. It is, and I'm over here and I'm just like, oh my goodness. That sounds like a huge task that you need to do. It can't be just small potatoes that you're dealing with there because you're dealing with so many different students, so many different needs, so many different dreams and goals and things like that. So what are some of the biggest challenges to empowering student leaders and fostering that cohesive campus community, and how can leaders start tackling those obstacles? 

Andy Cornelius (02:46):So I challenge my students to think about really to ask the question, who's not at the table? And if they're not at the table, do they know how to get to the table? And once they're at the table, do they have a voice at the table? Three kind of part question. I posed 'em at the beginning of the year and we're dreaming and ideating and modern campus has been a great partner in this because I can pull data from years past and say, these are the student groups that we're missing out on. These are the people that haven't been at the table. How are we going to strategically plan our campus programming to get more people into the fold? And so yeah, who's not at the table? Do they have a seat at the table? Do they know where the table is? Do we as an institution need to reframe our policies, our hiring structures, our systems and processes that we have been doing for the past 50 years? 

Andy Cornelius (03:35):Higher ed is not a fast moving ship. And so if we can critically interrogate the ways that we're hiring and onboarding students, we begin to see the gaps and we get to see the parts of the student leadership process and inclusive community, we get to see the gaps of that and we get to then adjust on the broad scale. What are some things that need to shift to get more students to the table? A big one that's on my mind currently right now is the rising cost of tuition is really shaping the way that our current student leaders are engaged in because they have to have employment to even be a student outside of their student leadership position. And this is a isn't new phenomenon, but I think the more that colleges have gotten expensive, the more students are feeling pressed financially to attend an institution. 

Andy Cornelius (04:23):

And I'm coming from a small private liberal arts school right outside of Boise, Idaho where the cost of living is increasing. Students are having to take on two or three jobs just to be a student in here. And that really influences and shapes how students engage with our community. And so one of the biggest challenges I think right now, I mean it is related to the institution, but not is the external financial pressure of being a student alone and then asking students to jump into a student leadership position that maybe isn't the most well-paid, but they can go somewhere else and potentially get a job that's paying four or five times more than what we as a institution can offer. And so it's one of the challenges I think that it's been on the front of my mind the last two years. The students are struggling financial and security and things like that. So yeah, I don't have a solution for this, so anyone out there knows, please let me know, please. 

Shauna Cox (05:15):We're throwing it out there to everyone else if you want to chat up Andy and let 'em know the solution. 

Andy Cornelius (05:23):My response is like, I'll just give more money. And that's not really a sustainable sometimes for institution. 

Shauna Cox (05:30):Exactly. Just a small challenge there. So within that, once you have those students there, how do you balance providing the guidance to a student leader? Well, at the same time, giving them the autonomy to innovate and take that ownership of their role. It really feels like this balancing act. 

Andy Cornelius (05:50):Yes. Yeah. We definitely don't let our students just make every single decision that impacts the institution. So good parameters in which we say wander and go explore, but of course with good developmental guidelines and things like that. So one of the things that I really do as a student affairs practitioner is I set the expectation pretty early on in our student leader onboarding, and that's student leader writ large. So I'm in front of our RAs, I'm in front of our orientation leaders, I'm in front of our student government executives, and I kind of help craft the narrative on where their part of the puzzle fits in the broader institution. So for our lead training, for our student leadership training, we go through our institution as an organization and we say, this is the reporting lines, this is the org structure, this is how we get things done. 

Andy Cornelius (06:41): And so these are the parameters which we have to play ball in. So these are also copy and paste the parameters that you have the ability to shape and transform. And so I think framing their experience in the broader organization of the institution is a really good strategic imperative because all of a sudden my RAs know who to meet with that they have a facilities question. They know who the facilities maintenance person is. If they have a burning question that the resident director or area coordinator gang get to, they know the ADP's contact info and the director of res life's contact info, my student body president has a standing meeting with the president of the institution. And that's just one small case example of our students are constantly being put in front of other professional staff, people on campus to help guide their approach as they're thinking about making long-term and large scale changes at the institution. 

Andy Cornelius (07:36):I'm not an expert in every single department that is functioning here at the institution, but if I can equip and resource my students to know who to go to if they have burning questions, all of a sudden, one professionalizes our office in student affairs, but two, it builds bridges to other departments on campus that we may have not had any exposure with. And that's all through students. And so giving students a little bit behind the veil of how the institution operates is one strategy where I feel like they can begin to take on autonomy on how they approach other faculty and staff. Now, internally, we have job descriptions. Of course we have general student leadership expectations that we give them, but ultimately I make sure that I myself am available. I often tell my boss told me this, she does not surprises. I do not like surprises. 

Andy Cornelius (08:27):And so I tell my students, Hey, if it goes wrong, I need to know a SAP P. Don't just try to skim by. It's no big deal. Even if you're questioning it, if you have a two second response, I don't know, that's when you pull me in. That's why I'm here for is to help advocate for you and hopefully help mitigate some of the risks that comes with giving students a pretty robust on-ramp to making institutional change. So that's one of the strategies, getting in front of people across the institution, but then also letting them know early on where their lane is, where they need to vibe to make a change for their students. And then ultimately, I think we as student affairs professionals, as someone who's been in the field for a little bit, really need to help provide the scope in which they can create change. Because some things they really don't know, and that's okay. But if we can give them, instead of negating what they can do, giving them like, Hey, this is the lane in which you can create change, and that can actually work itself up to broader institutional policy change. That's when it becomes lively. For me, all of a sudden I'm saying, don't touch the hot stove. Actually, let's teach you how to use the kitchen. Right? Oh, so good. I could vent on that for 10 years, but 

Shauna Cox (09:40):I love it so much, and I love that you're kind of giving them the parameters, but they can run free within those parameters. And I think putting them in front of other institutional leaders and knowing where to go, it allows them to gain really great skills that they can take outside of the institution, but also lets them take the initiative and build their confidence in things like that that again, they can apply to the real world. So I love that. Amazing. 

Andy Cornelius (10:07):It's so good 

Shauna Cox (10:09):So well, and just talking about strategies, what are some strategies that you use to create more meaningful in-person connections that can strengthen campus community? 

Andy Cornelius (10:24):Yeah, that's such a good question. So I'm currently in a PhD program right now, and I just got out of my quantitative methods sequence. And I'm a big qualitative researcher. I love people. That's why I'm in this role. And I think in the way that I define success and that I ask my students to help define success for us is both in a qualitative realm and a quantitative realm. So it is really important for us to have great and well-attended in-person events because it continues to justify the resource allocation that comes to our office. So if I can get, I'm at a school around a thousand students, if I can get half of my student body at an event one time in the fall and one time in the spring, we have met the mark and we have really done our best and have done well in producing a high quality event that students feel like they can come to and they can enjoy and they can engage in. 

Andy Cornelius (11:20):And so it's really important that we do get somewhat of a mass of students. And not that we're completely number driven, but when I can show that we've had this much engagement, this percentage of our student body, all of a sudden when it comes budget time and fiscal time, I can say, Hey, this is why these programs are needed because we're reaching this amount of student body. So there's a quantitative aspect that I do put in front of my students and I say, this is kind of the goal to keep us moving. And whether we like it or not, whatever organization you're going to be in is going to have a limitation of resources. And so you're going to have to be really good about maneuvering politically, not partisan, but politically through an organization. And part of that is justifying the resources that you need to accomplish the goal. 

Andy Cornelius (12:02):So part of me is when I can pull data from involve and modern campus, that tells a story, but then I challenge my students to see, to introduce themselves to one new person they haven't met before. And then we reflect on it at our weekly meeting, we say, okay, who did you meet? Who do you need to follow up with? Did we not meet anyone new? If so, why not? And so then we have the individuality of the stories coming to the table of like, oh, I had this really awesome conversation with this new student or this transfer student. I'm inviting them to the next volleyball game at home X, Y, and Z. And so really when it comes to overall actual tangible, relational in-person strategy, it takes both generating data and making sure that everyone knows what's going on numbers wise, but also pulling the heartstrings. This would not be happening. Our students are not being transformed or becoming better civically engaged citizens if this wasn't a thing. So let me give you this awesome story to show how these programs are also impacting the work that we do and the institution at large. So that's where I'm my sweet spot. I just feel so good building dashboards to send off to people, but then also getting to share stories and the work that we do actually has personal impact, and that is all the best.

Shauna Cox (13:19):And that balance right there I think is so perfect to honestly everybody at the institution because there are people who are strictly numbers people and there are people who are strictly visual storytelling aspect. And when you blend the two of them together, it's literally the best of both worlds. And I want to deep dive into this a little bit more since you are a qualitative quantitative guy, and how can institutions effectively measure those outcomes of co-curricular programs to ensure they're contributing to that student's personal and professional growth? And I guess also to another point that you mentioned was showing it in front of senior leadership to be like, Hey, working, here's the 

Andy Cornelius (14:01):Impact. Yeah. So one of the things that I talked about, again, going back to how our institution fits in or how our programs fit into the institutional organization and ethos. And so I put our large scale university strategic plan in front of them because there is a section that is dedicated to making good community at Northwest NRA University. And so I, alongside my other student life staff people, we are constantly thinking, how does our initiative and programming fit into the broader scale strategic plan of the university? And inviting students in on that is awesome, and they get to help shape what their version of success is. Now, some of that's done in key metrics, so some of that is very quantitative based, certain amount of contact points here, making sure our certain residential life proportion is right. Those kinds of things are all part of the, but if we can begin to put the work of student affairs professionals across the university, and that's like strategic partnerships, programs and events to help bridge resources. 

Andy Cornelius (15:10):And I try in my office, I meet with a variety of constituencies on campus to make sure I know what's going on in our office, even just calendar wise, so that not competing for students' attention. And if we are, we're not hitting the same groups every now and then. But to me, if my institution can understand and communicate the work that we do over in student life or student development, then that is to me a sign of success or a really good generated outcome. The second part of that, and you'll hear this from any student, there's professional, so you'll hear this if you interview anyone else that works at student life is like, there's this balance of challenge and support. So as I'm working with individual students, we kind of craft what they want to experience and what they want to learn in their leadership position on campus, and then our check-ins are checking in on those very things they have listed. 

Andy Cornelius (16:03):We've also done that though with our strategic planning when it comes to quantitative. So we generate goals, outcomes, and every time we meet, where are we on this? What's our progress on this? Do we need to spend more time and money and resources here to accomplish this goal that's been given to us by the institution, but also we help generate and create buy-in across the institution. So that's one of the ways I think. And then also just having good data at disposal. It is so refreshing that every day I can just hop on to my analytics page on involved and see who I'm missing, where do I need to spend more time, do we need to shift where we're hosting this program, what clubs need some little bit more help in their ideation and things like that. And so just really good access to data on where students are engaging really, really, really helps. 

Andy Cornelius (16:55):And I don't build my own things all right there, I can just open my involved dashboard and we can see all the great things. And then finally, I think in my work specifically, I think of, again, going back to my first point, what is this year's goal and what is the ethos and scope of our office for the next five? So there's some immediacy things happening this year, right? There are some student needs that are very unique to this year. And so how am I generating outcomes on the fly that say at the end of May when our students are graduating or when they're done for the year, I can say, oh, we addressed this need and this is how we did it. While at the same time I have our long-term strategic plan in the back of my mind saying, how is this also contributing to these larger institutional outcomes? Hope that makes sense. 

Shauna Cox (17:48):Absolutely. And you ended your question so perfectly. It dovetails into my last question for you, so beautifully. Now you're talking about long-term goals and stuff at your institution, but I want to take a step back and go big picture. What trends do you foresee shaping the role of campus life and empowering students and driving their overall success? 

Andy Cornelius (18:13):This is so good. I wish I had just a simple answer of like, oh, these are the five things I would say. These are the trends that I would say, 

Shauna Cox (18:20):You have a crystal ball, right? You have all, yeah, I know, 

Andy Cornelius (18:22):Right? I think some trends, land foresee and campus life, student leadership, student affairs, that are going to drive the overall success. One of the things that I see happening is helping students in person manage their time commitment and the way they think about integrating their multiple domains of life. So there's so many things calling for their attention, like social media, media, homework, school work, athletics, fine arts, all these things are filling their time. And I don't think that's going to go away. How am I equipping them to be able to confidently make decisions that they cannot do all the things all the time. And that's actually a really good life skill to learn. You're going to have to learn because saying yes to something and saying no to something else, and a lot of us have eager students that are just excited to be in the fold. 

Andy Cornelius (19:31):When they get to those, they're like, yeah, I can do everything and I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, and I'm going to join this club and rush this fraternity and X, Y, and Z, and that's great. That's also not real life. You're going to be burnt out by year two, and then you're going to regret some sort of apathy towards the institution because you're just exhausted. So one of the things I see in the future is still training and developing how to train and help students just integrate their lives so they feel whole. There's one whole student, one whole individual, one whole club leader. That's one of the things I think too, the role of higher education has just been a big topic right now in culture, especially in the United States. What's the future of higher education look like? The skepticism of it. 

Andy Cornelius (20:19):

And then I get to meet with vendors that my students are working directly with and they're so thankful and they're handling themselves so well in contract negotiations and they're trying to ask the right questions with professional business partners. And I'm like, oh, if only people knew that this was happening on the inside of our institution. And so one of the things that I'm really passionate about is connecting the stories to our constituencies that may not have an inside look on what is actually happening in institutions of higher education. They see the headlines, but they don't see the students that are managing four jobs that are commuting to campus 45 minutes away that are graduating summa cum laude in the nursing program. 

Andy Cornelius (21:00):It's really hard to be skeptical then. And of course, we've not done a good job of justifying our work and our practice, but that's where I see the hope working with students and student leaders and student leadership and on campus life is like we have such rich stories to tell, and how are we getting those out there? How are we to our communities, where our institutions are planted? How are we getting our message out that we are actually developing holistic humans that are hopefully going to contribute to the world and hopefully your local ecology and ecosystem, if only I knew how to do that perfectly. But yeah, getting our students stories in front of our constituencies I think is so important as we are facing just constant skepticism about the role of your education and the rising costs and things like that. 

Shauna Cox (21:47):And I think it goes back to even what we were talking about before with numbers and storytelling. You see all the daunting headlines and they typically have numbers in 'em, and that's what's so daunting. But you can't really paint, or I guess you could say that you might not be able to paint these stories of students and their impact through numbers that are a lot more attractive than the story itself. So that's really, really important. 

Andy Cornelius (22:12):We can't quantify our work all the time. And so how are we getting stories out there and how do we feel like our donors and other constituencies are making an impact on students every day? That's the bread and butter, so good. Exactly. 

Shauna Cox (22:28):And again, small pitch. If anybody has that solution, 

Andy Cornelius (22:32):Please. I'm all ears. I'm always learning on how to do this well. 

Shauna Cox (22:37):Exactly. Amazing. Well, Andy, those are all the questions I have for you except for our last one, which is very, very important to Higher Ed Podcast. Now you are based in Nampa, Idaho. Where do people need to go to eat? 

Andy Cornelius (22:49):Say if they're in Nampa, which is like 20 minutes outside of Boise, they need to go to Mesa Tacos. So good, nice taco place in downtown Nampa, but if they're in Boise, anything on eighth Street is so good. So fork eureka. Yeah, all of the good things in Boise too. 

Shauna Cox (23:08):Amazing. Love it. Well, Andy, thank you so much for joining me. Great chatting with you. 

Andy Cornelius (23:13):Yeah, I appreciate it.