Breaking the Ice: Conference Presentations at ACPA & NASPA 2021

Year 1 / Spring 2021 / March 15 & 22, 2021

DESCRIPTION

In Fall 2020, my cohort mate, Efren Diaz, and I facilitated several activities at the MSHE 2020 Virtual Retreat. After seeing our work, Dr. Carol Lundberg of the CSUF MSHE program then encouraged us to submit a workshop proposal on virtual facilitation to the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) 2021 National Conference. We were accepted to present our workshop "Breaking the Virtual Ice: Strategies for Engaging Virtual Environments" at both national conferences. We presented at the ACPA 2021 Annual National Convention on March 15, 2021. We also presented at the NASPA 2021 Virtual Conference on March 22, 2021.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Student will be able to create a professional development workshop that centers student development theory, social justice, and equity.

2. Student will be able to facilitate an asynchronous virtual workshop at a national higher education & student affairs conference.

3. Student will be able to facilitate a live, synchronous virtual workshop at a national higher education & student affairs conference.

LEARNING DOMAINS

• Social Justice & Advocacy

• Education

• Personal Development

REFLECTION

In Fall 2020, my fellow cohort member, Efren Diaz, and I volunteered to facilitate a few activities to encourage bonding amongst our cohort members at the MSHE Virtual Retreat (see Entry 1 from Fall 2020 for more information on the 2020 MSHE Retreat). After the Retreat, Dr. Carol Lundberg encouraged us to consider submitting a workshop proposal about virtual facilitation to the upcoming 2021 ACPA and NASPA National Conferences. These two conferences are the two largest professional conferences for student affairs practitioners in the United States. Needless to say, Efren and I felt both honored yet nervous that Dr. Lundberg believed in work enough to encourage us to submit something to both ACPA and NASPA. After discussing our work with each other, Efren and I submitted workshop proposals to both the ACPA and NASPA 2021 Virtual Conferences.

After a few months of forgetting about the submissions, I was shocked to see that both ACPA and NASPA had accepted our workshop proposals titled "Breaking the Virtual Ice: Strategies for Engaging Virtual Environments." Efren and I both knew that the opportunity present at both ACPA and NASPA in the same year was a rare opportunity. It is rare for graduate students to be accepted to present at not just one, but two national conferences. Additionally, during a "normal" year, we might have not been able to present at both conferences due to various circumstances (such as financial constraints on travel and conference fees, or taking extended time off from work to present at two different week-long conferences). Knowing that this was a rare opportunity to present at both conferences with less financial and time constraints, Efren and I decided to take on the challenge of presenting at both ACPA and NASPA in the same month.

The preparation was a lengthy process. Efren and I met up almost every Tuesday from December to March to create two separate workshops - one for ACPA and one for NASPA. We were committed to rooting our work in student development theory, social justice, and equity. To center these values, we looked into Laura Rendón's (1994) work on Validation and Terrell Strayhorn's (2018) work on Sense of Belonging. By looking at these theories, we could see how intention facilitation could create environments that supported engagement, connection, validation, belonging, and ultimately, student success, particularly for minoritized and marginalized student populations. We recalled back to our work for the MSHE Retreat and remembered how much we contemplated over each activity - were we making sure people were sufficiently introduced to each other before jumping into deeper activities? Were our activities engaging? Did they touch on issues of identity? If so, how can we maximize sharing and connection while being mindful that some topics (like race or identity) are hard to be vulnerable about? We knew that this intentionality was key to creating thoughtful, equity-centered virtual environments. I believe that we combined both theory and practice to create a framework titled the "Low-Stakes to High-Stakes Framework." This framework embodied our philosophy of how to structure environments to facilitate sharing and engagement in a trauma-informed and equity-centered manner.

We had the added challenge that ACPA was to be presented asynchronously as a recorded video, while NASPA was to be presented live via Zoom. The experience of filming our workshop for ACPA was a huge challenge, as we were not used to facilitating a workshop with no live audience participation. We had to do multiple takes! However, we did our best to simulate facilitation techniques for audience members whenever possible and incorporate moments where ACPA audience members could engage with us via the Chat that would be open during an hour-long live "viewing period." The video would be watchable asynchronously for the duration of the entire conference, but the live viewing period allowed some synchronous interaction between presenters and audience members. As a result of our intentionality, our ACPA workshop was a great success. Audience members were consistently engaged with us in the Chat during the live viewing period. Efren and I remarked that while we weren't presenting live, we still felt really busy because of all the comments and questions coming in via the Chat that we wanted to answer!

NASPA was a live Zoom workshop, which was a format that Efren and I were more familiar with. Yet, it was extremely nerve-wracking to see that all 500 seats for the workshop were full on the day of our presentation! Efren and I felt intimated, but seeing Dr. Lundberg and fellow MSHE classmates on the registration list gave us a sense of peace that these were our friends and colleagues! We successfully presented our workshop with little issues and saved the Chat from the day-of to remember all the engagement from the day. Overall, I was extremely proud of the work that Efren and I did to present at two different national conferences in two different formats! This experience definitely pushed me a lot as a facilitator and practitioner. I am so thankful for our commitment to blend theory, social justice, and practice in our work. I think our presentations were all the richer due to that commitment. Lastly, I am extremely grateful to Efren for being a great collaborator and friend in this work, when we had a million other things with school, work, and life going on. After presenting for both ACPA and NASPA, I got to enjoy other workshops from the conference throughout the week, such as a session on land acknowledgements, self-advocacy, foster youth students, and more. I am grateful to have gotten the opportunity to experience NASPA and ACPA both as an attendee and presenter.

REFERENCES

Rendón, L. I. (1994). Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development. Innovative higher education, 19(1), 33-51.

Strayhorn, T. (2018). College students’ sense of belonging. New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781315297293.

Yosso, T.J. (2006). Critical race counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano educational pipeline. Routledge.