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In the age of coronavirus, with our stress levels skyrocketing and a decreased ability to filter strong emotions before they burst forth, I am reminded over and over again about one of my favorite TV characters, Leslie Knope (played brilliantly by Amy Poehler) from the tv show Parks and Recreation. Leslie Knope is the earnest, sometime clueless, ambitious, but ever-faithful public servant, who remarks at an open town meeting where she is being verbally pummeled by outraged townspeople: 

“What I hear when I’m being yelled at is people caring loudly at me.”

Leslie Knope’s ability to re-frame is remarkable. And to do it under pressure no less! But Leslie Knope wasn’t working in a pandemic and I often wonder how she would respond as a leader to the situation we are facing. I’ve experienced a lot of people caring loudly at me at various points in my career: as a college coach, an umpire (lots of caring loudly going on there), as our college’s chief student conduct officer, our Title IX Coordinator, and now as our Vice President for Student Affairs. Many of my colleagues across campus share their own stories about what it feels like to field the vociferous complaints of colleagues, students, parents, alumni, townspeople, and others.

So how can we best respond to “people caring loudly?” A normal, human response to being yelled at is to defend oneself against the onslaught. It’s also normal to experience anger, sometimes rivalling that of the person expressing their outrage. Acknowledging that these are normal responses, effective leaders need to accept those feelings, but also resist the pull for an immediate – yet likely unproductive – response, and think about what they can do instead. 

How about “listening quietly” as the response to “caring loudly?” 

Listening quietly is not easy. It requires (in order):

• the commitment to doing so
• the ability to see the person expressing their displeasure as a human
• the discipline to resist an impulse to engage with them point-by-point

In short, listening quietly means you have provided the person caring loudly with the space to do so. It also means you’ve given yourself room to avoid falling into the trap of trying to either “outcare” the other person or to argue back with more volume. 

Listening quietly is more challenging than exercising your routine listening skills (which we all need to work on); listening quietly when every fiber of your being compels you to yell back and defend yourself isn’t a skill that can be developed overnight. And there are times when the attack is vicious and so disrespectful that NOT responding forcefully is not only difficult but not advised. Those are the times when we need to be able to stop the conversation, clearly state that we refuse to be treated in that manner, and will engage with the other person when they are ready and willing to do so with respect. 

But for the many other times where angry voices are truly people caring loudly (about a person they love or an important issue), we have a responsibility as leaders to understand what the message behind the emotion is. We can start by doing what Leslie Knope was able to do so skillfully and use language to re-frame the behavior —  and then we can commit to listening quietly. 

I thought last November, as my college (and I personally) wrestled with a thorny decision about a student-produced play involving characters who were members of the KKK, that we had faced one of our most significant ethical challenges. At the time, I was probably right. But no one could have predicted the ethically-complex decision that would present itself to college and university leaders this summer when our world was struck by the coronavirus pandemic. 

A class I was co-teaching with our Provost this past spring, Ethics and Sports, ended as almost all college courses did — on-line with students reading, discussing, and doing final projects remotely. In the months before the shutdown, we had been engaging in robust conversations about the many ethical issues present in sport past and present. In one particular class, I walked the students through a model of ethical “fitness,” highlighting the importance of strength, flexibility, and endurance as metaphors in approaching ethically sound decisions. 

When speaking about strength, we talked about the importance of facts. We discussed how to establish the reliability of sources and data before making an ethical argument. As an example, we researched the issue around equal pay for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. How much, exactly, were they being paid and how did that compare to how much men’s team players were paid? What was the nature of the collective bargaining agreement the USWNT had signed off on? Was payment linked to success, revenue generation, or something else? It was complex, but the class soon learned to dig in and embrace that complexity and its importance in coming to a defensible ethical position about the USWNT demand for equal pay.

A supportable, defensible ethical decision, we were teaching, was more than an opinion. It was a position of values for sure. But values that could also be supported by fact.

And then the coronavirus struck. While trying – often unsuccessfully — to continue to deliver a meaningful course to our students for the remainder of the semester, our Provost and I were working 24/7 in our “other jobs” as senior leaders at the College. We were drinking from the proverbial fire hose about the facts and science around the virus, how it spread, how it could be mitigated, and what measures a college would have to take to make a student and faculty return to the classroom in the fall one we could ethically defend. 

Following the lesson we taught our students about developing strength by researching facts and data before jumping to a decision, not a day went by when we didn’t read the latest reports from public health officials, opinion pieces in newspapers, articles in higher education publications, and bewildering statistical models. I talked to friends and family members who work in the public health field, colleagues at other colleges and universities, public and private secondary school administrators, our local town leadership, my staff in student affairs (most importantly my director of health services) and many others in the elusive search for data that would clearly guide the decision that was bearing down on us. Should we re-open our campus for in-person classes this fall?

Make no doubt. The facts are critical. They became the cornerstone of the difficult decision we had to make. The ethical dilemma was obvious: Should we re-open, taking significant health risks in our quest to continue the critical mission of our residential liberal arts college? Such a decision could ensure that our most vulnerable students and employees could return to the economic, and social security that our in-person campus experience provides. Alternatively, should we protect our students, faculty, and staff from a frightening virus that is decimating our country by telling our students to stay home and learn on-line for another semester? That decision felt like we would be depriving them of the community they are desperately craving and potentially harming them and the employees who depend on their work at the college for their livelihood and economic security.

Ultimately, the facts led us to the decision. The rise in cases, the inaccessibility of tests with quick results, additional information about how exactly the virus was spreading and how an outbreak could impact our small town on Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore, were too much to ignore. But what I had forgotten, until the day the decision was confirmed by our Board that we would revert to an on-line learning model this fall, was that the facts were just the foundation for a decision like this. Yes, they are important and I will continue to teach our students to be critical thinkers and dig for reliable data. But facts don’t shield you from the intense struggle inherent in any decision like this. They don’t stop you from questioning your decision. And they are cold comfort when you have to face the reality that even the “right” decision will harm some people in some way: people who you care about, people who find joy in working with young adults on a college campus, and the young people themselves who face at least another semester of isolation and hardship.

Just having the facts doesn’t make the decision. A difficult ethical decision like this, requires, as one our board members referenced several times “a North Star” and to follow that once the facts are collected. The facts are a collection of data points. But ultimately, values enable you to look at all of those points and start walking in the right direction. One value that rose to the surface was, in utilitarian fashion, protecting the greatest number of students, faculty, staff, and members of the town and county in which we exist. 

I don’t regret our decision. It was the right one for our campus and our community and was indeed based on facts. Facts that demonstrated that the potential harm was significant and that our decision would mitigate the risks inherent in reverting to our normal model of students living in residence halls and going into classrooms every day. But the tipping point for the decision was an agreement that the data, combined with our values weighted the scales for an on-line semester. 

Perhaps that knowledge will ease the painful reality that this “right” decision will make the lives of some members of our community far more difficult. One of the problems with these decisions is that you never know where the path not taken would have led. I’m doubtful that the future will definitively prove to us this decision was right; but we have to believe today, because we made a sound and defensible ethical decision, that it was right. 

In the meantime, I’ll continue to preach the importance of collecting facts to our students; those facts will help them make and defend difficult decisions in their lives. But I will also remind them that facts don’t relieve you of the responsibility to ground ethical decision in core values. Facts will put you on firm footing. Once there, you can consider your values, look around, find your North Star and start walking toward it. 

Is it just a hunch or is it in fact true that the virtues learned through participation in sport can translate into other areas of our lives? I started thinking about this again recently when I was listening to a podcast in which two of the hosts were contemplating whether a long-distance runner might somehow possess more “endurance” when it comes to suffering through torture at the hands of his captor. It’s an extreme example no doubt – maybe not the best one for this argument as I imagine that someone who endures torture without completely breaking down has traits and habits of mind that can’t be chalked up to the ability to run miles and miles – but the taxation of staying the course physically and mentally when both your body and mind beg you to stop is like any other learned skill. Some are naturally better at it than others, but anyone who practices at it can get better. And enduring pain, boredom, grief, or any other uncomfortable state of being is part of being human. So there are many opportunities to flex the skills of endurance.

Something endurance athletes learn is that the pain is a temporary condition. They know it’s finite and they usually believe that once it’s over, there is great reward. Or at least, there is the relief of having stopped doing something incredibly difficult. So, tapping into that memory of what it’s like to grit your teeth and carry on because you know you’ll come out on the other side, seems to be something that endurance athletes can access when facing challenges outside the athletic arena.

Another element of the endurance mindset that can translate is the ability to silence the thoughts that say “stop.” Endurance athletes learn when the “stop” message is a true survival signal and when it’s a false message, delivered by an instinct like the one that makes some dogs cover their food bowl to protect it from other dogs — even when they are the only dog in the house and will get fed like clockwork twice a day. Some deep-seeded instinct that long ago preserved life but is now looks like a behavioral relic. I believe that endurance athletes learn to identify those signals as fakes. They learn to ignore them and develop that habit quickly, the habit of discarding the negative thought and moving on.

Finally, the lessons of endurance normally teach that there is benefit from the pain (assuming the athlete can tell the difference between pain that will make them stronger and pain that signals that there is something seriously wrong with the body.) Whether the benefit is getting faster or being able to go longer, improve performance, relieve stress, or the satisfaction of accomplishing a difficult feat, the endurance mind knows that the pain is both temporary AND constructive. There is a tangible and positive effect from doing it.

So will that same virtue emerge in the work setting when the challenge is a difficult project or managing a personal conflict? It may. But perhaps it’s more likely to translate when the endurance athlete cognitively connects the skill to the work setting. When the mind says “If I can (fill in the blank – run a  marathon, swim 2 miles in open water, etc.) I can deal with this difficult co-worker” then the connection has been made.

Spring, 2019

Earlier this year, my mother was admitted to the hospital for what we thought was a kidney stone. Turns out she had shingles which is an extraordinarily painful condition and she was in significant distress. Her diagnosis aside, while I was waiting with her to find out whether or not she would be discharged that day, I noticed a checklist posted in her hospital room. 

The intention of the checklist was to serve as a reminder to the nurses, doctors, and other employees about the importance of listening. It began with a reminder to make eye contact with the patient. Somewhere around #4 or #5 on the checklist was the item “act interested.” I laughed out loud. My mother, who was still in pain, was not so amused.

As is often the case with hospitals, they seemed to be understaffed, managing multiple tasks, and waiting – endlessly, it seemed — for direction from doctors who were equally busy. From my experience in student affairs, it felt like the chaos of move in day for new students. Everyone was running around trying to make stressed and anxious people less stressed and anxious; there never seemed to be enough time to pay close attention to any particular patient, and at this hospital on this particular day, the employees were less than friendly. I was sympathetic to their plight. But this was my mother, the woman who gave birth to me and literally labored to bring me into the world. She was in pain, she felt like she didn’t have control over her own well-being, and we were being tossed from person to person, each of whom seemed to be too busy or without authority to give us any definitive information. They didn’t have time to follow their checklist and listen.

I thought to myself that the hospital checklist – despite its amusing exhortation to “act interested” when talking to patients — was a good thing. I know that the medical and aviation industries are wedded to their checklists and for that I am grateful. When your work includes holding people’s lives in your ends, minimizing or eliminating mistakes seems pretty important. 

And it occurred to me that those of us who work in student affairs and student services have much more in common with healthcare providers in a hospital setting than almost any other workplace setting. 

We are faced daily with people who are anxious and unfamiliar with their surroundings. And we are trying to respond to them while we ourselves are also stressed and anxious. So we are not always as patient and helpful as we’d like to be when they show up at (or call) our student affairs office with questions.

Our students and their families are also struggling with a knowledge or experience gap. Even those who are second- or third-generation college students are bewildered by the array of systems set up to manage the student experience on a college campus. I’ve been working on my small, liberal arts campus for many years and there are days I can’t figure out how to get help when my email doesn’t function or when my chair breaks. One can imagine that a first-generation student could easily become overwhelmed by it all. Oh, and by the way, we still want them to go to class, focus on their studies, become involved, and prepare for life after college. 

So how can we do this better? What should our “checklist” look like that will remind us how to approach helping students navigate this unfamiliar environment? When they or their family members call or show up at our office, how can we ensure that their experience will be both pleasant and productive? 

1. Empathize immediately. I don’t mean in the deeply emotional way. I mean that we need to first get out of our own skin and remember that students and their families don’t know what we know. So simply saying “you need to take this form over to the registrar’s office” could be problematic for several reasons. First, they may not know where the registrar’s office is. Second, they may have no idea what a registrar even is! Assume lack of knowledge – not in a condescending way… 
2. Pay attention. Make eye contact or at least, stop what you’re doing and give the student (or parent) your full attention. In many cases, they already feel like they’re bothering you. There’s no need to reinforce that perception by checking your cell phone, filing forms, or staring at your computer screen.
3. Listen and ask questions to clarify. We often get students who wander into our office and tell us that their ID card doesn’t work. Sending them away to another office without first identifying more about what the problem is could send them on a never-ending quest across campus for someone who can actually help them. So we ask the student where the ID card doesn’t work – the dining hall, the electronic access to their residence hall, the library? Their answer helps us better understand why the card isn’t working and who on campus can resolve the problem. 
4. Pave the way. Before sending a student off to another office, make sure that a) the person can actually help them; b) whether that person is available; and c) that the student knows exactly how and when to get there. We have trained our student workers to always call the next office that they are referring a student or parent to before transferring the call. If no one is available, they let the student know how to get in touch with that person and that if they are unable to do so, to feel free to come back to our office so we can help.
5. Write it down! This is actually part of empathy. Really! Rattling off a string of information including phone numbers, locations, names, etc. without writing it down for the student (even if they say they’ll remember) almost ensures a breakdown in communication. You may know this information backward and forward but for the student, this could be the first time they’ve heard the information. They’ll walk out the door and immediately forget what building they are supposed to go to and who they need to see (or what a registrar is!). I still love post-its for this (although some students are perfectly content to type the information into their cell phone). 

On our good days, this checklist might be a no-brainer and easy to follow. But, just like hospitals, we can get busy and overwhelmed. And we will very often be helping people who are stressed, confused, and unfamiliar with the world we inhabit every day. For those reasons, a checklist is always good to fall back on. Even if only to remind us how important it is to act interested.

As a graduate of a liberal arts college, I was told I could use my education almost anywhere. Little did I know that “anywhere” would mean building a career on the same kind of campus that valued thinking broadly and deeply. For over 30 years I have coached, taught, and mentored students — then used those experiences to become a campus leader with a mission to ensure that the liberal arts college remains a viable, accessible, and transformational option for students everywhere.