 All right, well welcome to the Educa's Rising Voices podcast where we amplify the voices of young professionals of higher education I'm your co-host West Johnson. I'm joined by and I'm Sarah Basker And we are going to be talking five myths about young professionals, but we are joined by some esteemed guests We have Kate Hash and Monica Rosen. So both of you. Thank you. We're so excited to have you all along with us So we want to ask real quick. We already got named position institution and your superpower. I'm Batman Who are y'all Well, first up, I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for letting us to be on here My name is Monica Rosen. If you mentioned I'm an instructional designer at the University of Michigan And I would probably say my superpower is, you know, create a problem solving I really like to solve problems and there's, you know, no problem if you come to me with it with a problem I like to spitball five or ten suggestions for Solutions for your problem. I just really like to help people overcome their hurdle and take back a little bit of the stress Of the anxiety that comes from having a problem and work through that. I'll need you on speed dial Hey y'all, I'm Kate Hash. I'm assistant vice chancellor for customer experience and engagement at UNC Chapel Hill That's a really long title. I run a lot of our customer-facing support services for campus and my super power Is probably that I can show up and talk about anything So I'm excited to be here excited for y'all to throw some of the myths at us and just see what we think about it Me and Monica. The perfect podcast guest. There you go. Thank you. Hope for the layer Yeah, sir I heard that you now stepped in the radioactive do you've developed a new super power, right? Correct You want to update the box? What's the new super power? Sure, but what's there just going to give everyone an idea on our new super powers for each episode My super power it is I am a community elder I really love for you to be able to gather and I'm not sick cause I was struck together fool. No, thank you messin Yep, there we go. She brought us all together the super team all at once So five myths about y'all professionals real quick a huge shout out to the young professionals community group We reached out to y'all to get some topics. We had none. You gave us 10 So thank you very much. We're going to start this off first as anyone want to speak to just Y'all professionals are general. I want to kick kick this thing off before we jump into the talk scene I mean, I think what's really interesting is just this definition of young in higher ed We've joked about it on the YPAC right only in higher ed Can you be 40 and be considered a young professional still right? But I do think young to me is an age thing It is maybe you're new to higher ed. You're new to your institution. It's more of like an energy It's more of a vibe than just a straight age. I would say so that's how I'm sort of gonna think about things today And tell me more about the vibe Kate. I want you to spread I mean, I think a lot when I think about like our YPAC and our young professionals CG It's just folks who have a lot of energy They're bringing a lot of energy to their work to their job into the community as well I feel like the young professionals community is amazing. I mean, there are a lot of like y'all's hard work to in the group So it's it is it's an energy that everyone has Like though as a great point. I reflect on that a lot because like on one end I've been doing higher ed for 13 years and to me 13 years sounds like a lot of time We never get to retire Well speaking of gifts we got some myths to bless with folks I'm gonna kick it off So the first one that we got from the YPCG in mentorship The young professional is the mentee and not the mentor You don't generally serve the mentor role. What is let me know is that real or not? Can we be mentors instead of just maintenance? You want to go first? I'm gonna build off of what you said Kate and just some I want to go because I think that's a really good point that you know It I think that this can be a swap mentor and mentee can swap because again young professionals may be coming in young to higher ed or higher ed IT or ed tech but they come still with a lot of Experiences and so I think that they can still bring that knowledge that they have from their former you know career in an outside of higher ed and Be you know a mentor to you know, what would traditionally be a mentee in that way? So I think Yeah, I think that would be a myth for me that it always has to be like a mentor mentee relationship And there's a swap right what I'm hearing is like the reverse mentorship is a thing And you know, maybe we don't have to look at mentorship as you know older folks mentoring younger folks Maybe we can look at it make it can just drop that entire thing and look at it through the lens of you can learn something from anyone I mean I think that's really gets to the heart of it too because we so often think about mentorship again as an age thing or Hierarchical like oh if you're CIO you should be mentoring someone below you and I I have advised folks in the past to Find mentors to address specific like skill gaps And when you approach things that way age becomes almost irrelevant because you're just trying to learn from someone like plane That's it. You're not really focused on the age or the experience level You're trying to like get better at one piece of what you do, right? I can attest to that because Kate is a mentor of my unconsider all the old mentors might be Kate especially and I Have heard her talk about and I'm actually Architected some of my network around that advice and knowing who to go to for certain things There's some people that I go to if I just need an idea champion and that question and I just need someone to be my Cheerleader right and then there's some folks that go to when I want you just to inviscidate in a D I have and help me build it up and make it better and those folks sometimes are usually supposed to and I would add to that. I want to kind of double down on busting this one, right? So Alright, I when I think of mentorship at its core, right? It's really just a exchange of experiences and all of us come with Experiences so it really doesn't matter on how long you've been doing what are you know x and y but I will add though that as a new Professional come into a situation that hierarchical setup does kind of at least set some targets like hey If I want to be a CIO it makes sense to mentor with a CIO or someone who's close to that role I do think it's on the more experienced young professionals included that when we're in those scenarios that we're the ones that bring to that Mentorship like hey, it's not just about we giving to you. I want to get something out of this as well I think you have an experience that I went on our phone So I do think as I'm putting that all on a song who just step into the door is really hard to do because they're Going to look up and down and say yep I talked to this person that person that person because that that makes sense And I think west you're getting to something that's really important about mentorship Which is you have to know why you're why you're doing it why you're asking someone You know, I've had folks say hey, would you mentor me? I'm like, yeah, what would you like to to get out of this relationship? And sometimes there's not great answers So some of it is like really understanding what you're hoping to get because being a mentor is It can be time intensive depending on how many folks you're talking to at once You know, there are some edu cause, you know, big names in this edu cause community And I'll hear like 15 different people say that's my mentor. I'm like this is person like what do they what else do they do? This is amazing. They're giving so much of themselves And I think one of the most respectful things you can do when you're looking for a mentor is really think through like what What you would like to receive from them so that relationship is, you know, mutually beneficial Then peer mentoring like I actually think young professionals are amazing for peer mentoring too because like Just the way we all talk to each other and engage and learn from each other And I think we all grew up, you know, relatively around, you know, a generation where giving feedback and soliciting feedback is Normal and again, we almost want more of it than I think some of our, you know, baby Bosses predecessors before us have been used to and, you know, because for us it comes so free flowing It feels almost like there's something wrong or You've been there's a boy to see back or not hearing that, you know, peer mentoring kind of discussion Like you've been saying, yeah, it just comes naturally to us So to further bust this men and, you know, for a group of folks who really feel comfortable Soliciting and giving feedback and peer mentoring and and all of these things that's just kind of in our DNA You know, why why wouldn't it be? Why wouldn't you want to be a mentor if I'm a professional? Especially since we're so experienced and comfortable with it. Yeah, absolutely. So we bust that one All of us can be mentors all of us can be mentees it's about sharing experiences We got one more from the Watkins cg and I want to open it up to our esteemed colleagues You guys see it to see what they might be thinking the next one I have on the list is young professionals Won't work with one organization long time We give y'all two three years and then we're ready to go to the next thing We want to go to the google is the Microsoft stay everything's we don't want to stick around Is that true? We want to just stay or not stay but move on So one of the things when y'all sent out the the long list of some of the myths I said, okay. Let me step one. What if I don't get defensive right away? And what if I ask is this really a bad thing? And so let's even just go down the pathway of that being true. I'm not sure it is but let's pretend that it's true What's bad about that? What's bad about getting a really high highly motivated High performing employee for two or three years who comes in and does great things for your organization Makes you think about things differently introduces new ideas. I mean there's pros and cons right there's pros and cons to everything But that's one and I've had this discussion with my team and my organization. Is it is it a bad thing if people staying? for just three years um So I would I would be interested to hear what y'all think about that Just is something we actually touched on last year in our presentation kate. Yes Yeah, our conference which feels like almost yesterday, but also a decade ago Our topic was really about, you know, the next generation leaders And how do you know when you're at a put your career at a certain constitution or role of birth stunting? And I agree. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if you realize I've gotten everything that I wanted to get out of this role And if I continue, I'm just doing what I already know that that growth, you know is is Minimum and how can I really be effective for others for the teams I'm leading for services? I'm Providing and if I'm maybe still staying out of blue And I think it's okay to say I've gotten what I need to get out of this role And maybe that is in two years. Maybe it's in ten. Um, but you know, I also agree that you know getting stuck on duration for you know calendar time kind of role I think is um A box we need to really get out of and really more focus on how we're, you know burning in this world However grow a what value we're adding and you can't really measure that and in the calendar time Consistently across all roles all institutions, you know I'm curious what you think if this one's always been a Challenge for me in that so a lot of my career has been in the front facing front line support areas And we do have a bit of a stigma you're supposed to be here for a short period of time And then you're supposed to move on. We're one of the very clear entry level There's like a of i2 organization on the flip side I have several folks who have worked for me over the years that they very much enjoy that type of work they would rather grow in that field and Sometimes feel a little lost in the messaging because part of the messaging is like, hey, I'm trying to get you out of here I don't think just be here too well two years being here too well And so I've actually only recently started to have those conversations to so to kind of get to this I think i'm agreeing with the group that I don't really think is bad or good It's just a matter of what your own situation is personally professionally and what makes sense when those opportunities come up I moved across the country after 10 years Almost 11 years with the university of georgia that go work at uc berkeley I don't know if I'm gonna be a uc berkeley for 10 years or or not. It really just depends on What opportunities come about where my family is at the moment, you know at the end of the day if my wife says Me ain't leaving I'm probably not leaving I love that though was because when I started at UNC a decade ago I probably would have thought I was only going to stay for a couple years and here I am a decade later So I also think you can go into a job thinking it's short term And then you know the institution or the organization can show you ways you can grow there And I think that is on us as leaders to to help young people envision not just careers like in Our institutions but in higher ed and we talked about this all the time sarah. How do you keep talented people in higher ed? Uh, so I think that becomes an important conversation too. Yeah, um, I could get on my soapbox about that But I'm curious to hear what my good things. Yeah, so I mean I I agree that it's probably you know I don't think that people come in and thinking like they have a totally end goal as to where this position Is going to take them. Am I going to be here for two or three years or am I going to stay here? You're normally often trying to figure out is is there still space for me to grow here? Am I is my company and and my team and my department investing in me and am I am I getting something out of this? Um, is there a space even in my unit that I can grow from or you know transfer into a unit that's still with your own university? Um, it kind of depends on how those opportunities kind of manifest over time and you know, what kind of feedback you're getting from them I mean, but a lot of times. Yeah, especially in the entry level of some of these higher ed IT I mean we're seeing these two three year contract positions So it's almost like they're kind of telling us that you know, this is for two or three years And then you're expected to move on from there So, I mean it's a little bit of a flood, you know, like maybe you do want more Maybe you want to take this position and go into a new position and bring those skills with you to do something different Or something more grow and other times you're like this is this is where this is where I'm meant to be And you brew in and you and you grow deeper instead of necessarily wider or higher So, I mean it kind of depends on on your goals Right That's a great point too that you brought up where some of these positions are Freed as two or three year positions almost like really acting that younger professionals or folks going into entry level roles Are going to leave them at a month of time. And so I wonder how much are we actually perpetuating the problem? Mm-hmm Yep, and that speaks to what I was talking about earlier using my example I very much had the mindset of if you stay two three years at my help desk Then I'm feeling you like I feel like you need to be moving on There's a whole bunch of reasons why how long do you want to get yelled at by customers, right? Exactly me, but again the lesson learned is I added several individuals like no west I want to be help best manager one day I want to be a lead if I go somewhere I'm going to go to a bigger service desk area because this is actually something I enjoy doing even with all the hard things that we have to deal with I don't want to go and be a information security analyst or anything like that. So It it can be a bit of a conflict because again I've gotten in front of large groups and said hey y'all I'm training you up so you can get out of here And that's all success and half the room's like yeah, let's go and the other has like what about me? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely So any other thoughts on Long-term it sounds like we're busting this one. It really is just down to your personal experiences And what opportunities there if one of you I do think a myth that is is true Is that young professionals will leave if they're not engaged? I think that is something very True about millennials and and Gen Z is that if they're not engaged and challenged they will leave And so I think it's up to us to keep folks engaged And building on that a little bit. I kind of want to go into this. This is my myth that I'm gonna bring out Let's do it So I hear so often and my husband runs the staffing out mean And he he hears so often brings clients saying people don't want to work People are lazy and typically these people are younger folks. And you know, I've heard millennials are lazy all of those things right and My soapbox that I want to be on and talk about is I think that is exceptionally untrue and Why I'm saying that is because as chair of the white pack we worked with Folks with an edge of cause to do a young professional survey of all of the young professionals in the edge of class community So thousands of folks were interviewed and we got data to show. Hey Is this sure enough and what being learning was the majority of the professionals who responded Had are the most educated folks in in our entire Domain, you know for they have most of them all have bachelor's degrees Most have master's degrees or multiple master's degrees and more folks or young identifying folks have phd's than anyone in our community And so if you're going to call us lazy, I don't know how how many lazy people go out and get multiple master's trees bachelors and phd's but you know, that's only I know one One measure of you know success or admit mid to a showing up for something But it's a big one and frankly it's our business And we show up for our business and we invest in the products that we sell which is education, right more than anyone And I'm in grad school bring My I have a full-time job right now. I'm involved with this community a lot right now And you know, it really works for even folks think that young professionals are lazy because I don't feel the lazy And I look at everyone at the stable. I look at our entire y-pack team Many of us you have a master's degree. I mean we I'm our audience doesn't know monica has a master's degree And you know, we we all show up when you do so much That was just one the rising star award We show up in our community so much and we are so engaged and I think lazy is the last word that we use to describe young clutch I think people are confusing laziness with an unwillingness to let the job run your life in a way that previous generations have and yes Our uh general session speaker. We just heard from dr. Tracey McMillan cotton has a phrase that I share with everyone You've heard it a thousand times it's that the institution cannot love you and for a lot of people that sounds pessimistic I don't think it's pessimistic. I think it's realistic And the institution is never going to give you back as much as you give to it I think in most cases obviously i'm generalizing here And I think what you see is a lot of young professionals Willing to do the work do the work well, but they are not going to give their lives Over to the work in a way that previous generations did and I think where you see that generational struggle is in One one or two generations that have decided what their boundaries are And another generation that never got those boundaries right right we're not empowered to have those boundaries And I think that's some of the friction you see I agree And I think our generation is not only good at setting boundaries But we hold them too and that takes an entirely different skill set corrects and yeah practice right And I think you know what we were talking about earlier with cure mentoring I think we talk about that a master's else to say hey You know this is happening. What do you think and we have our cure mentors come in and say Yeah, you're right that that's not okay or you know that is Calm down, right and I really agree. I think it's a lot more of being honest with ourselves And I don't think we're not asking for Ridiculous things we're asking for again a work-life ballot And the things that I feel are are rights as workers in I think what I've always found interesting about this conversations I don't know about y'all but since I started working Do more with less has been a constant thing throughout my whole young career, right? And so to me I read that as I'm doing more than the people before me And look people with the same jobs therefore. How am I lazy? I mean quite literally have built that into our strategic plans for the past 10 15 years Myth busted I agree You know I didn't look at you know your predecessors were or Resources that they had even and sometimes the teeps were double the size and through an absolute funding double the budget And now we're acting we're being asked to deliver more services faster 24 by 7 365 But still be told to do less and I know this isn't you know Any one single person's fault. I think it's certainly you know true and for all of us in higher education Especially in public institutions But it should be that way and so when you know young professionals kind of get caught up in this lazy Or you know not wanting to work. It's like well, that's really difficult to work and be successful If we're not set up for success, you're not giving us the funding or the staff How are we supposed to execute and meet those expectations? If we're not being given the same Resource we're not even on the same playing field So you have to adjust your expectations and I feel like that also is where that first thing I'm curious you work a lot with faculty Do you feel like the faculty have that myth as well that? Younger like the students in particular are lazy I mean, it depends. Yes. Sometimes I I would say I think you know One of the other issues especially with older generations is in that we're talking about how the work has changed And evolved over time is that also older generations Don't know what it means to be online All the time to have every communication slack and google and gchat and at mentioning on docs You know like we do have to be protective of our time We have to be protective of our time because we're literally on the clock like it feels like all the time And then to add to that I think that another thing that's you know that young professionals add is that We try to work smarter not harder in that we try to be more efficient So we look at kind of like the old ways of doing things and we'll try and find ways to automatize that or to You know for our own sanity protect our time And that may be like well, why are you doing it a different way? We've always done it this way Well, your way takes a lot more time is you know We don't have all those resources that you have and so we try and find and build processes that make it easier So that we can manage that time, right? Well, they're just such a great point And I feel like many of us have been millennials especially and gen Z too have been raised to just You know optimize everything with louis boom We have to when you don't have that many resources right for right? So you have to be smart and you have to be creative about how to get that work done I can't tell you how many times I say we're smart not hard I think I say that you want a team too, but how do we do this better? How do we do this more more smart? So we don't have to Spend time, you know, I think about from an opportunity cousins every minute we spend Doing something that has maybe a better way of executing We're losing a minute on actually focusing on something more worthwhile. I mean I'd also say we can't be lazy because the Speed of change is so rapid. I mean it used to be you could put in a technology And feel pretty good. It was going to be around for 10 or 15 years I have zero expectation of that now anytime I do an implementation And that's different. You can't be lazy when you know you're going to be changing technology on three to five year cycles I mean it's more with less. It's changing more frequently So I just think it's sometimes I feel like the generations have just lived in different worlds, right different realities Very much sound speaking of those different worlds I'm gonna put on my dad hat because we argue about this some time here we so So, you know, I talked to my dad say we talked about the experience of going to college back in his day, right? They had to go to the school. They had to go to the red stars office physically They had to go to the admissions office physically. They had to go to the bursar physically Right me. I went on the internet at my own at home You know, probably my pajamas and typed up one document and I got accepted into college So there's an argument there that I've gotten we got back at four at night. He didn't call me lazy but he did He said it was it was more for him though. It was he had to do more things It took more time more effort to do stuff So I'm curious like what what are our thoughts on that that there is an older generation song mentioned here already that is a different experience There were some barriers to them It does feel like it's a little easier because of work that they've done that they built They built some things and put some things in place to make it a little bit more efficient for us I would I would walk to every office if it meant the tuition was $50 and yeah No, I mean, I think like it's valid. I I hear that but also that I mean it was a different reality then and just you know And again, I think that just gets the generational differences. Like I just don't think it's it's this it's apples to apples Just those lived experiences that folks had Yeah, I totally agree until No, how does that go over? Oh man, we just argue all the time So to our guests we we busted a few myths here. Are there any that y'all want to put on the table for us to talk about Sure, I had one that I've been mulling over and thinking a little bit and that was you know, I'm going into A new phase of my career where I'm trying to look at things like leadership. And what does that mean? How does somebody Build leadership skills like there's no class really I mean, I guess there are some classes But you know like as you're trading like how do you move into that position without having a leadership title? And I think that one of the myths is that you can't build you can only build leadership Experiences with the leadership title and so I mean one of the I think this is a common myth And so I think that you can be a leader and no matter what your title is no matter where you're at in your career No matter what position that you're in just by looking at the Availability around you like a leadership in this project leadership with an initiative leadership by bridging units together Um, and yeah, that's that's one of who was love to discuss a little bit I think I'll take the shot so Uh, I think one of at least in my own experience. It's been the difference between not having a Role that infers leadership versus one that you it's the intention It's what I'm trying to get to there was things to your point that when I wanted to exhibit that I was ready for a more Official position I got involved in things and I had to put a lot of my own intention in the end of all I had to seek out committees on campus I had to seek out opportunities to say hey, I'm here. I think I can do that I'm interested in this project Is there a place for me to assist and I had to put myself out there to do it versus When I became a director for the first time I was very much pulled into tables and seats I didn't have to ask to be a part of that important meeting Usually I was in the room as the idea was being developed and I could just decide who I want to be a leader today Or do I just want to sit back and watch how this goes? So I feel like that's The difference I see earlier in career. I very much had to Think outside of just my job and say hey, is this opportunity? I want to be ex can I hop on this project and do I think I see something that'll give me there? But I'll curious if that's similar No, I think that's been my experience as well and yesterday Tara Hughes and I Tara's the CIO at Cal State Maritime Did a pre-conference session on transitioning to leadership and that was part of the advice that we gave to folks You have to seek out some opportunities I mean getting involved in edu cause is a great way to show leadership when that opportunity isn't available to you On your campus get involved in different committees And even sometimes on campus you're going to have groups of IT professionals women in technology like different different options To get involved and showcase your leadership because you can't always count on your institution to do it for you But I agree with you once you get that title that infers leadership It's amazing how many doors can open for you and the seats you get at the table And as as that all sort of happened for me. I really tried to To like internalize it and remember it so I can make those same opportunities for other people Right because it's really easy to go about your day-to-day and forget that you have folks who are looking for that one foot in the door Right, right So I'm curious then how do you so right now you are officially the title lead? Yeah, not even make those opportunities Yeah, so this is something else we talked about. I'm really sensitive to opportunity hoarding And I think when you first get into a leadership position It is so tempting to join every committee to self nominate for every committee every project Every chance for leadership so that you can showcase things And one of the really important things you have to learn to do as a leader is to step back Because you've already got the privilege of the title, right? You've already got that So how do I make space for folks who want new opportunities? And sometimes that means I don't get to have like the insight into a specific project or a committee But someone else does in my experience has been very similar. It's been stepping back and saying okay I don't have to say yes to every single thing for me directly It's once I stepped into Particularly this role I'm in now So I'm executive director for campus. I take experience at you sue Berkeley and uh There are a million opportunities that pop up on my desk And I feel like this is the first time that I've had this many people to think about and say I think so and so could be a great person for this opportunity and really I think the biggest thing is just I'm in rooms that they'll they're not going to be Yep, you know, just just being honest about it. They're not going to automatically get to sit at the executive leadership table or sit in cabinet meetings So if it is on me in a lot of scenarios to say, you know what? I know someone I can't do this right now Probably could but I can't do this right now. I know someone that's really good at this I give them give them my influence to say I think that this individual can do this job I'm going to put them in this problem and support them through it But I'm going to say it's on you now. I've given you what I've got to give Let's support you and be as successful And I found that when those scenarios work out Usually we both went right like and I still look like the great leader and then I look like I've got this new leader That's up and coming and so we end up all winning in the end Uh, but it very much is the the intention. I have to be very thoughtful and and Aware of what where my teams are they're in with Experiences and if whether that matters in the scenario sometimes it's put them in something they have no experience with That's the pick right and I feel like that scenario works really well because you have an eight where you know of some Right and for our young professional listeners. I wonder what advice we would have to make sure that those leaders like yourselves at this table know their names I I would ask y'all first. I ask some thoughts would already you call some lisa I mean, I think you have to be your own advocate I actually think that's one thing I've done really well in my career is when I've had opportunities to advocate for myself I've sort of raised my hand or I've taken a leader to coffee or I've asked for a meeting I've not been afraid to ask for things But I always have a very purposeful agenda things I'm hoping to ask them for and I try to take a respectable amount of their time And sometimes it's just saying if an opportunity comes up for this thing or this thing Please consider me for it not put me on it not think of me first but consider me for it I think your words really matter um in those situations But you have to advocate for yourself and that's not a comfort zone for a lot of people Yeah, I'll do you have a thought I mean, I think those are really great points Like I said, I don't have that leadership title yet But you know, I am like trying to figure out, you know, what kinds of opportunities you can do to develop those skills And putting yourself out there. So I think these are um all really great advice Consider me Hey, just put it out there to the world. Consider us I would throw one at there because I'm I'm passionate about this so Colleagues friends, all right There is some meeting you're probably invited to on the regular It might be a all staff meeting some kind of leadership meeting If you're invited someone's saying that I want to take X amount of time out of your day because I think it's important that you're there Take advantage of that moment if they do presentations reach out find out who runs it say hey I got this project. I'm working on I got this effort. I'm working on we're a 300 plus personal organization I bet you a hundred of them don't have any idea what I do I'm gonna just talk about the work I did and within a time span It seems small and to you it probably won't seem that important because you're like I do this every day It's not a big deal. I can't tell you how many help desk presentations I gave while I'm sitting here rolling my eyes in my head But it mattered like it It almost instantly makes you an expert of that field in that moment and and it gives you an influence that I don't know any other way To get it there might be others, but I don't know any other way And I I think that's been pretty cool in my career the way I've been able to Take advantage of those moments to say if you're gonna have me here I'm gonna make it meaningful not just for y'all but also for me Right and just talk about regular work. I didn't join a committee or anything like that Just the work I've been doing and why I do it and here's the value that it had That goes a very very long way people are never and they pay attention They notice that's the moment they click the phone down particularly the first couple of times you do it So that would be my advice and take advantage of those regular means that you just sit in and listen to all right It's great advice and One other bit so we have to bust that we did not cover today that anyone here wants to share I mean, I think one that's been on my mind is that young professionals Don't belong around the senior leadership table Um, I mean, I don't want to make any assumptions, but Wes I bet at Berkeley You're probably in the same situation as me where there's no one else within a few years of you around that table And that's an interesting feeling to have the first time you sit at it because you know as a woman or a minority You kind of expect that outsider You know feeling but the age thing caught me by surprise the first senior leadership meeting I went to and I'm the youngest by 15 years Um and realizing that that can bring A really unique perspective to the table and that that is in its own way a really valuable asset to the university and to the It leadership because we think differently about things right right and I always think about the very first senior leadership meeting I went to I was newly appointed chief of staff And one of the requests we had was to provide office 365 accounts in perpetuity for every person who ever came through UNC and immediately as it folks do the senior leadership team started Like solution like oh, how do we do this? What would this look like? What would the licensing cost be and this went on for about 15 minutes? And I finally raised my hand and I said I don't know how to tell you all this They do not want your email accounts like an ad an ad UNC dot edu Email account is not the flex. It was 20 years ago. They would all use their gmail accounts Their personal gmail accounts at this institution if we let them And in that moment and we didn't do that, right? He's like my cio was like that's a really interesting perspective and took that back to the folks that requested it the university did not do that And if any of y'all know about the licensing structures, I mean that's a million dollar That's multi-million dollar safe right there over many years right and so but that was a perspective I had on day one That no one else in the room would have had so there's there is value to having young professionals around a leadership table And I don't think people realize that enough right and building on that even more the irony in all of this is we work in higher education The primary folks that we serve are students. You were typically aged young So why would we not? Have young professionals who more closely identify with the constituency that we serve On these leadership teams. It seems obvious the answer is right there in the room Yeah, we should be leading into this with full force agreeing Min busted All the mics Now it is an interesting dynamic though it uh Since I've crossed over into I guess senior mid-level leadership just generally a 10 year gap At minimal and uh, it's just like the little nuances like well, I'll sit in the room I'm the only one within 10 years of my range and they'll just have small talk about things I have no idea they're talking about And then I small talk and all of them have no idea what I was gonna be I only have a uh, you know a comrade in there to say yep. I know that kindrick lemar leader talking about So I I totally resonate with that I think Fortunately, I've been I've been very fortunate with some of the folks that have been at least open to It sounds like at least your that she spoke up to at least were open to the idea That's an important step. I've been in scenarios. Well, that wasn't the case and that's where you get to the toxic type of environment, so Yeah, that is a good point and it does surprise me I don't want to be mean but like to the point of like students that generally I'm not all like I'm a student now I'm sorry and the answer student But you know, I don't know. I'm like, I'm sure I got something in common with, you know, us 65 year old seven year old president, but I don't think there is obvious is Someone maybe in the 30s or 40s. So I think there's something there I'm not saying no one should be that old But they should just have like they should be open to feedback from a wide range of generations and experiences They even shouldn't just be young professionals where they should have a suit there for the longest time I was the person who always got tagged to do like student interaction And they're like, no Kate, you're young. You can relate to them. I was like, I don't think you realize how old 40 See we're two and 18 year old like I might as well be a million years old And I mean to like like we don't share the same cultural references or anything like that But you know, it's I think everyone has to work at this, you know on a multi-generational campus Which is always going to be the reality of all of our workplaces We really have to work and do our best to understand each other and respect each other even when we don't totally You know fully understand pride and Exactly and I feel like that probably is a good way to wrap up like all the things we've spoken in our right being open to A respectful of many different perception our perspectives Regardless of where you are in your career or where you are in your life that we all add a little value Yeah, and I think that pretty much busts every myth Myth bust you heard it here So any final thoughts uh, long to anything final thoughts you want to leave our guests Well, you know, I do feel like all of these myths kind of tied in with each other You know what the mental minty kind of relationship the the energy and the new perspectives and the you know That the younger professionals bring um and the importance of diversity across all different levels of the institution So I think that's kind of like they all kind of connect back to each other So I would say if you're if this is something you're struggling with find community I think community has been huge to me In my career, I mean that's how I've met all of you Like and this is just the plug for the y y pcg and y pack like go find your people And I think that's really important and you'll find it really sort of like life and energy giving When the work on canvas gets tough, right exactly and my final plug really is You know when I first started getting involved with echocons the y pcg and the y pack did not exist And I remember walking into my first It was I was a connect conference in Chicago. Actually, I think this was like 2017 2015 or something lot before the pandemic so the before times I'll foam but I remember walking in and feeling like I didn't see anyone and looks like me here I don't know if I belong here And my message, you know to our listeners in this community is everyone belongs here And you would have a space here in the y pcg and in the y pack applications are open If you have any questions, I welcome our community to reach out to me and to our team All of our information is posted on our websites and our social media accounts And we welcome you. This is a safe space and this is a place where we have an open mind and want to hear from you Absolutely for maybe some of our newer guests on this episode y pack young professional advisory committee y pcg Young professional community group. Please join us. We are we are looking for folks within the y pack So we would love to have you put in your applications I think we've wrapped it up. We busted a bunch of myths. So y'all y'all professionals are ready to go now You got it all figured out on west johnson. I'm sarah buskan. We are the rising voices Park ass. Thank you for joining us. Thank you