Jamie D'Amico: Your Neuro-spicy Brain on Student Conduct and Leadership

Most college students are taught to follow rules blindly—until neurodivergence, anxiety, and unspoken expectations turn that obedience into a double-edged sword.

 In this eye-opening episode, Jamie D'Amico, an executive leadership coach and former RA, reveals the surprising ways institutional policies can do more harm than good—and what we can do to change that.

Discover how rigid enforcement and punitive measures often overlook the human behind the rule, especially when neurodiverse students or staff are involved. Jamie shares raw, real stories from his college years, illustrating how neurodiversity influences behavior and decision-making in high-stakes environments like residence halls and campuses.

Discover more about Jamie at https://fortifycoaching.com/ or https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiedamico/

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Theme music "Fuzzball Parade" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Kurt, I have some exciting news.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

And what is that?

SPEAKER_03 0:03

We've hit some milestones for the Ms. Behavior Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

I love a statistic. Tell me.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Well, uh at the conference, you know, we hit our 1000th download, which was a big milestone. Yes. We actually this week got um somebody asking to be on our show instead of us reaching out to them. And it's a renowned ethicist.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

And uh he's got a new book and of course wants to get it out to the world, and so we'll have we'll announce that in a couple weeks, but that was exciting. And I'm holding our first official fan letter. Get out of town.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

It's like an actual letter.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

I went out to the post box and it's like a proper letter. I haven't gotten one of these in maybe years. Wow. Colette and Kart, thank you so much for your encouragement. Ms. Behavior is one of my favorite podcasts. I proudly support on my iPad and water bottle. Thank you for being such an encouragement education and professional development for me. I don't know where I would be this year without the Ms. Behavior podcast. Exclamation point. Can't wait to see you at the next meeting.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

That is so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Oh, Tiffany.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I love Tiffany.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Me too. And I was so sad that Tiffany didn't get to go to the conference to meet us in person, but is diligently working away at their dissertation.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

So for some people, we might be their favorite higher education podcast about student conduct.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

It might. Kurt, you and I have had a debate about whether that should be our tagline that we are higher education's favorite.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

I think we can just safely say that we're the second favorite student conduct podcast. Me too. It's not a race.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

This week we have a really interesting interview that kind of defies and breaks all the rules, which I love.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Of talking about student conduct and working with different types.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

I really enjoyed the conversation and uh to get the perspective of somebody who is a part of the neurodivergent community, uh, fascinating. Not just from like the student perspective, but also, you know, coworkers who may be on the spectrum. So fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

We met uh this was Jamie DeMico from Fortified Coaching. And um yeah, I mean we talked about him as a student, him getting in trouble, him being an RA, and then uh finding himself in a career that is helping other people make sense of things that didn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

And so much of it I I thought was relatable. Uh I can't wait for people to hear the story about the first uh encounter that Jamie had with some students who were maybe doing something nefarious. Because I feel like it was a struggle I would have had as a student as well, or as a as an RA as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

I think I needed to get shaken out of my like we train RAs, we you know, we hire the right people, we train them the right way, and then they'll just do everything we ask them to do. And he gave us an honest perspective on like not not everyone does. And they might have honorable reasons, or there might be opportunities for us to just be better as professionals and preparing these young people for hard jobs.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I think also just being open to you know, are there different ways to get to the same outcome? And you know, I'm not advocating for throwing policy out the window, obviously, but you know, it does raise the question what are we trying to accomplish when we set uh these expectations up for RAs.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

I love it. Let's introduce the world to Jamie D'Amico. Hello and welcome to Ms. Behavior. My name is Colette.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

And I'm Kurt.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

And we're your host to talk about all things college student conduct. Uh today we have a guest, Jamie D'Amico. Jamie, we are eager to get started because I know that you have stories, but why don't you tell the world who you are, what you do?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Ah, well, uh I I'm going to start with uh, you know, back in 1998, my fifth year of college, I was an RA at the University of Dayton, where I didn't work directly for COLET, uh, but she was one of the leaders of the uh resident life uh organization. And uh that's that that's the beginning of of how I ended up here today. But after a long marketing career, I decided that I needed a career change because I was really sort of tired of making a lot of money for private equity firms and kind of wanted to help people. Imagine that. Uh and I ended up going back to school, which was an interesting uh process. And we may get we may get into me and school later on, but uh I did a program at Georgetown University in executive leadership coaching, and that's what I'm doing now, making my living as an executive leadership coach, but that has very interestingly caused me to come face to face with myself in a very interesting way that has also affected me professionally, which is I knew that in order to get through school, unlike my undergrad, I needed to come to terms with the fact that I am neurodivergent. And when I started, when I started working with my own brain in a way that was making me more successful, the universe has uh a way of playing jokes on you, and it decided that I was going to also start working with people who are neurodivergent in a professional capacity, which is something I never wanted to do. I thought, I drive myself crazy. Why do I want to work with people who are like me? But here I am, so I'm kind of straddling uh an interesting line there.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

We are gonna talk about college, Jamie. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And I have questions about Colette. So this is uh an unexpected uh treasure for me. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

We seem to only bring on people that will say really nice things to us.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

So Oh, well, uh, you know, depending on the question, maybe we can change that trend.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Well, we usually ask as an icebreaker, uh, what were you like in college, and did you get in any any trouble when you were a student?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Uh so college for me was the tale of two halves. But for me it was, well, I was there five years, so 40% versus 60%. I my my first 40%, I was desperate to fit in. I wanted to be like everyone else. I was a little bit on the studious side. I had my first girlfriend ever who I met before my first class, and I was just I was a relationship guy, and she had a ton of uh social anxiety, so that meant that you know, weekends came around and we mostly stayed in. Well, the following 60%, I really kind of spread my wings. I became a bit of a, am I allowed to say a bit of an asshole, uh, in in certain ways, which I that began when I was that began actually the beginning of my freshman year. Um I decided that, oh, well, nobody messes with the mean girl, so I'll be a mean girl and I'll be aggressive and people won't um people won't mess with me. Uh now I've gotten pushback on it that I wasn't really that way. Uh it's just sort of in my mind. But so yeah, the final 60%, I was really kind of developing my own individuality. I was learning, uh I was less studious, I was learning how to play the drums. I uh really saw myself as more of a far more of a social creature, much to my detriment a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

And tell us about a time that you got in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Oh, that, yes. It was first semester of my freshman year. I walked onto the girls' floor where my girlfriend lived, thinking that I was gonna sneak my way into her room, and there was an RA right down the hall who just marched on down, and I was cited for a visitation.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

And what do you remember what happened? Like how it was handled?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Absolutely. Um, I came up with a little bit of a BS story, but I was, you know, I had to meet with the area coordinator of the the dorm, and you know, he sort of had to ask me the questions. You know, what what were you doing? I said, Well, this is where the BS came in. I'm like, honestly, I needed some Advil. I had a splitting headache. We weren't paying attention at the time, we just walked right in, and that was that. It was stupid. I I didn't pay attention, and yeah, I I got what I deserve, which is to be written up. And he just kept saying, be careful, be careful, be careful. Like that was the extent of it. I was fined$50. I had to write an essay about my behavior, and I was supposed to do a Saturday morning at 8 o'clock study hall. And the beauty of that was I walked down to the study hall, and whichever RA was supposed to be tending to it didn't show up. So by 8 15 I was back in bed.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

Well, I what was the study hall supposed to accomplish?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Oh, it was just your penance, you know, you're like you're going to be inconvenienced for doing something wrong, basically. Just part of the punishment.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Like breast breakfast club.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, and I'm just thinking of how odd it seems, like a visitation policy. Am I just so far removed from this at this point that this is still something that happens, or is this now an antiquated thing? I don't know the answer to that, Colin.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Religiously affiliated campuses I was on did have different policies. One one called them parietals, uh parietal hours. Um parietal hours? I'm curious now, yeah. I've only worked at independent schools now for a couple decades, so I don't know. But I I just met with someone from Notre Dame this morning, and she was talking about the women's residence halls and the men's, so I'm I'm thinking that some of this stuff is definitely still in place.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Well, it makes perfect sense because if you have them living separately, then they couldn't possibly be doing anything the church doesn't want them to.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Sure. Just makes sense. Um but then chapter next is you became an RA.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yes, I did. Uh I was going back for my fifth year because well, that there's a bit of a story behind that, but I was not doing well in school and dropped a bunch of classes, and I was not going to be able to afford a fifth year. Um my deal with my parents was I had to pay for 50%. And they would pay the other 50%, and that was the out-of-pocket expense that did not include student loans. Um my family was not in a position to finance a private college at the time. Uh but I started working at a very young age. It was a goal. I was delivering newspapers at 11, and I was uh, you know, working at 16, and I I was prepared to do it. But I did not prepare myself financially for a fifth year. So the only way I was going to pull that off was to become an RA. Which I had considered because I had become a pretty good, or I had a pretty good relationship with a gentleman who you worked for who was an area coordinator when I was a sophomore. He was area coordinator of the dorm that I was in, uh, that being John Govednik. Uh and when I reached out to him and said I was interested in being an RA, he really convinced me that it would in fact be a good idea. And I also didn't really have any friends anymore because they had all graduated. So uh that combined with the fact that I saw an opportunity to live alone, uh, that was really appealing to me. So I thought. And interestingly, since then I have had uh roommates every step of my adult life because I'm so socially dependent.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

So every step is like the textbook of how not to do it. Like get in trouble and lie.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

But then give the student sanctions that don't really address anything. It didn't sound like any of that was educational. It just reinforced that lying is definitely the way to go here.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Right. It was a hundred percent punitive without any educational or behavioral adjustment or even uh understanding. It was, you know, you you did something wrong, you go directly to jail, don't pass code, don't collect$200.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Yeah. And then uh and I'll admit I applied to be an RA maybe for nefarious reasons. I wanted a single room.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, and I can tell you honestly, there's never been anything I wanted to do less than be an RA. And it ended up being a tremendous experience. But I also got to know other RAs and the some of the pathologies that go into it, which were very different from mine, and I didn't get along with most other RAs very well. Uh and there there were a lot of reasons for that, but you know, namely, I saw myself as a member of the community, not as somebody who was out there to to you know force punishment on people. And I feel like my approach ended up it actually, I felt like it was very successful for what I was setting out to do. But anyway, I I don't want to hijack your uh your podcaster.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

No, I'm just I'm fascinated by this because I think we think a lot alike, and yet this is stuff I really care. Like I care a lot about doing it right. Okay. What would have happened to Jamie if there had been a different conversation back then?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

That's really interesting that you asked that question because I had a good relationship with John, who was willing to overlook whatever the visitation issues I had were visitation issues. The fact that I violated the policy once, my issues. Uh and uh, you know, thank God he didn't look at it and say, well, you know, that first semester freshman year uh poor decision definitely means that he cannot handle the responsibilities uh that come along with being a resident assistant. I I and I know based on speaking with you that there's definitely institutions that say, well, if you don't have a spotless record, you you know, that we we don't want to talk to you. And I sort of wonder about that because I I can tell you that from one semester to the next in college, I was not the same person. And from my first to my fifth year, I could not have been more different than I was. Uh you know, in in that in that time frame. It was almost as though I had aged about 10 years and only five.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

Should we jump right ahead to the neurodiverse stuff?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Sure, we can definitely do that. Um, because I I think that very interestingly, I was thinking about it earlier, kind of plays into uh some of the RA personalities that I sort of saw as archetypes.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Oh, say more about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Oh, say more about that. Well, okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

RA archetypes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah, so it was my impression that there were a few different types of people that became RAs. There were people that just really wanted to be embedded into the community. They just had this deep desire to kind of, you know, maybe they were the student government type, or or maybe they did a lot of volunteering, but they just really wanted to be embedded in it. Then there were people like me who needed the money, but didn't really want to do it. And then there are those that really want to have a position of authority. And a fourth type are the folks that I think are well aware of the fact that they are not doing well socially, cannot find a roommate or people to live with, and that is a way to get out from under it or say, oh well, I didn't I didn't want to do that anyway. This is what I want to do.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

So lonely people. Kurt, can I run this through your calculus? Yeah, I those archetypes. I'm I was writing notes here. So community, authority, money, and loneliness.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

I think I was all of those at the same time. Because I I did I think the authority piece was appealing to me because of my personality type. There were roles, and you know, I wanted the residence halls to be a a good place, but I also needed money, and I also didn't have a lot of friends, so yeah, it checked off a lot of boxes for me too, in those categories.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

That's interesting. Because for me, through my four years, I had uh a core group of people that I was really close with that that are still my best friends today. And I was just flat depressed when they graduated and I was going back for for a new year. They were the best friends I'd ever had in my life. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up, so I just, you know, I really clung to them. But, you know, with them going away, it was sort of this idea that I had to start over. So I had massive loneliness going into it as well, and also needed the money. But the very interesting part about it is when I look at the folks who I labeled as being the ones that were without friends, I'm now what I know now, I'm now seeing a lot of crossover with neurodivergence. And, you know, I I don't want to say this like it's a blanket statement. Like because it it's certainly it's certainly not. But I can point to a few people specifically that I would say, you know, working with folks who are neurodivergent now, I would if I met them now, I would say, you know what, I suspect they're probably on the autism spectrum. Uh and showing up as not, you know, not necessarily doing well socially, so then they, you know, it's hard to find roommates or people that you can really bond with. That's a huge challenge. But the other thing is the incredibly black and white way of viewing the rules, which is I I remember so vividly having an argument with the other RAs, which was hey, don't write up your own residence. Call someone else, have them write up your residence. You don't need to live next door to your enemy. And they would say, well, no, they they broke the rule. You have to. And that this would go back and forth. And I and at the time, I was like, are you an idiot? Do you know what you are doing to yourself for the rest of the year if you start doing that to your neighbors? And there was there was not a lot of getting through. Now, I was to the very far end of the spectrum, which was I wanted people to think I was cool. You know, I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be cool. I, you know, I I wanted recognition and adulation and all and all the good things. So I could get that as an RA by being the person with the people on my floor that would not I wouldn't say let them get away with things, but turn the other way if it wasn't egregious. Or give them warnings. Like, hey, I know what you guys plan on doing tonight. I'm doing rounds at 11. Get the hell out of the building by eleven, and we won't have a problem.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

I do like the approach, though, of thinking of yourself as somebody there who is there to be a part of the community and to facilitate community. And I always felt the same way that, you know. That and enforcing policy, they're incongruent with each other. They in fact they smack up against each other in a way that makes it so that if I have to write this person up, they're not coming to a social program the next day. Right. Uh they're not gonna participate in whatever team building activity we're doing. So I think it's a solid approach. I wish uh I wish I would have thought of it uh 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Yeah, I it's but again, I I was coming from a perspective of at the time, you know, 21-year-old me really needed to be liked. Uh, you know, I was still sort of like I mentioned growing up, I didn't have a lot of friends, I was still kind of fighting that battle a little bit, well, a lot. Um so that was what I needed was for people to say things like, Man, you're the coolest RA ever. Like, oh, well, uh, you know, you just touched my soul. Um but that's not to say that nobody ever got in trouble in my watch, because if you were rubbing my nose in it, you know, that was that. You know, like don't treat me like I'm an idiot. Um and and just an anecdote, I I remember the very first time after the year had started and people had moved in, it was like the next day. And I was there's a kid who lived down the hall from me with his three roommates, and his older brother was one of my best friends. And I go walking down the hall to actually knock on his door, and his two roommates had just come in through the staircase, and they had backpacks on, and I knew immediately what was in the backpacks. It's like, ah, that's too it's very obvious when they're that rectangular shape and a specific size of what it is. And they stop and they look at me and they just stop that. They're like, uh-oh. And I look at them and I go, oh God. And I turned and I walked back to my room, and then my friend's brother came over. He's like, hey, what's going on? I'm like, not much, what's going on? He's like, uh, just coming down here to see if I can need to smooth things over. And that was such a learning moment for me because I I was very tied in knots because I knew what was going on, but I also knew I didn't have enough evidence to sort of pull the trigger on anything. And I had just gone through training. I had been told all of the things I needed to do that were my responsibility, and I wanted to live up to the responsibility, but that's the time I looked the other way, and I convinced myself that it that if they start drinking in the building, if they're making a scene, maybe that's when I have to deal with it. Maybe it's not the moment I suspect that they will be drinking. I don't know if that's a good or bad story.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Yeah, it's an honest story. And now I I am wondering what was the fear if you were to report the stuff, not not having a hundred percent, you know, there's no DNA evidence of it, but you have good spidey senses or more. Right. There is evidence. Um what's the fear you think for that young person taking the next step to just tell somebody what happened?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

I I I think the fear there is well, that was an interesting situation because this guy who I really liked, his older brother was one of my best friends. And there was a fear of burning a bridge. There was the fear of burning bridges early in the sea in the year, and also I was the advocate of you don't write up your own people because you don't want an enemy in your backyard. So it was I was I probably should have gone to my boss and said, Look, this was my experience, and I was really uncomfortable with it. But I like in hindsight, I could have been coached on the right way of handling that sort of situation, but I was worried that that was then going to set the path of me being looked at as bad at my job. And I didn't want to be bad at my job. Oh, so there's the performance part to I was I was literally letting what I thought, I was letting the hierarchy down.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

I wonder so much now I I think about um the way RAs, their supervisors, their supervisors talk about rules. It's it is very much about complying or not complying. It's not about why. Right. And could we provide better training programs to make sure we have a why?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

The why has always been incredibly important to me, and that is something that is fairly common with the neurodivergent brain. Uh, because we it it was explained to me this way, and this may be useful information because I know that you guys run into neurodivergent brains, but people who are ADHD look at things a little bit differently. Uh a person did this model, she took marshmallows and toothpicks and she put them together in a line and said, This is how neurotypical brain works. And then she handed it to somebody and said, make whatever shape you want. And it was, you know, it was a boondoggle, uh, as you would imagine. And she said, Okay, this is what the ADHD brain does with thoughts, but the thoughts, the marshmallows are the thoughts, the ADHD brain pays much closer attention to the connections between the thoughts. That's what the ADHD brain values is the connection between thoughts, much more so than the thoughts themselves. So that's why every time you're speaking to somebody like me, there's a parenthetical reference to something else and then something else, and then you're on a totally different track because that's how that brain is valuing their thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

It's uh what Colette and I were talking about when you came into the podcast was um I was reflecting on my sort of evolution of understanding uh, I guess, the existence of neurodivergent people or having vocabulary for it. Um thinking back to when Colette and I worked together, it was early 2000s. Um for me, that was one of the first times where I became aware that we had neurodivergent students living in our residence halls, but we didn't have words for what we were experiencing. Uh so it's fascinating to me that, you know, fast forward 30 years, I feel like we have a lot of vocabulary around it. I don't know if we're still doing justice to supporting the neurodivergent community, especially in conduct settings or in stressful situations, but uh it's been interesting to watch that evolution of language uh at the very least.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yes, you know, there's the saying you name it to tame it. That's sort of a mental health thing that people talk about. You know, you name your emotions so you can wrap your arms around it, but it's the same thing with things like neurodivergence or really anything that involves uh the brain, uh, I will say. Uh because, you know, back at the we'll call it the turn of the century, uh yeah. Um, you know, I I struggled with my own diagnosis, which came when I was in third grade, which I think was 1984. I was diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin, which made me a pioneer for both. And I spent a good portion of my life being told by people that it doesn't exist, I just don't want to sit still, or I just don't want to learn, or all of these other things that, you know, now I I realize all the people that I ostracized because I couldn't deal with their social graces because they were different than other people's. When, you know, in reality, no, if I had asked, they would have said, no, you know what, I don't understand social cues. Please tell me, because intellectually I can work with it.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

I don't know if this is too steep a transition, but um our Title IX spaces, I think, are flooded with students on the spectrum who are read a certain way and seen as creepy or not understanding boundaries or not respecting boundaries. And um, I mean, we see it with college-age folks. It's gotta be happening in the workplaces all over, too. And um what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 31:20

The difficulty with that is in the workplace, in social settings, it's still viewed as a weakness. And people don't want to show weakness. In the workplace, you you know, people don't want to report that, hey, you know, I am on the autism spectrum. Here are some things that I struggle with because you're worried about getting a target placed on your back. And I feel like that is one of the the most destructive things that we can do with neurodivergence is try to hide it or go the other direction and excuse it, uh there's a level of education that people need. And if you if it is somebody who's labeled as creepy or hyper or whatever that is, if they can have a conversation with the person and say, oh, geez, I'm sorry, I I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. And the person had a a cursory understanding of, okay, here is a challenge that society creates for these people, you know, that understanding, and there's a lot more, I think, grace being given to people. Uh, but again, I I believe that we are responsible for our own actions, and it is incumbent on the person who is neurodivergent to learn from their mistakes, too. Uh, because I have been in environments uh where, you know, it's like there's a conference that I spoke at earlier in the year, and there was an awful lot of green lighting, all kinds of behavior. And I the speaker that I appreciated the most was the one who said, stop excusing everything. You know, the 80% of the world is one way, and we're the 20% that are the other way. They should be more understanding, but it's not up to us to change everybody everyone else. You know, we we still have to work within boundaries. At the same time, they need to do better understanding. And how can we do that? By advocating for more education.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Jamie, I'm curious, do you think we do a better job, you know, writ large in higher education of supporting students or our fellow co-workers who may be on the spectrum, or do you think we're just missing the we're not hitting the bar on any front?

SPEAKER_00 33:52

That's a little bit difficult for me to say, um, because I don't spend day after day in higher education, and it, you know, I want to be very transparent about that. But I think that there are still in any environment, there are still attitudes that are not helpful. Uh, you know, there's, like I said before, there's the the people that will literally say, no, you did it because you wanted to behave that way, or you didn't understand because you didn't want to, or you you just weren't listening because you didn't want, you know, all of those things, and trying to attribute uh characteristics of people who are and features of being neurodivergent through the attributing that through the lens of people who are neurotypical. And I I think that we have come a really long way. I think that currently there is there is certainly a I I would say it it's been in retrograde a little bit in regard to uh a lot of the things that we can label as uh social issues. And this could be considered a social issue, and even a uh I mean even a medical issue. The the medical community has recently come out and said, well, you know what, we decided that we think stimulant medication for people with ADHD is bad. Uh it wasn't based on any research. That research was settled 25 years ago. Like the cases open and shut, we have all the information we need on it. It's not bad, it's bad in the wrong doses. Um and it's also not abused by the people that it is uh prescribed to because the first thing anybody with ADHD will tell you if they take too much of their stimulant medication is they don't like the way it makes them feel. Uh so as long as we can look at this from a from a mindset of trying to move the conversation forward and not turn the clock back on some of these issues, I think that you know we we are in a position where we can keep doing better. Because I, you know what, there's people like the two of you. I can't imagine people wanting to do more for students than you, Colette. You know, we we speak almost monthly uh these days, and I've never met anybody who cares more about uh about the we'll say the the growth uh of students. And I would imagine, Kurt, that the reason you're here with Colette is because you view things very similarly, you know. And I think it's people like you are gonna be or will continue to be great evangelists for people of we'll say my ilk that are neurospicy. Uh because in addition to ADHD, I'm also dyslexic.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

I do love the phrase neurospicy. Um one of my side uh passions is I uh I'm the president of a nonprofit for an LGBTQIA plus group, and um it was not on my radar until a couple of years ago that a um large portion of the trans and non-binary population also there's a Venn diagram of neurodivergent folks in there as well. So um we have a youth group that uh runs once a month, and our person who runs it um is amazing, but she has very um quickly had to get herself up to speed on how to work with uh as a neurotypical person how to work with neurodivergent or neurospicy um youth.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

You are a hundred percent right about that, and that's something that I I'm going through a certification program uh on for coaching people who are neurodiverse. And uh about a month ago, that the LGBTQ IE8 Plus uh community is um the one of the things that came right out and said was hey, if you're in a room full of uh uh folks, you can expect that a very large percentage may well be on the autism spectrum. And here's how you can sort of figure it out. And uh one of the things that she pointed out was we were told specifically, people that derive at their identity entirely through their orientation is oftentimes a good bet that there may be some neurodivergence when they're taking something from outside of themselves and saying, no, all of this is me. Or the people that, you know, everything they do is cats, and every shirt has a cat on it, and every poster on the wall has a cat on it, and you know, um just another example. Their identity is I'm a cat person.

SPEAKER_03 38:41

I'm all right, have grace. Last year I was hired at a school that had dealt with a lot of pro-Palestinian protest stuff that just went wrong. It wasn't handled great by the school, um, and working with the students was very challenging, and I thought, like, oh, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna be so good at this. But I met a lot of students who could only see black and white, would not even engage in a conversation about nuance, and then I got on chat GPT because I was afraid to talk about it, and I asked AI, why am I seeing a disproportionate number of genderqueer folks in these protest meetings about Palestinian students? And now I'm wondering, is there a Venn diagram that's all connecting here?

SPEAKER_00 39:33

I would venture to say the answer is yes.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

And then what should I have done to try to have more productive conversations? Because I was trying to talk about the gray areas and the nuance, and how do I help you really make a social change that you want to make that's a good change, and just dealing with defiance, and now I'm like, oh, could I have seen it through a different lens?

SPEAKER_00 40:01

That sounds like an unbelievable challenge, and uh I'm not even sure what in that situation you you could have done, uh, because you are dealing with such a such a challenging topic to begin with, where people are gonna dig in and they're not going to really want to listen to the other side just out out of the gate. Um and plus you're in a position where you're dealing with students, so you have people that hormonally are going to be in very, very different places from each other. You know, some at 20 years old are still children, and some are still uh some have be become adults uh with you know uh their their chemistry. And you know, it's I I I I don't know what you could have done in that situation. It it sounds like it sounds like an unwinnable position that you were put in because you would have to know how to navigate not only that situation, but also navigate the special brains that were gravitating toward it. And you know, I could throw out a couple things like, oh, you should have done this, you should have done that, but it's I I feel like that's even above my pay grade. If if you actually want that kind of advice, I know a great woman you could speak to.

SPEAKER_03 41:28

I don't want to do it the same way again and not help.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah, well, if I just on a base level, what tends to get through is helping people understand that people are are different from them for different reasons, and they're not necessarily negative reasons, and that is a hard thing to do with an issue like that. So much of it has to do with helping their understanding of the fact that people act different, think different, and it's even though their brains are telling them it's everything is black and white, the majority of the world exists in a gray area that maybe they can't see. If they can grasp that, you have honestly taken them to like the PhD levels of self-discovery.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

That feels like atomic level, like what a breakthrough that would be.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

How would you do that? You've got people that are angry that just want to yell. They you have underdeveloped brains because of their age, and I don't mean underdeveloped as though there's something wrong with them. They're just their brain is still developing. So they don't have the cognition, and then you add the neurospiciness on top of it. Oh gosh. Man, is it good that I work with adults mostly?

SPEAKER_03 42:59

The consequences are different.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Oh, they certainly are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

I'm gonna ask you one more question. This is a softball. You and I both work ro remotely. And there are more and more colleges. I hear about colleagues being told they have to go back to work. And in this space, the discipline space, I feel like being on Zoom is a superpower in terms of engagement. And I wonder it doesn't have to be about neurodiversity or anything, just you working at home versus you going to an office.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Okay, I'm working at home because I'm self-employed, and it it financially wouldn't make sense for me to rent office space. I don't I don't have a team, so I'm a solo pronouner. One of the absolute worst things for me is working alone. I lose all of my productivity when I'm not around people and don't see people. Other people working. The other thing I end up missing, I mentioned being utterly socially dependent, is those water cooler conversations. I just, I can't tell you how much I appreciate them and how sometimes just the funniest things that could ever occur just happen to Waltz Bayou, like the time my former colleague, who was an MMA fighter from Paris, comes walking by my desk singing this very thick French accent. I'm still I'm still Jenny from Zibloc. It was like the funniest thing that happened that entire year.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

That's going on TikTok, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Yeah. Um but I am I'm actually discovering that there are things out there that really help. And you know, it's especially people with ADHD are particularly susceptible to losing productivity, which is there is a website. Can I say the name? Sure. Okay. ND Hive, the letter N, the letter D hive, is where I've been going, and it's been amazing. It is basically online co-working space. Oh wow. You go there and it's people on a screen, it's Zoom, but when you get there, the first thing they will do is they'll ask you, what are you working on? What's the priority? All right, what's your deadline? They'll ask you these questions and they will occasionally ask you for updates if you want it. And they have two different rooms there. There's the uh there's the silent room when you need to concentrate, but science is showing that seeing other people working on screens, whether you're neurodivergent or not, does increase productivity by over 40%. And then there's another room I like to call it the uh water cooler room where you can have those side conversations and you know, you you chat, you talk, and you know, uh when I've had enough and I need to really zero in on something, I'll just, you know, I'll turn the volume off. But it's just it feels like I have coworkers and it has been a godsend.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

I'm gonna look this up. I love that too.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

That's really cool. Oh, cool, cool. Uh I have one other question if I can ask.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Oh, and I think I know what's coming. I can't wait. So when Colette and I worked together, she was kind of a fashion maven on our campus. If you can imagine an entire sea of taupe turtlenecks and uh mock faux dickies, Colette would show up in what looked like she was about to go out for a night on the town. Uh, but you know, completely professional, of course. Did this start at Franklin and Marshall, or did you know did you know her to be a fashion maven at your school?

SPEAKER_00 46:53

I knew I knew Colette to look good. Um the yeah, the majority of the time. The way I describe my experience with Colette in general is she just got it. And it was all facets. She dressed the part, she looked the part, and she definitely acted the part. And and honestly, that's what has caused me to search Colette out many years later, is she's the one person from Resident Life that wasn't like my age who I really felt like a kinship with, and we barely knew each other. But I remember, may I tell one last story here? It was my fifth year, and it was um it was homecoming. And I was walking back to the dorm and I ran into collab and I stopped and I stopped you, and I said, Hey, you know what? I wish we worked together more often because you just get it in a way that the rest of them don't. You seem to have priorities that are different, and it works much better with my sort of value system and alignment uh as opposed to some of the others, that they just didn't seem like they were viewing the world from the same perspective I was, but I was always under the impression that Colected.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

If someone wanted to seek out your consulting services, how would they find you?

SPEAKER_00 48:21

Oh, they could find me by going to uh either LinkedIn and look up Jamie D'Amico, or they can go to my website, which is fortifycoaching.com.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

All right, friend.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

Jamie, nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Great to meet you, Kurt.

SPEAKER_03 48:39

Ms. Behavior is written and produced by Colette Shaw and Kurt Doan. Theme music was written and performed by Kevin McLeod from NCompotech.com. You can contact Ms. Behavior at Ms. Behavior College at gmail.com. That's MS Behavior College at gmail.com.