Improv for Conduct. Improv for Leadership. Improv for Life.

Higher education practitioner and innovator, Mark Salisbury shares insights on applying improv principles to improve student conduct outcomes, fortify leadership, and manage what he describes as the gnarly problems of everyday life. Discover practical activities, mental models, and the transformative power of 'Yes, and' for fostering authentic connections and growth. If you think improv is not for you, Mark shares the origin story of improvisation - which was invented to help trauma victims. While humor can be a byproduct, applied improv can help us navigate the most troubling of times. 

Contact Mark at mark@tuitionfit.org

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Theme music "Fuzzball Parade" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's there's so much in here to grab from. And it improv really is, really can be a sort of giant smorgasbord of here's just some ideas. They work in some settings for some people, they work in other settings for other people. Go help yourself. Try some out. It's not only gluten-free, it's calorie-free. It sounds delicious. Yes, it's it's it's it's like a cafeteria on a cruise ship. Right, actually, no, that's sorry. No, um, that's exactly the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Too soon. Yes, but hello and welcome to the Ms.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Behavior Podcast. My name is Colette.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

And I'm Kurt.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And we are here to talk about all things college student conduct for other conduct professionals. Kurt, we're launching our first event.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

I know. I'm very excited and nervous.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah. So everybody mark your calendars for Thursday, July 16th at 4 p.m. Eastern time for our first ever book club called Just Desserts and Dissertations. We are offering free professional development. And instead of reading traditional books, we're going to read the scholarly works of our colleagues. So I'm pretty excited.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

I love a dissertation.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

We had Erin Kaplan, the author of our first dissertation. I saw her defense recently, which was amazing and necessary for us to share. So find your favorite sweet treat and your five favorite beverage. And we're going to talk about belonging and student conduct. We'll put a link to the registration page in the show notes so you can find that, or just email us at Ms. BehaviorCollege at gmail.com and we'll send you the registration link and we'll send you a free copy of the dissertation.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

And Colette, what beverage are you bringing to this event?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Oh, you know, I've I've fallen in love with a local place that does a um lavender chai.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Oh. Okay. That would be that sounds delightful, but I'm going margarita.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Yeah. I mean four o'clock on a Thursday. That's a margarita kind of time.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I'll be your designated Zoom partner. So if anything goes sideways.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

I'm a one and done, so yeah, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

If I'm really feeling ambitious that day, I'm gonna zip out to my favorite boba place. I've I've become addicted to their coconut boba.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Is it at the mall by chance?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

I haven't been to a mall since I got my COVID shot.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

Um Mr. Boba at Park City Mall. Oh strawberry and coconut together, delicious. Just saying really yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

That's more on my way home. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

It's Mr. Smoothie. That's the name.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

All right. So, folks, we are asking you our one call to action this week is for you to register for the book club. We already have five people that pre-registered and we haven't even launched it yet. So super excited.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

And share it with a friend, please.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yes, please. Oh yeah, please forward it. Uh so today we've got a really fun guest. Uh Mark Salisbury. Am I saying your name right? Sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

I don't even know how to say it right. Not Salisbury, though. That's uh that's a bridge too far.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

I don't know. See, this is where I have been known to, you know, just stop and put my feet up before the bridge too far. But um look, whatever you want to call me, except for you know, something uh unkind. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Oh no, only kindness in this space. Kurt and I met Mark 15 years ago. We realized looking at our origin story, when Kurt and I presented at the ACPA conference in Baltimore in 2011, and our topic was humor. And Mark, you came up to us at the end of that session and told us we were really missing a huge opportunity by not engaging in improv.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Boy, if that's the lasting press impression, I'm I probably should apologize because that's not a very yes and way to do anything. I'm sorry, but you're really missing out. Um no, I just I remember being utterly thrilled that somebody was bringing humor into the world of student affairs, and that um the work that you were doing on a variety of different projects at the time. And I was just sort of giddy to meet you guys. I was sort of fan struck, as it were. Um, but uh boy, now I'm nervous that I came off as all Mr. Mansplainer.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

No, I you know, and all of us think looking back 15 years ago, we're in very different career situations than we are now. I was a classroom instructor.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

I I think I was a dean at the time or in the middle of deaning.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

I was uh I had just finished my PhD and was in the early parts of my career as a director of institutional research. Which is of course bereft with humor.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

That's my dream job, actually. So yeah. Is it? It is. I'm a big data nerd, so uh we'll have to talk about that offline.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I can I can show you all the uh tricks and turns and the where the bodies are buried.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Mark, can you briefly though share what you do today? Because I think it's incredibly important the transparency work that you do for prospective students and their families.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Sure. Um 2018, another opportunity to take a hard left professionally. Uh, I started a project called Tuition Fit. And the project was really based on one simple problem, which was uh the way the colleges do pricing has just gone completely off the rails. The public doesn't know which school is going to be which price for what student. Um, the way that admissions and financial aid works is that you don't find out your price until the very end of the process. And the marketing is that you should swoon over a place and sort of emotionally decide this is your best fit school, apply to those schools, get in and then figure out how to pay for it, um, which hasn't worked out very well for an awful lot of people. And it's one arguably one of the main drivers for the public's distrust of higher education generally now. So in 2018, I just took a flyer, really, and said, I'm gonna start a project where the public can crowdsource the actual prices that they're being asked to pay, share their financial aid offer letters, share us a little bit about their academic and academic academic and economic profile, um, as well as where they live, what state they're in. And we'll essentially reverse engineer college fretzes. Life lesson number one do not start an ed tech project on the on the edge of a global pandemic. That is probably one of the things I learned. Um, but over eight years, we were able to build this project. And the whole premise behind it is that the public needs to feel a much stronger sense of opportunity and agency in the decisions that people are making about learning after high school. And we in higher eds, we have sort of contributed to a learned helplessness, and that's not anything we actually want to happen, and not a single one of us is at fault, but collectively, that's kind of what we did. And so I have been spending the past eight years trying to do a little bit to reverse that.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Thank you for that work.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

It sounds intriguing. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Let's talk about improv because I did follow your advice. Uh, I thought improv could make me a better classroom facilitator, but even more than that, I think about it all the time. So after you met us and you kind of made that offer or challenged us, I did delve into improv and then you and I, Mark, presented at the next ACPA conference a half day session on improv. And I use those skills that we're gonna talk about today to this day. In in student conduct in particular.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

That was really fun, by the way. We did it in Las Vegas. ACPA in Las Vegas is a whole other conversation to be had. Um, but uh we had a wonderful group of folks join us. We actually had people streaming in halfway through, leaving other sessions to join ours. That's right. And we had to improvise because the numbers changed as we went. Um, and the feedback we got was absolutely wonderful and really genuine. And I don't know, Colette, I think you might share this. Like, I got more out of it, I think, than they did. And it was just so affirming. It was such a fun session to do. Um, yeah, that was just a ton of fun. I have very strong memories of of that.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So, for listeners who are already like, I'm gonna turn this off because improv is not for me. I'm an introvert, I don't like looking silly in front of people. Could you just talk about some of the tenets of improv and maybe dispel some myths that we all might carry until we learn more about it?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Sure. And I think this is a really important thing to shift because today, when we hear about improv, we think of Second City, Saturday Night Live, Whose Line Is It Anyway, you know, all the different things that have taken improv and made it go massive, global, as a mechanism for making people laugh. And certainly that works and it's kind of fun. And when people do it well, it's just blow you away impressive. But the origins of improv have really very little to do with that. The origins of improv come out of an era when it was really about a means to helping someone process through something difficult to learn how to open up, to find another level of authenticity that was just hard to do. Um, there is a whole lot of really interesting work uh that has emerged from the earliest days of improv that sits in the world of therapy and dealing with trauma and managing conflict. And if this starts to sound vaguely useful, this is exactly the kind of world that everybody here listening is is in so often. Improv is actually sort of designed to be helpful in that environment. And it just turns out that it's also can be applied in ways that are different than that. It it can almost feel like a little bit of a life philosophy. And of course, yeah, it can also help people make make you laugh. But the origin of this thing is far more interesting than just about humor.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

So let's start with some of the those core rules to start with for a beginner.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

The core tent of improv that you would find probably the first thing people mention is this notion of yes, comma, and the idea behind it is that every interaction, verbal or non-verbal, is an offer and an offering and a gift. And it's then the person to whom that gift is given. First of all, it's recognizing it and seeing it as a gift as opposed to seeing it as a barrier or a block. But it's a gift, it's an offering, and then responding in kind as uh you have received a gift, and then you get the chance, the opportunity to give back and offer back and collectively build something unique and special and really deeply important that uh perpetuates connection, that perpetuates community, perpetuates growth. You are co-constructing in that mindset. And when you start to dive into improv, everything sort of builds from that yes and.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Kurt, when you hear that, I know I think of some stuff from hearings. Are there things that come to mind for you immediately?

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Yeah, I think um, I think it was around this 2012 time period. Were we passing book recommendations back and forth? Because I think you recommended Bossy Pants by Tina Faye to me. And that was during a time where I was leading a pretty big team of folks, and in meetings, I think we were kind of bogged down with the yes but mentality, which, you know, it's a shutdown in a conversation, it's disaffirming whatever was just said. So I started incorporating that into my practice as somebody who was facilitating meetings, and interestingly, I started working with another leader on our campus recently, and I saw at the bottom of their meeting agenda uh they had meeting philosophies, and one of them is adopt a yes and approach to every conversation, which I immediately clocked, and I thought this is a really cool addition to just the bottom part of every meeting agenda as something to frame a conversation. I I think there's so much utility in higher education across the board when you're talking about collaboration.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

I was thinking about uh a few weeks ago when we were talking about AI, and uh we sort of somehow it ventured into Fizz, which Mark is a social media uh platform where students can go on anonymously, and in certain cultures it becomes very toxic. But Kurt, the way that you yes, and like there is a data in that phys that is important to my college, I feel like you have adopted that philosophy.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

I try. I think it just kind of seeped in and I think it's your fault. So thank you. Fizz is like yik yak 4.0 or something, right? Is that uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

And Mark, when you and I prepped for this episode, you asked me about milestones in meetings, and I'm just thinking about the second a student shows up for us is a gift. Like the fact that they took the time to to meet, that's a milestone if they choose to engage. That that's a yes. Like I I just I think it's a gift. Even if they don't trust us, they have entrusted us to give us a chance.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Just that just that little nugget right there is is there's so much to unpack in that, right? If you were to approach meetings of students um and see them showing up as nothing other than you demanded that they show up, think of how that changes the nature of that first engagement, right? And one of the core ideas of improv in the world of therapy and the world of sort of processing through difficult conversations or different difficult issues, is the notion that improv works against what we all have in our culture, which is this sense of always doing the calculation of what's going to please or what's going to uh sort of assert something to the other person. We're all sort of in this, both in this kind actual conversation and then in this meta game, right? That we're trying to do things that are about establishing power, especially establishing boundaries, establishing some trajectory or direction. Um, and that improv is a mechanism by which you essentially clean the slate of all that so that you can get to a more authentic place. And so just that first interaction, a student just showing up, appreciating that as a gift, and then responding in a way that shows that you appreciate that gift and want to give back, that's a very different way to think about the beginnings of that conversation. And when we were talking earlier this week, you were specifically talking about how that effect, how that plays out in that first sort of stage or that first milestone. Um, just getting the students' shoulders to go from that to stressed to just down. Um that's a really interesting thing to think about because that's essentially one of the places you have to get past that are sort of just sort of built into the ether of a conversation that starts over a conflict, right? Or or a c a conduct violation, right? Um and getting that set of shoulders to relax and getting that person to be open without that, there's no way this becomes an educational experience, right? So it's fascinating to just start thinking about applying thinking about this premise just in some of the most basic ways, and what that then does for the whole rest of that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

There's the yes, and then the the and also to me is an expectation that you are going to give a gift back to the person because you want your partner maybe to do even better than you, or at least there are no stars in this. It's a it's an ensemble or it's a partnership. And so the and is accepting them, but then maybe what do you think, challenging them?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

I think that one of the things that is unique about thinking about improv as a philosophy that then you apply in the world, as opposed to when you're an improv performer. And I've had the fortune of doing a fair amount of improvisational and performing, um, when, yeah, the goal is silly and funny, right? But when you walk into that setting and you rehearse with those folks and you develop the rules, everybody understands those rules already and they sort of think about it that way. And you're already thinking about how you can sort of yes, end, but not and in a way that then sets the performer with you up for something even more interesting. Like you can get to layers of it. But in the real world, you're actually trying to cultivate a sort of baseline or a sort of set of a context that that other person isn't necessarily aware of right out of the gate. And so the way that you then do that, they either get the message, even if it's not in a way that they could articulate it and spell it out, but they get a message in the way that you interact with them that sets in motion the kind of response that you want to set up a context that can be a learning environment, right? And so much of that and has layers of how genuine are you gonna be, how authentic are you gonna be, how vulnerable are you gonna be, how much are you willing to set aside the traditional power dynamic that the other side, other person in this engagement might have already expected and constructed their own set of walls and moat and dragons. Like they got the whole thing built before you even show. Showed up. So the way that you then engage and communicate a different philosophy can really be powerful.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

And I like where you're going with this because it there's something else about improv that I think is really important in this context, which is this the idea of just being present. Um I went to exactly one improv workshop. And what I immediately understood was I couldn't be thinking about something else. I had to be in that moment with that person. And if I was already thinking about what I was going to say, I was going to miss a gift they were giving me or a cue that they wanted me to pick up on. And I think that can be true of a conduct hearing too. If we go in just thinking we have this predescribed way of like, I know what happened and this is what the outcome is going to be, then we can't be, we can't be present with the student and collaborate with them in the discussion.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

There are a couple of iterations of improv games that you just play when you're working with other improvisers, but I've also used them in some of the improv workshops that I've done. And one version of it is the sort of one-word story. Sometimes you even talk about it as a story. Sometimes you just simply don't even say it has to be a story. You just, it's the word that you associate to whatever word the person before you said. And sometimes you do it in a way that creates a rhythm and requires you to be faster. In this context, the game is valuable to sort of slow it down intentionally. So you actually require the person who is receiving the word from their partner to take a beat and fully soak in what that person's word offers, and then really try to respond with a word that builds from their word as you co-construct. The other version of that game is where you it's called uh last word, first word. And instead of each person saying one word, you have maybe a group of people where you are each person's uh required to say, you can either do it as a phrase or you could do it as a sentence. And you have to start your sentence with the last word of the prior person's sentence. So you can't start thinking about what you're gonna say until that person's finished their complete sentence. And then you start with the first word that the word that they used last. You have to start with that word and try to do that as organically as possible. And it really does show sometimes how we just even unconsciously, subconsciously do conversations, not in a way of one person talking, now the other person's talking, but instead they're talking, they're talking, they're talking, and I'm waiting for my turn to talk, I'm waiting for my turn to talk, I'm waiting for my turn to talk. You don't even know what they're saying at all. And it's amazing how often we do that. It's just kind of part of our operating system sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

It feels like every staff meeting. Just waiting for your turn to talk and not listening to what the people are saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

There is a book that is very much not improv. I think it's Robert Green's 48 rules of 49 rules of power. Um and it's interesting on its own level. Uh, then there's been a lot written about it. But the and the first word is don't never out the first rule is don't ever outshine the master. So it's very much about power. But one of the one of the rules in there that's very much not an improv rule, but the it's sort of the antithesis of it is you wait and speak last. And you see that in meetings sometimes where somebody just waits and waits and waits, they speak last, and then they have the weight of the final piece. And it's again just reflects the degree to which outside of a real yes and improv philosophy, you can see all the different ways that we build and use different tricks and tools and hacks and whatever you want to call them in a way that doesn't co-construct, it doesn't build something together. It is very much much more about power. And one of the things about improv is let's find a way to eliminate or minimize the power stuff so that the experience can be an experience that builds up, that fosters growth, that opens up new ideas, um, that has a positive, genuinely positive trajectory.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I love OneWord Story. I I used to use the uh I I used to teach an innovation class, and Kurt used to uh, in quotes, hire the class as consultants. And so we would do a few weeks of creativity work before we got the project from Kurt. And OneWord Story was one of those. And for me, a big lesson was if we only went once or twice around the room doing it, the stories were pretty safe and boring. And then once a couple people took risks, the stories started to have dragons and, you know, just wild ideas, and students learned that instead of offering a noun, offering an adjective might be, you know, setting the next person up for something more interesting. And I think in staff meetings, like Kurt was talking about staff meetings, we often only stop at that first round and we never break into like the really innovative ideas. And that's such an easy activity to practice on.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

It's fascinating to think about that too, because the um one of the sort of assumptions about improv that we sort of started this conversation with is you say the word improv and somebody says, oh, anything goes, and they confuse anarchy with improv, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

And what's really true is that engaged really effectively, it's not anarchy at all. It's very much set in a place where there's a structure that sort of naturally plays out, but it's a structure that is driven by giving and gifting. So I've seen that one-word story game play out where somebody ends up, just by the nature of it, having to be the one that says the and um and right a couple of times, and then they get how come I don't get as opposed to I had the opportunity to set up something wonderful and to keep the flow going. When I was coaching athletics, we'd talk about the kind of players that you'd have on a team where they were the glue. They didn't stand out in any one particular area, but without them and your team, your team would just be scattered, a mess, everybody doing their own thing. And they were the kind of person that built that glue that sort of perpetuated that glue that kept the whole team together. And it's wonderful to be that kind of staff member.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

I have to be honest, Mark. I have a bone to pick with you about one word story, though, is it has ruined me for processes we use. Um, you taught me a phrase called bring a brick, not a cathedral, which is part of like one word story is everyone's contributing a brick to building this beautiful story. Um, but when staffs start saying, like, well, okay, Mark and Kurt, why don't you go draft our strategic plan and then bring it back and we'll all give feedback, like bring us a cathedral. I just see immediately now, like, don't do it, don't do it. They're gonna bring the cathedral and either be so wed to it that we know we're gonna hurt their feelings, or it's just it'll be built on stale ideas.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

There's certainly a way to sort of think about improv and worry about how it can sort of go off the rails, right? Because if you're especially if you're sort of just trying yes ending for a while and and you're just sort of enjoying the je ne saqua of the of the and, right? Um we have all been around staff meetings enough to know the staff meeting that won't end, right? That just will not end. That's where when you have a group of people that sort of learn how to apply this and they're on the same page already because you've helped to cultivate that sense, then the yes and doesn't just go off the rails, and you can be more comfortable bringing a brick instead of the whole cathedral because you've established that tone. But I know even from my own experience, bring working in an environment where you're sort of trying to bring a more improvisational set of philosophy, um not everybody's gonna just automatically jump on that jump on that bandwagon, especially if they don't even understand what we're going for or why.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

So how do you start to foster that kind of philosophy in a team?

SPEAKER_01 32:19

It very much depends on having an established sense of we are all rowing toward the same goal and we all play different roles sometimes, but they all matter, and none of us are better than the other person, but we all have different roles that are sort of articulated. Um, and they might come from an era in which it's sort of structured architecturally to have an organizational structure that makes one person be the person in charge. I don't I haven't been on a college campus in a while, but I don't think that there is any section of student affairs that um where there's the associate vice dictator and then the vice dictator and then the dictator, um, even though the titles still don't fully represent something other than that. But it's a choice of how you then apply that. But it's certainly true that it takes some time to cultivate the sort of building blocks of an environment in which those improv philosophies can actually take hold. And sometimes that means sort of intentionally trying to cultivate that with individuals. And that's the work that we do all the time, right? Is we're all working with imperfect entities, starting with the person in the mirror. But establishing sort of buy-in to that philosophy, that's sort of always a work in progress, but it's absolutely critical to setting things in motion. And that can be hard when you take over a new position or be put in a new role and be working with maybe different individuals or people who are at their own places in their lives. It can take some effort to get that to happen. But without that, it's it is harder to sort of then get to the real outcomes of what an improvisational framework can set up.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

A common thing I hear or a common misunderstanding is that yes, and doesn't offer any critical, like r the realistic perspective. So I I think you you facilitated an activity of just like plan a party with yes, and like yes, we could have clones with jet packs shooting off glitter guns, and yes, and we could have Brad Pitt show up and be the thing master, and yes, and and people will say, well, we we don't have a budget, our budget's got cut this year. But that's not that's not what I learned from improv. It's not just about imagining fantastical things, it it's a process. Can you address that though, the that criticism or that fear of even entering into a yes and right?

SPEAKER_01 35:16

And it the this is a really common sort of fear, right? That if I go, if I go yes and that means I'm um you know paragliding without a rope.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Can I give you an example? Like um, if you're saying yes to a student that's shooting up heroin, you're like you're okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

You are when you are approaching, first of all, it's certainly worth sort of saying that um if you're gonna apply improv philosophies to the work that you do, that doesn't mean that you throw out every other element of why and how you are what you're going for, right? When improvisers do long-form improv, there's already a sense of what a story arc is gonna look like, right? That there is going to be at the beginning, things are setting up a situation where there's lots to work from, and then there is some sort of challenge, conflict, problem introduced, and then there is the navigating and the hijinks of that problem, and then there is something coming together, and you end up in a place that is further on from where you started, either because there's the problem gets solved, or there's a deeper realization, or there's uh closure, you're gonna get somewhere. And just because you bring an improv philosophy doesn't mean that you throw out all of those things. So in a conduct hearing, right, there is still an overarching sense of we're gonna start in one place and we're going to land in a different place that has some elements of growth, realization, understanding, empathy, and reconstruction, maybe it's rest restoration. There's all kinds of pieces there that you're gonna get through to get to the end. And applying yes and doesn't mean you blow all that up.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Oh, you're making me rethink it now. The code of conduct is a yes. And there are restorative values. And you know, we have a drug counselor who helps students who shoot up heroin. And yes. Yeah, I can see that now. Our job is to have as many and as we can.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Cause you know where we're I mean, part of the role of the individual or individuals sort of guiding that conduct hearing is that your goal is something far more interesting and far more transformational than just I have decided that you're bad and you will do X, Y, and Z. Right? If you if if folks were doing that, if that was the sole purpose of the being a conduct officer, I would argue that you probably do it in a context that wasn't set up to be educational in the first place, right?

SPEAKER_05 38:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Um but if the goal is learning and the goal is growth, then that sets up what I think lots of people realize fairly early on is that I want something more to come from this experience, not just for the student, but also for me. I want to feel like I am a part of growth. I'm a part of helping someone see a path forward that maybe at the moment they don't see. Think about when you are interacting with someone who's just overcome with shame. And they're sort of expecting to just have that shame uh be met with an exclamation point and more of shame. Um that's not healthy learning. That's not a set of growth. And if we're educators in our truest sense, that's not what we're shooting for. And we all know that. Like, so that's why we do the stuff that we do. That's why we care about being educators, and we put ourselves on the line as much as we do. So this improvisational framework becomes, I think, a really key to not just helping the students find a way forward, but for our own health, our own ability to bring our best to an environment that's just inherently jagged and messy and imperfect and has all kinds of uncertainty in it. Um, that's part of the improv philosophy as well, is being willing to play in a space of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

For staffs that might be improv curious now, are there a couple activities that are easy to start exercising that kind of yes and muscle?

SPEAKER_01 40:29

I certainly like the getting, I mean, getting folks together in a context where it's not really a meeting. We we all do sort of team-building stuff or we all should. And in those settings, to just say we're we're gonna work on a very specific muscle, and we're gonna work on that muscle in a context where there's no judgment, there's no bigger thing than just developing that muscle, and then reflecting on what happens when we do that. Um and these games of yes and of one-word story, they can be fun, and certainly there'll be moments when you laugh because it's genuinely funny, or it's genuinely silly, or you've just sort of made yourself look foolish, right? But then reflecting on that, what would have happened if we hadn't used that philosophy? And one of the great realizations sometimes is the notion that we plan a party game. Yeah, you'd have a party if you said yes, but you'd still have a couple of things. Are you particularly excited about attending that party? Are you particularly excited about doing anything to help then set that thing in motion? Or now are you really gonna be like, okay, that's what we've decided. You, you, and you, do it. I don't want to have anything to do with the nuts and bolts of putting it together. Um, which I think we've all seen, and maybe even done. I've been to that party.

SPEAKER_04 42:10

It was a have you? That would be a fun activity, though, if you split your group in two and have have one group plan a yes but and one group plan a yes and party. We can have food, but it's gotta be gluten-free.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

That's right. And have the other group then say, How excited are you just hearing what you came to? How excited are you to then do the legwork necessary to set that party up and construct it and run it and tear it down and clean up afterwards? And I think you'd find two very different responses. And, you know, in working with students and in student affairs work, you know, we all do a ton of grunt work that's not fun. It's long hours, and you don't get a lot of thanks for it sometimes. But if you're just excited to have set this thing up, and then how much easier is it to actually do that grunt work? I think it's a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

Reminds me of that episode of The Office with the two Christmas parties. Angela has her version and Pam has her version. It's hilarious. I mean it's a yes but and a yes and party, 100%. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Mark, you introduced me to the term um applied improv. And I would recommend if anybody is curious, there's a virtual experience from the applied improv network, AIN. Uh on Friday afternoons, they have an open, free meeting. It's and you get to practice, you get to Just meet cool people. They create breakout rooms in the Zoom where you can just say, I'm really struggling with planning a birthday party on my staff. Anyone who wants to help me with this idea, come into Zoom Room One. So you can make offers of conversations, or you can just help other people build theirs. And it's a really friendly, cool environment.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

I'm not too long after when we first met, um, the applied improv network started. The very first conference was in Baltimore, and we just a whole bunch of people showed up. It's pretty wild to have an entire conference that's based on improv. So you when you show up, you don't know what's going to happen at the conference. Like you improvise the whole construction of it and the ideas of it and what ends up happening. And I was on Cloud Nine for a week after that conference. It was just so cool. It's a net, it's a global network, so they have conferences all over the world, and it's it's kind of amazing. But there are some wonderful resources that are particularly useful to come to this construct from a gee, I didn't ever hear about this, or even I don't even know what this is, and I'm sure is actually ever going to go up on be on a stage somewhere. But I'm sort of improv curious. Wonderful resources here that people who have been in professional training, people who have been in conflict resolution, people who are, you know, involved in really serious work navigating really gnarly problems. Turns out they bring improv philosophy to this stuff all the time. And so there's a lot of really interesting writing that I think is accessible to even the most uh clearly first-timer, not the stereotypical uh improviser.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Maybe we should think about doing another of those half days at the ASCA, the National Conduct Conference.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

That could be really fun.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

It could.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

And you can lead it this time, and I will just yes and you the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yes, but I'm yes. Yes, and we could do some training that would be super fun to build my confidence.

SPEAKER_04 46:22

I'll be the first to sign up.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Mark, thanks. Thanks a million. Any last thoughts or seeds to plant before we let you go?

SPEAKER_01 46:32

One, yes, and I want to say how much fun it was to be invited in to have this conversation with you and to reconnect with Kurt. 15 years ago we met. We both had giant afros at the time. It was, you know, probably.

SPEAKER_05 46:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Things have changed great, great deal since then. Um, but I there's there's so much in here to grab from. And it improv really is, really can be a sort of giant smorgasbord of here's just some ideas. They work in some settings for some people, they work in other settings for other people. Go help yourself. Try some out. It's not only gluten-free, it's calorie-free. It's it sounds delicious. Yes, it's it's it's it's like a cafeteria on a cruise show. Right, actually, no, that's sorry. No, um that's exactly opposite.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Too soon.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Yes, but the beauty of this work, when you take the applied improv approach, it really can be just about genuinely trying to increase the degree to which you offer to the next person. And coming from that space, I think it allows us to do some really hard work in ways that instead of sort of beating us down over time, give us our ways to do what we do with better results, with a more um affirming sense of giving back to a larger effort. Um and I think that's one of the most important things that we can do in the world of student affairs and working with young people.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

I love that. Thank you, Mark S.

SPEAKER_04 48:35

We did we didn't get to do origin story.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Could we uh quick do it and let's do it almost like an outtake. We can do it as like a bonus at the end.

SPEAKER_04 48:45

So uh, Mark, one of the things that we always ask our guests is to tell us about what they were like in college and most specifically, did you ever get in trouble in college? And if you did, what did that look like?

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Boy, that's uh that is definitely pulling some doors open that maybe I would rather keep closed. Um when I went out to college, I was so young and so unprepared for what that was gonna be like. Um, and so convinced that my value was based on what other people thought of me. So externally driven. And as a function of that, I was oftentimes just utterly miserable. Um and, you know, really had some difficult times trying to fit in. I can think of one incident in particular where I got in trouble, but managed to stay on the periphery of trouble. Um I went to a small Lutheran Scandinavian college in the Midwest, known for its choral groups and music stuff. And uh at the time in the 1980s, you know, alcohol on campus was not a uh acceptable thing. And yet uh the shuttling of cases, five-dollar cases of beer was a whole industry of its own. And I remember participating in one such effort that basically resulted in me carrying some cases of beer through a window part of the way up the hallway, and then being directed with a stern voice immediately to the bathroom to open the bottles of beer and dump them right down the toilet. And um it was, you know, circle of life, as it were. Um I think I smelled everything from the beer that I would have gotten had I drunk it, um, because it was really that bad.

SPEAKER_04 50:51

Um, but I mean a five dollar case of beer is high quality business.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Oh, right. I mean, you know, I live in Iowa now, and a five-dollar bottle of beer would be simply just putting a bottle into a stream and then sussing out the forever chemicals that you could sell on the black market. It'd be at least worth $10. Yeah. But yes, in the in in those days, this was a whole other kettle of dead fish, as it were. So, you know, got into some some sort of marginal trouble. The more serious trouble was I didn't know who I was, and I didn't know who I was trying to be, really. And that led to several years of, you know what, college, maybe this college isn't for me. Maybe I'll chase some other things, go from full-time student to sort of full-time-ish student to very much not a student, to officially not a student, to part-time, and then finally, when I was several years older and had been through a few other experiences that helped me find me a little bit more, went back to college and finished um, you know, several years older than everybody else that was graduating. Um, but those years were formative, but not in the sort of wonderfully formative sort of a boy, I don't, this doesn't feel good. This is hard. And uh as a function of that, I certainly understand the real challenges that most people actually go through when they go to college. Not the stereotypical life will be the most transformative, your freshman year will change you in all these wonderful ways to oh honker down and just somehow get through this thing.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Thanks for sharing that.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

Yeah. It's kind of a profound realization for somebody at 18 years old.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

I wish that I could articulate it that way when I was 18. The realization at 18 was much more of a oh boy, am I in over my head. Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

But I I would have wished for you somebody that maybe could have sniffed that out. Like there's something more going on here with this guy. And you know, you ended up back on a path, but many, many young men right now are opting out of higher education because they just don't feel like they belong and they don't go back.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

Yeah. I think we have done a pretty good job of conflating um the word college with the word learning in culture now. So we talk about, you know, after high school, you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college, look at all the jobs and look at all the things you got. And we kind of got off on that toot in a way that was not healthy. Um and what we really meant all along was you have to keep learning. You have to keep learning and you have to keep growing. And that's not gonna change whether whether you like it or not. And I think for a lot of young men, that nihilism, that frustration, that apathy that you see so often is a function of I thought I was supposed to go to college and not really, no, just keep learning. Yeah, find ways to keep learning. In some ways, that's the giant yes and.

SPEAKER_05 54:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

I'm gonna learn from this. I'm gonna learn something. I'm gonna get just a little bit smarter every day. Just a little bit better every day, just a little bit further down the road every day. Whether it's a straight line or a curvy path, I'm just gonna go a little further.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

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