Talking Stick - May/June 2019 - 57

director of residential programs and
services at Indiana University Bloomington; Kathy Hobgood, assistant
vice president for student affairs for
housing and dining at Clemson University in South Carolina; and Dan
Pedersen, senior director of housing
and residential services at Northern
Illinois University in DeKalb.

Talking Stick: How have you utilized
the CHI on your campus to make
decisions?

David Berland: The CHI has helped
us to ascertain best practices for
both departmental structure and
pay standards for the region. Since
NKU straddles two different regions
(SEAHO and GLACUHO), we have
also been able to use those as a comparison in advocating for equitable
pay within the department. We have
also used the CHI to determine
positions utilized by other housing
departments to be successful, which
has allowed us to advocate for future
growth.
Patrick Connor: I have used CHI to
defend operational services that are
currently provided by demonstrating
what might be a reduction or loss of
services in going to a different method. I have used the salary information to recommend where we might
need to make a correction to improve
our position for professional staff at
different levels.
Dan Pedersen: The CHI has been
used to inform decision making as
one additional data set in our processes. However, it is not the sole piece
that we would rely upon because of
the generality of the data collected
and the difficulty of creating a true
benchmark data set.

Barry Stone: We haven't really used
the data to make decisions because,
as a Canadian school, we really need
comparable Canadian institution
data only, and participation has been
limited. I am pleased to see that it is
now possible to filter participating
Canadian data only as part of the basic
access. Given this, I strongly anticipate using this data for a variety of
reasons in the future and look forward
to increased participation by other
Canadian universities and colleges.
TS: Who submits your data to the
CHI? What do you find most challenging with that process?

Alan Blattner: We find the process
easy. The first time we did it, all the
directors (residence life, facilities,
finance, and administration) answered the questions for their areas
on a printout of the questions. These
were given to our executive assistant
to enter into the online system. In all
subsequent years, the directors edited
the answers for their areas directly in
the online system.

Connor: Outside of the salary data, I
ask lead staff responsible for specific
areas to pull data together. The dining
lead, facilities lead, staffing lead, etc.,
assist in getting complete data sets
that can be reviewed. The first time
you enter data for CHI is the most
challenging because you must ensure
that data you are entering correlates
to the question asked. Working with
the leads, it is easy to update data each
year after you have your base established and are mindful of tracking
changes in programs and services.

Stone: As the SHO, I submit all the
data. Recently, it has become easier to
export questions to other staff. While
the process is easy, there are just far
too many questions. I know that the
time required and length of the survey
is a deterrent for many colleagues.

TS: What types of data do you investigate with the CHI? Is there data that
the CHI currently doesn't have that
would be helpful? Conversely, is there
data that you don't find useful?

Stone: The type of data we want to
be able to utilize on a regular basis is
how we compare to similar institutions for the purposes of rate or
fee increases and/or new residence
construction. I imagine most schools
require this comparative data when
these proposals go to their respective
boards. We spend many, many hours
every year searching websites, calling
other administrators, etc., to gather
comparable data on room types and
rates. If this information was part of
the index, it would save us so much
time and effort. Currently, there are
no questions that ask about housing
costs and associated housing types.

Kathy Hobgood: We do not find
the programming data to be helpful in any way, shape, or form. As
a school that has been operating
under a residential curriculum for
the past five years, we would welcome the ability to sort and compare
with other schools operating under
the same model. It would also be
helpful to have the ability to record
which schools have specific types
of LLCs and/or residential colleges.
The educational models that fuel our
philosophies are integral to the operational success - but we have not yet
integrated them into the index.

Connor: I have looked at most of
the operational data sets supplied in
the CHI. I think the current residence life programming piece needs
to be strengthened. I think that we
should be looking at collecting more
data (using good definitions) about
living-learning programs deployed,
national models used (the Curricular

MAY + JUNE 2019

Talking Stick - May/June 2019

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