Grant Anderson Coordinator of Housing & Residential Life
Focus on where you can be excellent Leads to higher engagement Most employees (maybe students) feel
ignored or focus on weakness fixing Weakness fixing is purely damage control Learning to apply what you do best to
challenges you face Strengths = Talents + Skills + Knowledge
Command Individualization Strategic Analytical Activator
Why does this matter to you?
6300-6600 students on campus Manage 11 buildings Residence Life Staff – 10 Residence Directors,
5 Assistant Residence Directors, 10 Business Operations Supervisors, and 4 central managers (like me)
First took StrengthsQuest in January 2010
Many personality theories/typologies are not support or weakly supported by research
Over exposure to trendy approaches to understanding students
Too many people using personality gimmicks as key educational tool
Analytical + Command = Doubt
Was not pushed on us as truth, but offered as an approach we might want to consider
Research, research, research Connects with more research on intrinsic vs
extrinsic motivation (Punished by Rewards, Deci and Ryan)
Tools provided by Gallup for students and educators
Started by training managers to use in supervision and student advising
Focused on benefits to building teams All 150 Community Advisors went through
training and use in regular supervision Part of residential curriculum pilot in Frontier
and Territorial Halls Expanded to student leaders Team analysis throughout department
Still seeking means to measure, but early numbers show CA engagement may have increased
Anecdotal evidence from employees Working towards larger assessment of
student in Frontier and Territorial Halls Gallup has pretty overwhelming data that we
hope to find ways to replicate
Continue with professional staff, student staff, and student leaders
Expand program with other student staff groups
Increased focus on teams Seeking increased connection to Student
Development Outcomes Remodeling how we construct training,
development, and evaluation