Oral History Program Leslie Loeffel Interviewed by Michael Thompson 15 July 2022 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Leslie Loeffel Interviewed by Michael Thompson 15 July 2022 Copyright © 2024 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State University Oral History Project began conducting interviews with key Weber State University faculty, administrators, staff and students, in Fall 2007. The program focuses primarily on obtaining a historical record of the school along with important developments since the school gained university status in 1990. The interviews explore the process of achieving university status, as well as major issues including accreditation, diversity, faculty governance, changes in leadership, curricular developments, etc. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Loeffel, Leslie an oral history by Michael Thompson 15 July 2022, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Leslie Loeffel, conducted on July 15, 2022, by Michael Thompson, in the Weber State Stewart Library. Leslie discusses her current role working at Learning Support and Davis Student Services, how Weber State has changed over the years, and her involvement with the Supplemental Instruction program, tutoring, and testing centers. Also present is video technician Alexis Stokes. MT: Today is July 15, 2022. My name is Michael Thompson. I'm interviewing Leslie Loeffel for the oral history program here at Weber State. We're in the Stewart Library, and our technician is Alexis Stokes. So, to begin with, when and where were you born? LL: I was born in upstate New York in the Catskills. I grew up in a very small town called Kenoza Lake: about a hundred people. Went to a school that had K through 12; wasn't a one-room schoolhouse, but it was 73 people in my graduating class, so, rural area. MT: What was it like growing up in upstate New York? LL: It's beautiful, beautiful green, unlike Utah; they call them mountains, but really, they're hills by Western standards. That used to be a tourist area, but it's more just farming now and kind of, you know, not economically too successful at this point. But yeah, just rural. MT: Okay. Were you encouraged to pursue an education by your parents or others when you were growing up? LL: Yeah, well, my parents did not get a college degree, a four-year college degree, so I'm a first-generation student. They really didn't know about college, but there always seemed to be the expectation. I think I just assumed that I would go; I don't know that they pushed me, but I always had a great love of learning and I did well in school. The expectation was, I remember getting an 89 and that was just horrifying. 1 You know, “Why isn't this a 97?” So I was expected to do well, because I could and I did. I had a couple of teachers, of course, that I admired, and probably they encouraged me. I don't specifically remember, but I just always knew I was going to college. But once I got there, my parents couldn't give me any advice; they really had nothing to do with my college education. I went away. Of course, it was more common in the East then to be a resident student at college, so I wasn't home and I just did it myself. MT: Okay. Where did you go to college? LL: I went to the State University of New York at Oswego for my undergrad. Got a bachelors in English and Political Science double major. Then I went to Syracuse University for a master's in English, and I finished the Ph.D. coursework as well for 19th century American literature. But I didn't get the degree, I just finished the coursework. MT: Okay. So, the big question is, what brought you to Utah? LL: Well, my partner and I had looked at places in the West to move to for more economic opportunity and also recreational opportunities, so we had decided on Utah. I was able to take a year off. I was teaching at Syracuse University, I was a professional writing instructor, and I had a multiyear contract so I could have come back if I wanted to after the year. We came to try it out for a year, and I got a job through Salt Lake Community College, but it was actually as a consultant at Matrix Marketing, teaching their training for Direct TV, when Direct TV first came out. I was working in the corporate world, and I was ready to get back into higher education after about 18 months of that. I had been teaching, as I mentioned, at Syracuse, as well as I taught at several other local colleges. Grading papers till midnight, 1:00 in the morning: I had had enough of that as well. I was offered a job at Student Support Services here at Weber State, which was just my perfect skill 2 set. It just matched. I just said, “Oh, I can do this. This is my job.” I did a little teaching when I first started at Weber, but it wasn't all the grading and, you know. It was in higher ed. So, I didn't know much about Weber State specifically, but it was the job itself, and it was the location that sent me here. MT: Okay. What year did you start? LL: 1995. MT: '95, okay. Did you start working at Syracuse University right after graduation? LL: Yeah, I had had a TA-ship when I was a grad student and then I continued teaching. They had a, like I said, professional writing instructor as an adjunct position, but they tried to professionalize it so that I did get to go to conferences and be on hiring committees and do assessments and that kind of thing. I was kind of, at one point, a consultant for new teachers, new TAs: observing their classes and doing that kind of thing. I did some tutoring as well as part of the job. So yeah, I worked at SU, and like I said, I also taught on the side at State University of New York at Cortland. I taught at LeMoyne College as well. I did some talks for the library system on certain things, so kind of a combination like you do when you're an adjunct. MT: You said when you first came to Weber, you worked in Student Support Services, was that here on... LL: Yeah, on the Ogden campus, there in the Student Services Center. MT: Okay. And how long did you work? LL: Seven to eight years. Seven-and-a-half years, something like that. MT: Okay, and at this point, Weber had some satellite locations in Davis County. Did you ever go out to those locations? LL: Not as part of that position, no. MT: What took you to the Davis campus? 3 LL: Well, I got a position as the Director, at that point, of the Davis Learning Center, which is the tutoring at the Davis campus. You mentioned satellite locations, also the West Center, and then when Farmington Station was built, we had some tutoring at both of those locations as well. I was over the Learning Center, meaning the tutoring and also Supplemental Instruction—S.I., which is study groups for certain classes—at the Davis campus specifically, and then I had a counterpart who was over S.I. here at Ogden. We would train together, tutor training and also S.I. Training. MT: When you went to the Davis campus, was it at its current location? LL: Yeah, it was when it opened in 2003. It was brand new. Just one building, D2. MT: What was Weber State like when you first came? The culture of the campus? LL: Well, again, I was on the Ogden campus and the Student Service Center didn't exist, so we were in the basement of the library. Actually, I don't know what that corresponds to now. It's so different, but that's where our offices were, here in this building. It was the quarter system, not the semester system. I remember there was quite a lot of trauma when things changed to the semesters, and people wondered how they could go that long and keep going. Of course, all the professors had to redo all their coursework as well, but from a student perspective, it was quite a transition, I think, in people's minds. One of the things you asked about the culture: when I first came, I did, as I mentioned, do a little teaching. I taught what's now English 1010. It was English 101. I, having come from the East, I chose, as my theme, gender roles, which was something I had taught before and of great interest to young people, generally. But I found quite a different reaction here to those topics than I had at Syracuse University. We read, for example, “Why I Want a Wife”, which is a real well-known essay from a woman's point of view of, “Gee, I would love it if someone cooked my 4 meals and did my laundry and supported me in every way that a wife supports a husband, traditionally, in that gender role.” Then we read something from the male point of view about the expectation that you work your whole life, and you have all this responsibility in this family to support that's depending on you and how that could be difficult. It was a very conservative reaction, as you might expect, to those kinds of ideas that, “Well, I am happy to support my family.” Just no question that they didn't see that perspective, which I guess is not too surprising, looking back. But at the time, again, it was a culture shock for me that feminism had not happened in Utah whatsoever. It was just, people really weren't even aware, it seemed, of those different perspectives. I see such a great contrast now with the students and the young people in their twenties that I work with, who have very open minds to a variety of lifestyles and different kinds of people. I mean, they have their own viewpoint, but they can also see much more easily, I think, where other people are coming from. I do think that's changed quite a bit. MT: It's interesting. Were there any students that you noticed that did have their views changed or embraced the alternative view? LL: I do remember one student who I would let them revise as much as they wanted; as much work as they would put in, I would put in. He just worked on his essays, and I don't remember what his particular opinion was—I mean, as long as it's a good essay, right? That's what we're looking for. But I do remember that he really worked at it and learned a lot, and I ran into him years later, and we remembered each other. He remembered the class and what he wrote about, and so I think it really made a difference for some people. But I don't know in terms of how they would think today about those essays. 5 MT: So I want to go back to the transition from quarter to semester. You said it was kind of traumatic for some students. Was there a lot of pushback from either students or faculty on switching or was it generally viewed as a good thing? LL: Well, I think pedagogically it was a good thing, you know, because it's hard to cover material in ten weeks, as summer still proves. Those short timeframes are grueling now. I mean, it's hard to imagine how it was done, but I don't know specifically. I mean, I think there probably was some pushback from the faculty side at the discussions, but I wasn't part of that. I couldn't exactly say. MT: But working with students, you did see them kind of struggle with the change? LL: Yeah, a little bit. MT: Okay. Let's see... AS: I can ask a question. When the Olympics came here to Ogden, what were some of your memories about the Olympics here at Weber State? LL: Yeah, Weber closed for those three weeks because they had athletes staying in the dorms. It was a rare opportunity for me to have three weeks in a row not at work, so I went to New Zealand. Well, I wasn't here for the Olympics. I knew it would be just chaotic and busy and a lot of traffic, more so in Salt Lake, so we got out of the country. MT: Was there a lot of prep work you had to do within your position to prepare for that break during the semester? LL: During the Olympics? MT: Yeah. LL: Yeah. I do remember that being difficult because it was in the middle of the semester, and so students were going to be missing those weeks of class, and they had to make that up somehow. I don't remember the details on how that worked. I don't think I was teaching that semester. My position at Student Support Services, 6 that was just a little piece of the thing that I did. But my main job was as an educational advisor. I met individually with students and talked about not only their classes, but their finances, to some extent their social issues, family, how they could be successful at school. I taught a GRE preparation class. This was not a credit class. This was within our program for those who were interested in grad school preparing for the GRE. I taught study skills workshops that were, again, just voluntary. I started the book loan program there, which I think is the most lasting and helpful thing. We got the supervisor, the next level up, to fund some money to buy books that we could then give students for the semester, and they would return at the end of the semester. I would buy the books for the most common classes I knew we needed and have a spreadsheet and contact students and offer this to them and loan it out and get it back and meet with them. We did cultural events also. I would take students to cultural events and give them that opportunity. It's a TRIO program; it's a federally-funded grant program at Weber State that's still in existence. It was larger at that time. We had, I think, 350 students there: low income, disabled and/or first-generation students. There's extra financial assistance for them through that program, too, so it's an all-around support for those students. AS: That's amazing. MT: That is really neat. Do you know if the book loan is still going? LL: It is! Yeah. MT: I like that a lot. LL: Yeah, you should take advantage of that. I don't know if you're a student. MT: I'm not, but I've been wanting to start something like that in the library. LL: Oh, yeah. 7 MT: A little free library for textbooks. LL: Right. They just go out so quickly and move on to the next version. That's what's difficult. MT: You said that you were in the library, and the Student Services building didn't exist. Once that building was complete, were you moved over there? LL: Yes, and that's where it exists now. It's up on the second floor by the testing center. MT: Okay. How long were you here in the library before that was complete? LL: I don't know. Not too long. I almost feel like it might have been under construction. MT: When you first went to the Davis campus, when you got that position, D2 was the only building at that point. Was it called D2? MT: Well, yes, oddly. Everyone asked about that because there was a master plan, and D1 was going to be the building that you first came to when you entered from University Park Boulevard, and then would be D2. So they had them numbered sequentially, but they didn't build Building 1 first. That master plan has changed several times since then, anyway, and it still makes no sense. It never did, and it still doesn't. But yes, it's D2. MT: What was it like being at the Davis campus after being on the Ogden campus? LL: Well, of course, it's a smaller campus, but I feel like it was quite vibrant tutoring. We got a lot of business. We started out, I had an office, and it was in the Information Commons on the second floor of D2. Information Commons brings together the library, the open student computer lab, and the Learning Center. My office in the corner looked out on tutoring where we just had six round tables. That was the start of the tutoring. Then I looked out this way, and it was the testing center which I was also over, and I had a window on to each from my office. Then over time, when the Stewart Center—which was D3, now it's called the Stewart Center—was built, which wasn't that many years ago—I think it was 8 actually six or seven years ago, maybe like 2014—we were able to expand. Tutoring moved into the testing center space and doubled our size with 12 tables, and the testing center moved over to the new building. I had a chance to sit in on those meetings and helped to design that testing center. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's a beautiful testing center. It's the largest testing center at Weber State. It has windows. You know, studies have shown that you think better when you have natural light. Students really love that testing center. Even if they have classes at Ogden, a lot of times, they'll use that testing center if their test is available there. It's always functioned very efficiently there. There's more than one check-in station, so there's a way for people to get through more quickly. We put a study lounge next to it with locking lockers, which at the time here, there were open cubbies in the testing centers, not lockers, and that was an issue. People wanted to lock their things up. There's also what I call the porch, which is also there, which is totally glass. The building has that on every floor, on every level. There are lounging chairs where you can look out at the view of the mountains and the fields. So, you know, it's the biggest testing center at Weber State still. We use three overflow rooms. Anyway, that's a little off track. So anyway, we got a chance to expand, and I also got to renovate the testing center space into the new learning center, which was really fun to put an office in there for the coordinator and a front desk and the furniture. Just create a nice atmosphere in there, relaxed atmosphere. MT: You said you were over the tutoring and testing when they were in D2. When testing moved to D3, were you still over the testing center? LL: Yes, for quite a few years, and then it was sort of put back together with the testing centers here in Ogden. We were always part of the same, but now it all reports to one person that they've kind of... 9 MT: Tracy Smith. LL: Tracy Smith. MT: My wife used to work for testing, 2015 to 2017. LL: Okay, yeah. MT: You've been with Student Services your entire time here at Weber, correct? LL: Yes. MT: Have you always been over the tutoring at Davis or did that eventually…? LL: Yes, until just the last couple of years. Well, I should add in between there too… I've been over kind of various things, but at the point that Jennifer Grandi retired, I took on Davis Student Services as well, which was another piece of my department right up until I've retired. That is a sort of a one-stop shop for Student Services at Davis, whereas here, the Counseling Center is one office, and Career Services is a different office, and Veterans Services is a different office, and Veterans Upward Bound is a different office. There's a suite where all of those came together and had offices and had office hours, kind of a varying combination over the years of which offices that would be. [The] Nontraditional Student Center started in that suite, and then they got a Nontraditional Student Center expanded to their own space at Davis. Similarly, Veterans Upward Bound had an office in that suite. I was able to get a space for them and put furniture in there so that they now have their own veterans study lounge at Davis, and they do their tutoring in there. Anyway, Davis Student Services is those Student Services at Davis, and then there's a coordinator, and there's a front desk which also does the Wildcard and UTA pass and prox cards. Those departments like Career Services and Counseling, they report to their own director in Ogden. But I would work with the coordinator at Davis to sort of be the liaison, and we make sure they have all that 10 they need at Davis. I would work with the directors to convey the needs at Davis and talk about their plans and, you know, just communicate and make sure that things were running smoothly. I oversaw the Student Affairs Davis Council, which is a meeting of all those Student Affairs departments where we would share information and have speakers and so on. I'd facilitate that. Anyway, that didn't answer your question, but that is part of my job up until now. But you asked me, was I always over tutoring? The last couple of years when Prasanna [Reddy] already retired, she and I had been colleagues over tutoring and Supplemental Instruction directors on our respective campuses. When she retired, I took over for the whole university’s Supplemental Instruction. Tutoring was given to another learning support director. I also started a program called Academic Peer Coaching that I started on the Davis campus. This is a program where successful students could meet individually with students who want to talk about things with academic skills, like textbook reading, test taking, note taking. Procrastination is the number one issue that students bring. Most of it is actually time management. We started with that, and they also did texting. This was before the university has Ask Waldo now, which is more… it's not personalized, right? It's artificial intelligence that can answer questions, but this was the actual coaches would send out tips every week via text to new freshmen at Davis and their experiences, and just encouragement as well. Then students, of course, could reply or just ask any random question, and the coaches checked that every day and would be available to answer questions on a real-time basis, within 24 hours, let's say. Students had that accessibility to someone who could help them. I started that at Davis; someone was hired in Ogden, and they also then started doing academic peer coaching here. Then when I took on both campuses, I took on the academic peer coaching again, university- 11 wide. The last couple of years, I've been doing SI and academic peer coaching. Long Explanation. AS: Can I ask a follow-up? What was that like starting that program up? Did you see a need for it? Did you have research to show mentoring helps students? LL: Well, absolutely, yeah. There's a huge need. I mean, a lot of the reason that students don't succeed doesn't have to do with they're failing or they're not having the money, which are the reasons that students give, right? “Well,” they say, “I was too busy or I couldn't afford it.” But it's those ‘soft’ skills, you might say. A lot of it is time management and just the shock of college taking much more time than expected that does students in a lot of the time. So yeah, I think there's a tremendous need for that. There is a university-wide mentoring effort going on over the last few years. Olga Antonio is over a mentoring program, particularly for underrepresented students, but she also coordinates a committee for different departments, mentoring programs where we can train together. There's a certification that the mentors can get from a national organization, and there's a tremendous amount of research about how helpful mentoring can be. MT: Now, it sounded like there's some autonomy between the two campuses, but as far as like… I don't know how to word this exactly, but it sounds like sometimes you reported to somebody here in Ogden, and other times it seemed like you were more left to your own devices to do what you felt was best. Is that how the dynamic was? LL: Yeah. MT: Was it always that way, and did it fluctuate over the years? LL: I've always reported to Ogden through Academic Support Centers and Programs. Carl Porter is my supervisor and has been for many years. But yes, I mean, Davis operated with a certain degree of autonomy. But testing policies and procedures 12 are always the same, right? No matter what testing center you go to, you have to know what the rules are. They have to be similar—not similar, but identical. Tutoring, there was a little bit more where we developed our own paperwork, that sort of thing. At one point, we went to all the online paperwork to save paper, going in the green direction. So, yes, there was a bit more autonomy with tutoring. There's been an effort over the years to align things more, but there just are some differences. When you're physically separate, some things just make more sense to do in one place than in another. But I think that's a very good question because that has been always one of the struggles with being a satellite campus. To what degree are you the same, and to what degree are you different? You're not independent, but how much autonomy do you need? The saying has always been “One university, two campuses,” but that's very hard to operationalize in reality. MT: Yeah, I can see that. What kind of resistance or battles have you faced during your career? LL: Well, I feel like I've really led a charmed life in a lot of ways. I mean, it's been very easy. For instance, I mean, there's always been enough funding for what we do, which I'm very grateful for, through Student Affairs. I think that the academic support is valued. It's valued by the academic side as well, and so S.I. is highly regarded by faculty, is appreciated, is supported. There's always been funding for tutoring as well. One of the reasons is that Bruce Davis, who was the heart and soul of Davis campus, was very supportive of Student Affairs. For example, when we expanded the Learning Center, he offered to pay for half, said, “Will you go half with me?” because it's a Davis building, but it's our services. He always was able to help and, you know, offer things like that. 13 The one time that was difficult, I would say was… You don't have tissues here? I have to reach in my bag. A couple of years ago, as you may know, Bruce Davis passed away unexpectedly. The whole campus was really grieving. We had hired Sonja Green as a campus administrator about six months earlier, so she was totally new. What was going to happen? Who was going to follow up here? So I was asked to be the Interim Director of the Davis Campus, and this was not something that I wanted to do or felt that I was particularly qualified to do, even though I had been there the entire time since it opened. I was probably the senior person administratively, but… I was about to decline. In fact, I was writing the note, the email saying, you know, “I'm going to decline this.” Even though they were in a difficult position, I didn't know what the answer was, but I suggested Kelly Simerick would be great at this. She was over Enrollment Services at Davis. A young, vibrant person; very knowledgeable, very capable. She was taking a job in Student Affairs at that time with strategic initiatives. I said this to Brett Perozzi, the vice president, who was hiring her. He and Madonne Miner, the provost, came back and said, “What if you were co-directors?” I said, “Okay.” Bruce died in December of 2019. We took that on in January of 2020, and then there was a pandemic in March of 2020. We had to oversee the closing of the campus, the working with FM. Are we going to have the cleaning that we need? They were short-staffed. They couldn't come out what we felt was often enough. Are we going to have the standard signs? Are we going to have problems with people not wanting to mask? How is our front desk? Our front desk people, are they going to have confrontations? We did some training. We have to have social distancing. We have to deal with all our furniture, taping up furniture, so that people 14 can't sit close to each other. The study rooms, there has to be one person apiece rather than group study. All these things. Sonja just did a great job, and Gentry Reesor and Kelly and I were the four that tried to keep things going. Of course, it was closed for quite a while, but I would meet with them. Then the provost changed. Madonne Miner left; I was on Ravi Krovi’s application interview committee. He came in; we started there. There were like eight budgets, which—with Bruce having unexpectedly died, people weren't quite sure how things were working. So that was the one huge challenge, I would say. We did that until September of 2020 and then, Julie Snowball has now taken that position. Well, it's not the same position, but that's part of what she does is oversees Davis. MT: Okay. Speaking of the pandemic, when did Davis campus officially reopen? LL: Oh boy. I'd have to look back. Well, same as Ogden. I mean, it reopened for fall semester 2021, right? I think we were open somewhat before that, but that seems like where people came back. They really haven't come back to the extent that it was before, I don't feel like, on either campus. MT: What did a typical semester look like for you within your position? LL: Well, luckily, the tutoring and testing center kind of have offsetting peaks. Tutoring before the semester, it's always been difficult to hire enough tutors. It's gotten more difficult over the years. People are so busy, they're just over-committed. Students who are excelling and would qualify as tutors just have research and have internships and have other jobs, multiple jobs, or are working already in their fields. Before the semester, you'd be hiring tutors, gearing up at the beginning, doing class visits—I wouldn't personally, but arranging that—and getting tutoring started, encouraging people to come in early in the semester, do observations throughout the semester. We'd have a lead writing tutor. My background is in writing, so I really enjoyed working with them and helping them plan staff meetings and helping them 15 know the best practices to share and helping them with how to do observations, that kind of thing. I forgot to mention I was also kind of a liaison for the computer lab for quite a few years at Davis. I worked with the computer lab team leaders as well, and similar things, really enjoyed working with them. Then as the semester would go on and testing would ramp up, so dealing with cheating incidents, communicating with faculty about, “This is what happened and it's up to you what to do.” Just, of course, then by finals, being extremely busy with testing, and supporting them: that crew. MT: So, tutoring: would it peter off by the time finals week happened, or was there a slight uptick right before finals week? LL: Well, students would come late in the semester, of course, hoping to save their grade, but it's hard at that point. Actually, we didn't always have tutoring during finals week. It was actually lower because some things were already finished. But we would do [it] by appointment. For example, if people still had papers due, they could make an appointment and come in, but we wouldn't have our drop-in tutoring at that point. It's too late at that point. MT: How has the Davis campus changed over the years? LL: Well, one of the big things that happened early on, of course, was NUAMES came to the Davis campus. They weren't there when it opened, but that was arranged. I don't know if this is still true, but it was pretty unique to Weber State when they came in, that those students are actually on the campus and integrated into the same buildings, physically, as the college-aged students. NUAMES, I should say, is an early college high school. They're high school students. Some of them are early college students, also, where they're taking Weber State classes. They had their own classes, and then they may have some Weber State classes. 16 For example, before they came, a group of us went—I think it was at UVU— to kind of look at their early college high school, and theirs is located next to the campus, but it's separate. They have their own buildings. It's like across the street, as I remember, whereas at Weber it's all together, right? NUAMES has contributed financially; with the building of D3, the Stewart Center, part of the reason that was able to be done was that NUAMES contributed toward the cost of that building because they were going to use it. It's sort of the Union component of the Davis campus also. NUAMES has been a star in terms of charter schools. I think they've been the number one high school in Utah the last three years running. Their principal just won a governor's award for the work that she's done. It's promoted as a big plus for Weber State. Of course, on the ground, there are also some disadvantages and difficulties with having high school students on your college campus. Early on, there were a lot of complaints about the noise; they would gather in the computer lab and play games and talk, and other students couldn't work. In the halls between classes, there'd be complaints. It's a lot more of a high school feel, and particularly nontraditional students, you know, didn't appreciate that. So there still are noise concerns sometimes with NUAMES. I know that faculty, too; if there would be enough NUAMES students in the class, that would change the complexion of the class as well. NUAMES, of course, now has expanded to the Ogden campus, too. You have NUAMES students in Ogden, but they're so diluted because there are so many other students. They're way outnumbered, whereas they're more of a visible presence at Davis because they're there all day long. They use D13, which is, of course—we have the computer and automotive engineering building now also—and we have D13, so we have four classroom buildings. NUAMES uses D13 during the day. But you know, 17 they're walking back and forth at lunch, they're using the food area, so they're very much evident at the Davis campus. It's definitely a different feel, a mixed-bag sort of a thing, from the student point of view. MT: What are some of your favorite memories of your time here at Weber? LL: Well, at Davis campus, there is a great sense of camaraderie, I think more so in the past than now. It's because it's so [much] smaller. I mean, there were 3500 students, which is larger than Westminster College; still, departments would work closely together with being over Davis Student Services. All those departments were in one place. [Recording ends unexpectedly.] [Recording begins again.] LL: …we would recognize people's birthdays, and we'd just take a few minutes, and we had to have a healthy snack and a sweet snack. There's a picture of us with carrot sticks and cupcakes. It was a close-knit group, and we participated in the Student Affairs Talent Show as the Davis Divas for a couple of years. A lot of times training together in the ballroom at Davis. We did a dance routine—oh, dear, “Dancing Queen”—and Shelly [Park], who is a coordinator in my department, sewed costumes. We practiced that endlessly and had no particular talent, but we pulled it off. We were the final act and got a big positive reaction and people still remember that. I think that was one of the nice things. Another thing I particularly remember was working with one of the lead writing tutors, and I took him to a writing tutor conference in Salt Lake. A national conference was here that year, and we went out—took him to lunch, to an Ethiopian restaurant in Salt Lake, and he had never had Ethiopian food before. He was just so interested in the different cultural norms and traditions of how to eat this food, because it's finger food. You eat it with your hands. He was taking pictures of the 18 food to show his wife at home. It was just a nice chance to spend time with the student and to see him enjoying, learning new things. MT: [To Alexis] Do you have any questions? [To Leslie] What recognition have you received for your accomplishments? LL: Well, one of the things that I'm proud of is starting the academic peer coaching program, as I mentioned. We won the Best New Program in 2019 for the region for NASPA, which is the Student Affairs professional organization, at their conference. That was nice. I also won the Toni Weight Lifetime Achievement Award for Student Affairs, which is a Weber State Award named after Toni Weight, who was a previous vice president. What was—I don't know if it's ironic, but coincidental or nice—about that was that I was the chair of the first recognition committee in Student Affairs, and we created that award and set the parameters. The first award went to Toni Weight, as she was retiring, and so that was very nice to be recognized with. There are various awards in Student Affairs that they give each year, but that's kind of the culmination. I also, last year, was given the legacy award for the Utah Women in Higher Education Network, which is a statewide organization. This was the Weber State Recognition. I was the representative for that to the State Board for about four years, and I really worked to activate that organization on the campus. Organized a lot of workshops for women's professional development; advocated with the president for wage increases. There were some statewide initiatives, and so we would bring that information forward to say, “What is Weber State doing about this?” I had lunchtime discussions about different topics, like, how can we be advocates for other women? Did just various [things] activating that organization. I tried to gather the women who were participating and interested, and they encouraged us to start a chapter at Weber State. I chaired the Bylaws Committee 19 and organized the first elections for that organization. This is not a Student Affairsonly, this is a university [organization] for all women at Weber State. Then I served the first year of the chapter on their board and kind of made a transition and helped them get going, and they're still going. I got the legacy award for that. MT: That's cool. LL: I feel like that's one of the main things that I worked on in the last decade. MT: Okay. What mentors or resources did you have available to you? LL: Well, I think that one of the main changes over the years—and the reason that I had opportunities—was when Jan Winniford came as the Vice President of Student Affairs. She really professionalized the division, and that was a national trend that's been happening too: is Student Affairs a career? Because a lot of people would come from different backgrounds into Student Affairs and still do. Now there are degrees that you can get, and Weber State has started the program in Higher Education Leadership here as well. She was encouraging people to get degrees that [were] related, and she wanted us to have a staff development program. I was the first Chair of the Staff Development Committee. She sent a group of us to Texas A&M, where she came from, to see how they did a Student Affairs Academy. It was sort of, if you didn't have the background in Student Affairs when you came in, this would be a condensed version of your graduate program, where you talk about theory and student development and politics and all sorts of things. We went through that program and came back, and then I oversaw the first Student Affairs Academy for Student Affairs here at Weber State. Also, we started monthly Student Affairs staff development meetings based on the national competencies that the professional organization had set out. So it sort of broadened and deepened the way Student Affairs people see each other, see the division and what Student Affairs is. I credit Jan with starting a lot of that. 20 She started a lot of committees: like I said, the recognition committee as well [that] I chaired, and she set up a committee structure and started a lot of these things. I think that she was a good role model who brought a lot of new things. That would be an example. MT: How have you become a mentor to others in your field? LL: I mentioned working with student employees. I've worked with a lot of student employees and it's great to see them flourish, especially in the writing field. I also worked with the computer lab team leaders, one of whom came back to my retirement reception the other day. He had been a leader in 2012, and he said that was one of the best experiences that he had had in his life and got a lot from it. Another computer lab team leader was a Japanese student who, I basically became a second mother to her. She didn't have family here, of course, and I don't feel like she knew a lot of people. She did have roommates, but she could use quite a bit of guidance and would ask questions. She ended up asking me to be in her wedding, and I was a bridesmaid. So that was kind of a nice testament. She came to my house for Thanksgiving and that kind of thing as well. Recently, too—well, not just recently, but I've also tried to really encourage my contract staff to pursue training opportunities to broaden their understanding of the research and the fields that would be helpful for them to know what's going on in higher ed nationwide and know the best practices in our fields. Just recently, I've been working with a young professional who is just fantastic, I think: just giving encouragement and saying, “You did a great job on that.” She's got all the great ideas that she needs, she just needs someone to reassure and help build her confidence. I think over the years, of course, student mental health, I feel, has really declined, or at least it's just become more evident. These younger people with depression and anxiety, just a lot of people struggling 21 with that—I feel like it's just being a calm presence to tell them that they can do it. It's just the main thing that's needed. MT: [To Alexis] Do you have any questions? [To Leslie] I've just got one question left. What advice would you give to students starting in the Student Affairs field or writing field also? LL: I think for Student Affairs, what Student Affairs is varies from university to university, what departments are included in Student Affairs. It's a matter of trying out different departments and seeing what you enjoy and where you're a good fit. Our Higher Education Leadership Program has a couple of internships where you can be in a couple different departments and actually work, try them out. I think most places do that. So academic support, the area I'm in, is quite different from Student Involvement and Leadership, where you're planning activities and group events, that kind of thing. I think it's a matter of seeing what you care most about and where you feel you can make a difference. I just think for all students, they've become more hesitant, I feel like, over the years to take advantage of the opportunities that Student Affairs offers. Tutoring is free. Weber State has a tremendous amount of free services that are extremely helpful, and students need to seek those out and become familiar with them, use them to their advantage. I think the pandemic has contributed to that, where people just want to be online. It's easier, but it's not better if you're trying to be really engaged; for example, with Supplemental Instruction, where we're doing a group study, we offer that online as well as in-person now. We'll need to continue doing that because more people come if it's virtual, Zoom, but you see more and more black boxes where people won't speak up; you can't see them, you don't know if they're with you or not. It's such a temptation. I don't know how that's going to improve, but I think that's another mixed bag. Over 22 time, that's come out of the pandemic—specifically with that, that students are not as engaged as they need to be in their learning. There's groups that are, but I think it's harder. I don't know how to convince students. That would be my advice to them: take the leap, be brave. Go ahead and put yourself out there and get involved. MT: Okay. Thank you very much. It’s been very enlightening and fun to hear your stories about Weber. LL: Thanks. I appreciate it. Shall I look through your—are you out of time? MT: Oh, no. LL: Let me look through and see if there's anything in particular that I wanted to mention. There is one thing I'd like to talk about, I think. AS: Do you want this recorded? LL: Yeah. It's fine. One of your [written] questions I noticed was, what topics have you written about also? I did want to mention that Academic Support Centers and Programs got two accreditations, one for tutoring and one for Supplemental Instruction. This was from the National Association for Developmental Education. It's now called NOSS, the National Organization for Student Success, but at the time it was NADE, and so I was the lead organizer and writer, particularly for SI and also for tutoring. Prasanna Reddy wrote that with me, worked on both of them with me. The whole department had to contribute, because we did a couple of selfstudies, we did focus groups with different stakeholders, interviews. We went through reflection questions, talking about, “How can we improve our department?” We did years of data collection and analysis. You had to come up with an action plan based on the first two years of data. What do you see? How can you change? Then you had to follow through. 23 We were the first in the nation to get the accreditation for Supplemental Instruction, and we got it for the first period of time. Then you had to write again with an update and do some of this work again and get an extension. We got it again through this year, when it's ending, and so that was a huge project. They started out calling it ‘certification,’ but it was so much work that they changed the name to ‘accreditation.’ I'm quite proud of having seen that through. Our applications actually were then used as examples for other programs nationwide. They would train other programs, and they would have samples from successful programs, and so ours was highly looked upon. I was asked to be on a panel for the next couple of years at the national conference to discuss what we did, along with other universities that had gotten accreditation, to advise other people on how to do it. That was a major, major writing project. The other writing project that's recent, that is a great thing and I've really enjoyed, is [with] the academic peer coaches. We do a blog; it's on the Weber State website. If you look at academic peer coaching for the last year and a half, I've mentored those coaches: meeting with them, coming up with topics to write about. How to keep motivated, work-life balance, growth mindset: various things that they're interested in and research, and then working with them where they'll write a draft. We meet and make suggestions, talk about revising and then editing it. I edited at the end and have been very involved with that process. I think they're just great, from their perspective—a student perspective—but also really based on the best information on how to read your textbook, so here are some things to try. Those blog posts are up permanently. We'll see. Nothing is permanent, but those are available. Those are a resource that are on the website for academic peer coaching, along with a lot of online resources that my colleague Kenzie Glover researched and found. There's a great library of materials for students who aren't 24 brave enough to come in and meet or do something face-to-face. They can also read and get a start and get some suggestions. MT: Okay, thank you. LL: Sure. 25