While it's a fairly common experience to be asked what you do for a living, I'm always struck by the amount of people whose response to my statement that I am a student services provider in a school of public health at a University includes the sentiment, “so you have the summers off?” Or, “well, it must be a lot less busy without the students around.” This clearly indicates a belief that some sort of neutron bomb goes off on May 15th, wiping out all of the students, leaving the administrators with clean desks and the physical structures intact. For most of us in the student services world, this view is far from reality. A cohort of students graduates, but another is left behind and still another is knocking at the door to come in and this group has just as much right to a great experience in our schools as the last group had. So, we take a day or two off after commencement to count the wrinkles that appeared since the last opportunity we had to look in the mirror and we show up for work the next day and start all over again. Such is the nature of the business.

In my many conversations with you, my colleagues at our sister schools, it seems that this is more often the scenario than the, “Yahoo, school's out for summer, let's go on vacation” mindset. We student services professionals see this as the time when there might be a small possibility of getting extra projects done, of becoming uber organized so that no amount of chaos in the upcoming year can derail us, of setting in motion new and exciting initiatives that will benefit our students. This year, however, many of our schools have been hit with significant budget cuts, signaling the probability, if not already the reality, that we will be expected to continue to strive for excellence with less human and financial resources. In times like these, you often hear the adage, “we need to work smarter, not harder.” I rail against this notion because it seems to imply that we are functioning with a moronic “time to make the donuts” work ethic. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you are working with students, however, it's difficult not to get sucked into the “I'll work harder and smarter” mentality because you simply don't want to let them down.

Many of us have acknowledged that positions in student services offices frequently carry with them a high level of occupational stress. In addition to fulfilling the expectations that university and college administration has of us related to operational activities, data reporting, academic processes, etc., we work closely with students on a daily basis to help them solve a myriad of issues, some fairly complex and life altering. The desire to do a good job and the expectation to meet a number of peoples' needs over a long period of time can lead to emotional and physical exhaustion and an altered perspective of the world – not always a healthy or positive one. This results just from doing your job! Add another life stressor or two and/or an illness on top of that and you've got the makings of a breakdown of sorts or at least major burnout. At that point, you become helpful to no one, least of all yourself. We need to pace ourselves and take care of ourselves and our staffs if we are going to remain able to take good care of our students.

On the summer mornings that I get to work before the scorching Arizona sun has obliterated all the normally occurring scents and sounds of nature, I often get a whiff of new mown grass and honeysuckle, instantly transporting me back to my childhood. I imagine myself at the swimming pool, my friends and I counting each others' freckles, doing cannonballs off the board, eating grape popsicles and watching the drips sizzle on our sunburned legs. In these flashbacks, I recognize the function of running and skipping and singing in our lives. They help to keep things in perspective, in balance and we need to work at making sure we continue to have those moments of fun. This morning, I took twenty extra minutes to have coffee with my husband before coming to work. As I sat down, I looked up and found a coyote pup staring at me through my back patio door. For the twenty seconds that we looked each other over, I realized I had been immediately rewarded for taking the time to smell the roses. It's time for all of us to reconsider the hectic nature of our jobs and give ourselves permission to take some time off this summer to laugh and play and get re-energized. Do something you've never done before but always wanted to. Carve out some time to untether yourself from all electronics for as long as you possibly can. There is little doubt that our challenges will be great in the coming year. We will want to be well-prepared for them!

As we all know, semantically the flipside of challenge is opportunity and I want to encourage those of you who haven't had an opportunity to become involved with the ASPH Student Services Council to do so in the new academic year. Participation in the Student Services Council has been one of the most rewarding activities I've ever been involved in mostly because of the warm camaraderie that has developed between wonderful people in our respective schools. The Council has proven to be a great vehicle for developing careers in admissions and student/ academic services. With Jeffery Johnson at the helm as Chair, I am confident that a freethinking, creative planning committee is developing a dynamite agenda for the Admissions and Student Services Workshop which will be held on Friday, November 6 th at Drexel University in Philadelphia prior to this year's APHA meeting. During that weekend, we will host our 3 rd ASPH Student Leadership Institute. Hopefully, a number of students from your schools will be fortunate enough to participate. Please contact Jeffery ( jeff@tulane.edu ) if you would like to discuss becoming involved in these events. Finally, we are also looking for new members of the Student Services Newsletter Editorial Board. If experience in putting together a newsletter such as this is something you're interested in or if you have ideas for articles, please let me know ( cbt@email.arizona.edu ).

That is it for now. Go out and have a great summer everyone!

Chris Tisch
Co-Editor, ASPH Student Services Newsletter
Assistant Dean, Student and Alumni Affairs
The Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health