Past Cohorts

Book Cohort: Rest is Resistance, by Tricia Hersey

Are you ready to reclaim rest as a radical act of self-care? Join Lucy Baquero Oja and Angel Yackel for a 4-part book group discussion of Tricia Hersey’s groundbreaking book, “Rest is Resistance.”

In this thought-provoking work, Hersey challenges the hustle culture and encourages us to prioritize rest as a form of resistance against systemic oppression. We’ll delve into the historical and cultural roots of our relentless work ethic, explore the power of rest, and discuss practical strategies for incorporating more rest into our daily lives. 

Cohort Facilitators: Lucy Baquero Oja and Angel Yackel

Ins & Outs Cohort

Have you ever wanted to know more about contracting vendors when planning campus events or about communication best practices at Carleton? Join us for one or both of the following sessions.  

Event Planning, facilitated by Nathan Riel-Elness & Grace Esselman. In this session, Nathan and Grace will discuss their experience working with and contracting various types of vendors such as catering, musical groups, entertainment companies, and various professional services. During this session they will define the process they have for contracting vendors and steps taken to ensure vendors are paid in a timely manner. The goal of this single session is to share information with professional staff who are interested in contracting and negotiating with vendors on behalf of the college for their office sponsored events.

Communications at Carleton College, facilitated by Rachel Everett and Sarah Scofield. Join Rachel and Sarah to learn tips and tricks for promoting your office, revamping your website, and adhering to Carleton branding recommendations. Bring your questions!

Supervising Students

Join members of the Division of Student Life and the Division of Inclusion, Equity, and Community for discussions on a variety of topics related to supervision skills. Each session is stand-alone in topic but may refer back to previous conversations. Specific topics will be driven by group members. Opportunities to take the lead in facilitating will be available! Sample topics could include creating expectations, difficult conversations, on-going training, connecting students with future career steps. etc.

Cohort Facilitators: Tanya Hartwig and Elijah Genheimer 

Book Cohort: Set Boundaries, Find Peace, by Negra Glover Tawwab

Join us to read Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab to learn more about setting healthy boundaries, building rewarding relationships, and maintaining (or creating) work/life balance. For our first session, we’ll complete an assessment, discuss our results, and decide which chapters of the book we want to read as a group. 

Cohort Facilitators: Melanie Cashin and Leah Ernste

Walk and Talk Tuesdays

Take time after lunch to walk and talk with Student Life colleagues about topics on your mind.  This is a good way to reflect, converse, enjoy nature, and get a bit of walking in for the day.  This is low impact and low speed walking – walking shoes required.  

Walk and Talk Tuesday topics: Carleton and Issues in Higher Education.  Please email Cathy your topic ideas when you sign up for the cohort. Topics will be determined based on what the group submits and BRIEF readings may be assigned.

Cohort Facilitator: Cathy Carlson

Supervising Students

Join members of the Division of Student Life and the Division of Inclusion, Equity, and Community for discussions on a variety of topics related to supervision skills. Each session is stand-alone in topic but may refer back to previous conversations. Specific topics will be driven by group members.  Opportunities to take the lead in facilitating will be available! Sample topics could include creating expectations, difficult conversations, on-going training, connecting students with future career steps. etc.

First topic for week 2 – Training Debrief & Reflection: For this session we’re creating some space for reflection & conversation around how the beginning of the year training went/is going for your team. We know some student employees arrived mid august and others get here just in time for classes. Let’s carve out some time for us as supervisors to think through how things went, what we might do differently, and what training we need to continue with into the school year.  (Week 4, 6, 8 – Topics TBD)

Cohort Facilitators: Tanya Hartwig and Elijah Genheimer 

Book Cohort: Permission to Feel, by Marc Brackett, PhD

From Google Books: “The mental wellbeing of children and adults is shockingly poor. Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel, knows why and what we can do.” Marc Brackett is a research psychologist and the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University. In Permission to Feel, he encourages everyone to become “emotion scientists” in all parts of our lives, by understanding that we have a wide range of feelings that go far beyond happy, sad, and mad. 

Join us for discussion of all of the feels, while considering the implications that emotional intelligence and being emotions scientists have in our work not only supporting the emerging adults, but also supporting ourselves and our colleagues at Carleton.

Cohort Facilitators: Lucy Baquero Oja and Angel Yackel

The 2nd Annual Masterclass of Masterclasses

Join your colleagues for opportunities to discuss topics that influence our work in Student Life. We will spend the first 10-15 minutes watching a video from Masterclass together, and then will spend the rest of the time discussing the topic. Cohort participants are welcome to attend 1, 2, or all 3 of our gatherings. We will meet from 3-4pm on the following dates:

• April 23: Join Amy Sillanpa for a discussion around the Masterclass “You’re Not An Imposter,” by Elaine Welteroth. Imposter syndrome is a real thing, so we will talk about how to recognize and approach the challenges associated with it.
• May 7: Join Grace Espinoza as they facilitate a discussion around the Masterclass “A Joy Metric.” The “Joy Metric” looks at how we need to focus on the glimpses of joy in our lives and how we work to create spaces where those around us illuminate us to be our best selves.
• May 28: Join Liz Cody for a facilitated discussion about the Masterclass by famed Duke basketball Coach K, who talks about Values-Driven Leadership. We’ll discuss how to uplift your team, build trust in the workplace, and develop emerging leaders.

Cohort Facilitators: members of the Professional Development Committee

Supervising Students

Continuing the cohort from previous terms, Tanya and Elijah will be facilitating discussions on a variety of topics related to supervision skills. Each session is stand-alone in topic but may refer back to previous conversations. Potential topics for Spring Term include: how & what to plan for onboarding training, creating ongoing professional development, & how to reset/reestablish team expectations and norms mid-year. Exact topics will be decided based upon interest from Cohort members.

Cohort Facilitators: Elijah Genheimer and Tanya Hartwig

Book Cohort: The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, by Priya Parkerk

In this book, highly experienced group facilitator and conflict resolution expert Priya Parker offers practical yet unique advice for organizing effective gatherings. Parker argues that when done with intention, any gathering — from a baby shower to a political summit — can be a tool for social transformation. In this cohort group, we’ll discuss how we might apply Parker’s strategies for gathering to the student life context in order to create programming that is meaningful, purposeful, and transformative.

Cohort Facilitators: Renee Faulkner and Chad Ellsworth

Supervising Students

Continuing off of the Fall Term cohort, Tanya and Elijah will be facilitating discussions on a variety of topics related to supervision skills. Each session is stand-alone in topic but may refer back to previous conversations. Exact topics will be decided upon once the cohort is formed.

Cohort Facilitators: Elijah Genheimer and Tanya Hartwig

Supervising Students

Continuing off of the supervisor workshops from the Summer, Tanya and Elijah will be facilitating discussions on a variety of topics related to supervision skills. Each session is stand-alone in topic but may refer back to previous conversations. Exact topics and dates will be decided upon once the cohort is formed.

Cohort Facilitators: Elijah Genheimer and Tanya Hartwig

Motivational Interviewing Skills

Have you ever felt stuck when a student is asking for advice, but you know you can’t make the decision for them? We can help! Students are often looking for support making decisions around studying away, their academic and career next steps, navigating relationships, and working through ambivalence in other personal challenges and decisions. We’ll focus on how we can support students in examining how their choices are aligned (or not) with their own values and empowering them to examine their own motivations for their decisions, recognizing that change occurs when people give voice to their own reasons for change.

In the first session, we will cover foundational motivational interviewing techniques to support students in navigating decision-making processes while emphasizing student autonomy and choice. In the second session, we will practice skills around open-ended questions and reflections. These skills can be used in a variety of ways to support students, including helping them around their personal and professional goals. Whether you’re already familiar with Motivational Interviewing or have never heard of it, these sessions are appropriate for staff in different roles across Student Affairs.

Cohort Facilitator: Cassandra Worner

Book Cohort: The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck

Join us for four hour-long sessions to discuss Martha Beck’s book The Way of Integrity and how we can use her insights to advocate for and empower each other to create a work and learning environment that reflects our unique values.

Cohort Facilitators: Melanie Cashin and Rachel Morrison

The Masterclass of Masterclasses

Facilitated by members of the Professional Development Committee

Join your colleagues for opportunities to discuss topics that are crucial parts of our work in Student Life. We will spend the first 15 minutes or so watching a video from Masterclass together, and then will spend the rest of the time discussing the topic. Cohort participants are welcome to attend 1, 2, or all 3 of our gatherings. We will meet from 3:30-4:30pm in Sayles Hill 251 on the dates listed below.

April 25: Topic: finding ways to allow your work environment to be creative and rewarding. Videos: The Importance of Relaxing & Recharging, by Doris Kearn Goodwin, and Be Curious, by Howard Schultz. Facilitated by Liz Cody and Dia Taliaferro.

May 9: Topic: having difficult conversations. Video: How to Have Difficult Conversations, by Esther Perel. Facilitated by Luke Klefstad and Emily Shields.

May 23: Topic: establishing a team of people who trust one another and work together to provide a healthy working environment. Video: How to Build Trust and Promote Teamwork, by Lewis Hamilton. Facilitated by Amy Sillanpa.

Cohort Facilitators: Professional Development Committee Members

Spring Rejuvenation Cohort with Dia and Tina

Do you find yourself matching, or exceeding, our students’ stress levels? Do you go through the motions, struggling to get through the day? Are you ready to take some time for yourself, learn about the areas that you’re doing great in and those that deserve some more love and care, all while practicing strategies that you can share with others? Join Dia and Tina on a 3 week journey to reconnect with yourself, explore nature and finish off with a physical representation of where you want to go.

Cohort Facilitators: Tina Langton and Dia Taliaferro

Book Cohort: Advice for Future Corpses and Those Who Love Them: a practical guide for death and dying, by Sallie Tisdalencocting

Note from Julia: Hello Friends,  Many of you know me as the (retired) Dacie Moses person.  What you may not have known is that I also had my own business doing massage, emotional freedom technique, healing touch, qigong, guided imagery and mindfulness meditation.  The year before COVID hit I certified as a Death Midwife/ Doula and during COVID did a training on End of Life Care.  I have had the privilege to doula many births and deaths.  Both have brought a clarity to my life and my passion to explore how we heal.  On this journey, I have had many wise teachers. I invite you to join me for a cohort class that will be focused on a wonderful book I read titled “Advice for Future Corpses and Those Who Love Them” By Sallie Tisdale.  This is a practical guide to death and dying.  The author is a palliative care nurse and a Buddhist.  Her Buddhist background gives thought to concepts such as impermanence which I found helpful.

Cohort Facilitator: Julia Uleberg

Book Cohort: Laziness Does Not Exist, by Devon Price, Ph.D.

The book explores the “laziness lie”—which falsely tells us we are not working or learning hard enough. Discussions (and some activities) will help participants learn how to think differently about best work practices and the importance of prioritizing time to relax. Join us as we explore practical ways to find more balance in your work and personal life, and help students to do the same.

Cohort Facilitators: Liz Cody and Luke Klefstad

Unlock Your Potential with Peer Coaching

Are you feeling stuck? Would you like to open up to new possibilities? Are you interested in practicing your deep listening skills? Consider joining our peer coaching circle this winter. Peer coaching sessions are based on the Case Clinic Approach of the U Theory Model. Case clinics guide a group of peers through a process in which a case giver presents a question (“a case”) and a group of peers help as coaches based on the principles of the U Process and process consultation. Case clinics allow participants to generate new ways to look at a challenge or question and develop new approaches for responding to the challenge or question. The sessions will be held weekly, via zoom. The cohort is limited to five individuals. Participants are encouraged to attend all six gatherings to enjoy the benefits of the group process.

Cohort Facilitator: Rachel Leatham

Concocting Connections

Are you looking for a creative and warm place to connect with your coworkers? Have you heard about the “Cookie House” but have never been inside?  Join the Concocting Connections cohort for baking and bonding in Dacie Moses’s house this Winter. 

Baking is a mindful activity, but also an excellent way to learn to work as a group through unexpected twists in the recipe and problem-solving towards the collective goal of a delicious treat. While the treats are in the oven, staff will talk through various topics such as opportunities to get involved on campus, Carleton’s structure, professional values, and best practices in supporting one another here at Carleton. All are welcome, but we’d especially like to invite newer staff to come make connections with colleagues during this cohort.

Cohort Facilitators: Kaitlin Ahlskog and Emily Shields

Cohort: Revive

We are dealing with the effects of a pandemic, a global fight for justice, and so much more.  All the while, we oftentimes are holding space for our students who are trying to deal with it all as well.  It is A LOT.  Needless to say, we need self-care & community care to help us deal with the stress of it all.  During the Fall Term, join our cohort, Revive, where we will learn together skills to manage stress drawing connections between areas of psychology, mindfulness, and art. Any needed art supplies will be provided.

Cohort Facilitators: Liz Cody, Patrick Gordon

Book Cohort: Your Strengths & The Five Essential Elements of Well Being

Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? This seemingly simple question is not only an insight into applying your Strengths, but also the key to Career Well Being, maybe the most critical of the Five Elements of Well Being identified by Tom Rath and Jim Harter through their work at Gallup. How do you build trust, show compassion, provide stability, and create hope, not only for the students you work with, but also for yourself? Join us for this discussion series on bringing out your best self through your professional work, and finding strategies for recharging, rediscovering, and rethinking your professional work through the lens of CliftonStrengths and one of Gallup’s latest books: “Wellbeing at Work.” As a participant, you will have the opportunity to complete the CliftonStrengths assessment, and this series will be facilitated by Chad Ellsworth, a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach.

Cohort Facilitator: Chad Ellsworth

Book Cohort: iGen

Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy, – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood – And What That Means for the Rest of Us. Join Cathy Carlson for a “walk and talk” book cohort. Participants will meet at a different location on campus each week and go for a walk while talking about a chapter of the book. Walking shoes are a must; phones must be put away. Cathy will send participants information in early Spring Term about selected chapters and meeting locations. Please sign up by April 4 so books can be ordered for all participants.

Cohort Facilitator: Cathy Carlson

Taste of Koru:  Silent retreat and discussion

Koru Mindfulness is an evidence-based introduction to mindfulness and meditation skills designed for emerging adults. (Aren’t we all emerging??) Come join us on Midterm Monday (5/2), 1-5 pm for a reflective break followed a week later by a one-hour debrief and discussion.  During the retreat on 5/2 we will practice a variety of mindfulness skills taught in the Koru Basic class. The following week (5/9), 3-5pm we will re-group to talk about experiences during the retreat and discuss the book  The Mindful Twenty-Something, the text for Koru Basic. Koru Basic participants report experiencing less stress, less self-criticism, better sleep, and more mindful living.  Check it out and see if you experience the same.

Cohort Facilitator:Betsy Lane-Getaz and Julia Uleberg

Book Cohort: From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education, by Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey Malcolm-Piqueux

In the book titled From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education, authors Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey Malcolm-Piqueux offer, “practical guidance on the design and application of campus change strategies for achieving equitable outcomes. This indispensable guide presents academic administrators and staff with advice on building an equity-minded campus culture, aligning strategic priorities and institutional missions to advance equity, understanding equity-minded data analysis, developing campus strategies for making excellence inclusive, and moving from a first-generation equity educator to an equity-minded practitioner.”  

In this cohort, we will read and discuss how areas can examine their data and practice through an equity lens, based on the authors’ suggested strategies and techniques.

Cohort Facilitator: Sindy Fleming, Danny Mathews, Alessa Strelecki  

@ Carleton (took place Fall ’21, Winter ’22, and Spring ’22 Terms)

We are happy to introduce @ Carleton, a professional development cohort focused on community building among new staff, learning more about Carleton, and making connections across campus. The cohort will meet 3 times throughout winter term and have a set activity to do. The activities for this upcoming term will be:

• Attending a Convocation and then eat lunch together
• Baking cookies at Dacie Moses House 
• Meeting with a campus partner to learn about their work 
• (activities varied each term)

We would love for you to join us for all 3 sessions, but it is okay if you can’t make them all! We will send reminders the week of the events and hope to see lots of you there. 

This cohort is geared to folks new to the division, but anyone is welcome to join! 

Cohort Facilitator: Dia Taliaferro, Chad Ellsworth, Alessa Strelecki

Book Cohort: How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones

How We Fight For Our Lives (HWFFOL) by Saeed Jones is a gripping story that explores race, sex, and power. Jones is both poetic and unapologetic as he brings the reader through his experience as a Black, queer, first generation college student… fighting for his life. The San Francisco Chronicle called HWFFOL, “A luminous, clear-eyed excavation of how we learn to define ourselves, HWFFOL is both a coming-of-age story and a rumination on love and loss… a radiant memoir that meditates on the many ways we belong to each other and the many ways we are released.” In this cohort, we hope to have honest and powerful conversations about the intersections of identity and experience explored in Jones’ first autobiography and consider the implications for how stories like Jones’ help student affairs practitioners understand diverse lived experiences of students we serve.

Cohort Facilitator: Danny Mathews

Book Cohort: Academic Ableism: Disability in Higher Education

Join colleagues to engage in conversation about ableism in higher education and at Carleton. Participants will read selections from Academic Ableism, by Jay Timothy Dolmage, and explore how its topics relate to our campus and our work with students. Full book description below: 

Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center.  For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.

Cohort Facilitator: Sam Thayer

Mental Health First Aid Training

Mental Health First Aid takes the fear and hesitation out of starting conversations around mental health and substance use challenges. In this training, you”ll learn:

• how to identify warning signs
• strategies to help folks in crisis and non-crisis situations
• resources for support
• AND, you’ll leave with a certification in Mental Health First Aid!

Cohort Facilitator: Janet Lewis-Muth, Cathy Carlson, Tamnnet Kidanu

Building Up Without Tearing Down: How to Cultivate Heroic Leadership in You and Your Organization

Does your organization inhibit, rather than ignite, the growth and individual potential of its members? Do you want to create positive change-in your organization, community, and world, but feel overwhelmed by obstacles? You don’t have to be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malala Yousafzai to bring about change; you can become a heroic leader just by learning and applying the Heroic Arts that Chad Ellsworth shares in Building Up Without Tearing Down.

Cohort Facilitator: Chad Ellsworth

Burnout Prevention, Recovery, and Resilience

The metaphor of putting our oxygen masks on first has always been important as student life staff, yet seems particularly valuable for this academic year. This cohort workshop will be a chance for us to connect, share our authentic experiences with burnout (past and present), bolster each other up, and critically think about our own well-being as we attend to the needs of our students and the challenges of our current world. We plan to practice bearing witness to each other’s stories in a way that fosters empathy, increases hope, and helps you reconnect with feelings of energy and passion for your work.  
The workshops will have some didactic components but will mostly be discussion based. The first session will culminate with each participant creating an individualized burnout recovery/prevention plan for winter term. The concluding session will focus on exploring our successes and struggles with this plan, and then make adjustments in preparation for spring term. The goal is for each of us to get better at taking in the appropriate amount of “oxygen” that will sustain us in the work we are doing. 

Cohort Facilitator: Nate Page

Book Group: How to Be An Anti-Racist

Participants will be reading and discussing Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist. Three digital group meetings will be coupled with online discussion boards to provide participants with a transformative experience designed to allow participants to share their own experiences and grow from considering the perspectives of others. Participants will be challenged to think critically about the anti-racist principles Kendi presents and to apply these principles to make Carleton and the greater society a more racially just place to live and work.

Cohort Facilitator: Brisa Zubia and Jared Ley

WordPress Training

In the era of remote/distance learning, being able to engage students, staff and faculty with easy to access information and resources through our websites is paramount to our success. Join Doug Bratland from ITS in a three part series intended to help you navigate the new WordPress platform and make your websites SHINE! When signing up, you will complete a short survey to help Doug assess the group’s needs and opportunities for growth. It is a goal for this series to help create a cohort of learners that can support each other in the future. Participation in all 3 sessions is encouraged. Space is limited.

Cohort Facilitator: Doug Bratland

Book Group: Make Your Home Among Strangers

Review from Amazon: This book is a wonderful explanation of what first gen students encounter when they enter college. Even if they have the spoken moral support of their families they find themselves pulled in many directions because of difficult cultural expectations. Often the family demands one thing while the college demands another. The students finds herself being torn in pieces by things she doesn’t understand. Not making it past the first year is a real possibility. Oftentimes family must come first.

Cohort Facilitator: Joe Baggot

Supervising Student Workers

Do you supervise student workers? If so, we want you to join this cohort! Let’s share the practices that have worked well for us, collaboratively troubleshoot challenges, and discuss ways of implementing clear communication with and expectations for our student workers.

Cohort Facilitators: Karina Sierra & Kathy Evertz

Book Group: The Stressed Years of Their Lives

From two leading child and adolescent mental health experts comes a guide for the parents of every college and college-bound student who want to know what’s normal mental health and behavior, what’s not, and how to intervene before it’s too late. The information in the book is easily adaptable to the work of Student Life.  We will discuss Chapters 1-6 of the book when we gather.

Cohort Facilitator: Cathy Carlson

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed

Inspired by Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, Augusto Boal created a new theatrical form that eventually led him to a role in politics and a Nobel Prize Nomination in 2008. Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed provides tools for people to explore collective struggles and analyze their history and present circumstances. In this cohort, we will discuss a few short readings, play some theatre games, and take on active roles to fight oppression, both as the oppressed and as bystanders in Forum Theatre. At the end of the cohort, participants will be able to translate their experiences to real-life and act as better advocates to fight oppressive systems. “The theater itself is not revolutionary: it is a rehearsal for the revolution.” -Augusto Boal “No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.” – Freire

Cohort Facilitator: Liz Cody

Koru Meditation

Would you like tools to use when you feel overwhelmed, stressed or have difficulty focusing?
Would you like to feel more present and engaged  — personally and at work?
Would you like to learn about mindfulness and meditation?
Would you like to take a class that SHAC is offering for students?

If you say “yes!” … or even “maybe…” that’s great! It means you are human and might get a lot out of Koru Mindfulness: Time to (learn to) Meditate.

Cohort Facilitator: Betsy Lane-Getaz

Book Group: Sacred Ground

Interested in better understanding what our students learn about leadership during the Gettysburg Leadership Program? This book group cohort is for you! The cohort will read select chapters from Sacred Ground: Leadership Lessons from Gettysburg & the Little Bighorn, by Jeff Applequist ’80 and discuss trends, ideas of leadership, and the impact of student leadership on campus. Sacred Ground illuminates the connections and parallels between the history of the Battle of Gettysburg and current leadership topics, issues, and styles.

Cohort Facilitators: RJ Holmes-Leopold & Toni Grant

Happy Hour

Rooted in positive psychology, the Happy Hour course includes ten different workshop themes: positive emotions, neuroplasticity, learned optimism, gratitude, character strengths, engagement, meaning and purpose, and positive relationships. Happy hour is helpful in obtaining translatable knowledge and skills useful for one’s own self-growth, parenting, relating to coworkers, and caring for others.

Cohort Facilitator: Janet Lewis Muth

Facing Failure with a bit of Fun and Humility

Failures happen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh about them (eventually). Connect with colleagues to consider ways we can turn failing moments into meaningful lived experiences. No prep required.

Cohort Facilitator: Carolyn Livingston, RJ Holmes, and Laura Riehle-Merrill

Class and Campus Life Book Group

The book group will use this ethnography to reflect on faculty/staff and low-income students’ interactions at Carleton and explore ways in which our behaviors, policies, and programming might better support socioeconomic diversity on campus.

Cohort Facilitator: Melanie Cashin and Joe Baggot

Perfection & Resilience Cohort

This cohort will explore topics such as perfectionism, resilience, vulnerability, courage, shame, and worthiness as they relate to our lives and to the lives of our students. Through the use of (short) readings, videos, discussions, and experiential activities we will examine the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that are limiting our students (and us) from engaging in more authentic and wholehearted living and improving our capacity for persistence, creativity, emotional intelligence, grit, cognitive flexibility, risk-taking, adapting to change, delaying gratification, and learning from failure. A primary focus will be on the development of shame resilience skills. In short, we will learn how to be a better human when existing in a system that sometimes demands that we elminate our humanness. Many of the experiential activities will help participants apply their learning to their specific work environment and job responsibilities.

Please contact Nate Page (npage@carleton.edu) if you would like more information about the content of the meetings, and contact Brian Morphy (bmurphy@carleton.edu) if you have logistical and/or administrative questions.

Cohort Facilitator: Nate Page

Navigating Carleton: My First Five Years

Each cohort meeting will explore various aspects of the Carleton community, including divisions outside of Student Life. Cohort meetings are intended to build skills and knowledge of systems, format, and culture.

Cohort Facilitator: Jenny Ortiz

But I’m Not Racist: Tools for Well-Meaning Whites Book Group

For the past two decades as a speaker and an executive coach, Dr. Kathy Obear has helped thousands of whites find the courage to challenge and change the dynamics of racism in their organizations. Utilizing her book “…But I’m Not Racist”, this cohort will explore topics such as implicit bias, racist beliefs and stereotypes, and systems of whiteness. Whether you have participated in this cohort previously or not, feel free to join this discussion based cohort. The book itself is only 79 pages and will be distributed as a PDF document.

Cohort Facilitator: Patrick Gordon
Co-Facilitator: Ana Sontag

Koru Mindfulness: Time to (learn to) Meditate

Would you like tools to use when you feel overwhelmed, stressed or have difficulty focusing?
Would you like to feel more present and engaged  — personally and at work?
Would you like to learn about mindfulness and meditation?
Would you like to take a class that SHAC is offering for students?

If you say “yes!” … or even “maybe…” that’s great! It means you are human and might get a lot out of

Koru Mindfulness: Time to (learn to) Meditate.

Cohort Facilitator: Betsy Lane-Getaz

The Book of Joy

At the end of fall term, what better way to focus on rejuvenation and restoration than to join us in a discussion of The Book of Joy, featuring His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu? Our discussions will dive deeper into their stories, sharing the powerful insights that they share, and highlighting the pieces that can be most impactful for us in our professional work.  Participants will leave with tools that they can incorporate into their own lives, including meditation and laughter.  Questions for discussion will be sent to the group members in advance.

Cohort Facilitator: Rachel Leatham

Koru Mindfulness: Time to (learn to) Meditate

Would you like tools to use when you feel overwhelmed, stressed or have difficulty focusing?
Would you like to feel more present and engaged  — personally and at work?
Would you like to learn about mindfulness and meditation?
Would you like to take a class that SHAC is offering for students?

If you say “yes!” … or even “maybe…” that’s great! It means you are human and might get a lot out of Koru Mindfulness: Time to (learn to) Meditate.

Cohort Facilitator: Betsy Lane-Getaz

Writing for Clarity and Precision

Participants will meet for one session with Kathy Evertz, who will show a Pac-Man-era video called “Revising Prose” (which is actually very instructive) and then provide some outrageously wordy sentences for people to work on in pairs or small groups. You’ll compete to see which pairs/groups were most successful in reducing the “lard factor” of the sample sentences. Fun times!

Cohort Facilitator: Kathy Evertz

Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces, & Ground Rules

Join Laura Haave and Kathy Evertz in a talk about NASPA’s 9-page Policy and Practice report titled, “Safe Spaces and Brave Spaces: Historical Context and Recommendations for Student Affairs Professionals.”

Those who wish to continue the conversation are invited to meet and discuss “Respect Differences? Challenging the Common Guidelines in Social Justice Education,” an 8-page article from Democracy & Education on May 4.

Cohort Facilitators: Kathy Evertz and Laura Haave 

Perfection and Resilience

This cohort will explore topics such as perfectionism, resilience, vulnerability, courage, shame, and worthiness as they relate to our lives and to the lives of our students. Through the use of (short) readings, videos, discussions, and experiential activities we will examine the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that are limiting our students (and us) from engaging in more authentic and wholehearted living and improving our capacity for persistence, creativity, emotional intelligence, grit, cognitive flexibility, risk-taking, adapting to change, delaying gratification, and learning from failure. A primary focus will be on the development of shame resilience skills. In short, we will learn how to be a better human when existing in a system that sometimes demands that we eliminate our humanness. Many of the experiential activities will help participants apply their learning to their specific work environment and job responsibilities.

Cohort Facilitator: Nate Page, Counseling Psychologist in SHAC

But I’m Not Racist: Tools for Well-Meaning Whites Book Group

Cohort Facilitator: Patrick Gordon 

Navigating Carleton: My First Five Years

A great way to familiarize yourself with Carleton in the company of new colleagues.

Cohort Facilitator: Michael Hodges 

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Book Group

Kathy Evertz and Steve Schauz have found Dweck’s work beneficial not only in understanding what mindsets might be shaping these tensions and paradigms in our student body, but also in working with students on individual levels to support them in developing a personal action plan.  While there may be a bigger solution, they want to invite you to join them in this book group so we can all work to understand this psychological term “mindset” together and come up with some strategies to enhance the learning and success of the students we work with.

Cohort Facilitators: Kathy Evertz and Steve Schauz 

Navigating Carleton: My First Five Years

A great way to familiarize yourself with Carleton in the company of new colleagues.

Cohort Facilitator: Michael Hodges 

Race: The Power of an Illusion. Produced by California Newsreel

This cohort group will meet during the Fall term to watch and discuss this video series that “challenges one of our most fundamental beliefs: that humans come divided into a few distinct biological groups. This definitive three-part series is an eye-opening tale of how what we assume to be normal, commonsense, even scientific, is actually shaped by our history, social institutions and cultural beliefs.” We will utilize the discussion guide, some of the background readings, and other resources found on the PBS website that accompanies this video series.

Cohort Facilitator: Brian Murphy 

Navigating Carleton: My First Five Years

A great way to familiarize yourself with Carleton in the company of new colleagues.

Cohort Facilitator: Michael Hodges