We spoke over Zoom about opportunities for Goucher, working through a pandemic, and the similar paintings on our respective walls that Camp immediately noticed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aarika: I love that we have similar tastes. I see your painting on the wall. [Mine is filled with bright circles, while Camp\u2019s has black circles.]<\/em><\/p>\n I know, I love that. Mine is very colorful.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s funny because yours clearly looks like the colors of your personality, and so does mine.<\/p>\n Ha! I hear you\u2019re a big fan of the K-pop group BTS. What do you love about them?<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n I could go on for days. BTS worked endlessly and continue to do so to overcome all the odds against them to become global superstars, while never forgetting their humble beginnings and passion for the music. They are so connected to fans and don\u2019t take anything for granted. Also, during the pandemic, they are a happy respite from the gloom of 2020.<\/p>\n When did you know you wanted to work in higher education?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n My family is in higher education. I got my first job in housing my freshman year and never looked back. I\u2019ve loved it ever since, and now my brother is the head of school at a K-12, and my sister-in-law owns her own college consulting firm. It\u2019s very interesting when we all get together and we\u2019re all talking about education. Holidays are very different.<\/p>\n What did you teach at Nova Southeastern University?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I was teaching in the master\u2019s of college student affairs, for graduate students who want to do what I\u2019m doing now as a vice president. They want to go into student affairs, academic affairs, athletics. I was teaching higher education administration, student development theory, current issues in higher education, and research and assessment.<\/p>\n What attracted you to Goucher?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n To be in a pandemic\u2014a lot of people are having a lot of time to reflect. I was home for a few months, working with students with COVID in the spring, and after getting them off campus, I was isolated in my home for about two months, and I started thinking about where I wanted to work, who I wanted to work with. What were the values, the mission, of who I wanted to work with, the type of students I wanted to work with? Goucher lined up with all of that, in terms of the social justice lens, the history of where the college was from. I\u2019ve always kind of operated in a small school setting in my mind, where I try to get to know everyone.<\/p>\n Have you seen opportunities for Goucher that you\u2019d like to take on?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Oh, absolutely. Because of the pandemic, there are some things that have been brought to light that we can do differently and better. There are opportunities to look at what the student experience will be after the pandemic. What things can we do differently to assess ability, and not from the lens of just students with physical differences, but how do we engage the student we never engaged before, because they may have been a more introverted type of student online?<\/p>\n Obviously there\u2019s opportunities now to look at the intersection of students on campus, and what does it mean to be a Black student on campus? What does it mean to be an international student on campus? Really taking a look again at how we\u2019re engaging students, how much more intentional we can be in regards to their student experience.<\/p>\n Do you think coming back to campus will be a tough adjustment for some students?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I think it depends on what their experience was at home or wherever they may have been while they were online. Some people are ready to get out of the house and be around their peers again. Some students are actually scared to be away because everything has been so uncertain. I think it\u2019s going to be interesting in that regard. Every student is going to have a different experience.<\/p>\n Have you adjusted? Moving in a pandemic must have been challenging.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Oh, I love it. Obviously I didn\u2019t come to campus for my interview. I found my apartment on YouTube. It was all about trusting my gut\u2014I tell parents this all the time. It is about trusting their guts that they have prepared their students the best they could for college.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve taught all these grad students how to find jobs, I\u2019ve had all these years of experience, so now I need to trust my own gut. How do I do this in a way where I\u2019m not going to meet anybody? I think I made really good decisions. I\u2019m happy to be here.<\/p>\n Do you have any tips for being professional over Zoom? I was talking to a friend who keeps the screen of herself hidden from view, even though others can see it. She found it too distracting to see herself.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I think being honest with people has worked well. I was in a meeting and the fire alarm in my apartment complex started going off. I\u2019m like, \u201cI don\u2019t even know where to go,\u201d because I couldn\u2019t go to the garage. It was loud. I\u2019m like, \u201cI am so sorry. I can\u2019t talk for the next few minutes, and I\u2019m going to be on mute, and you\u2019re going to see strobes.\u201d I think now we\u2019re starting to get to know each other more because of this.<\/p>\n I think now more than ever, be on time for everything, just because you don\u2019t want somebody sitting in this abyss online. People forget what time of day it is now, and start to get lethargic sitting in front of the screen.<\/p>\n The other part is take time to listen even more, because body language isn\u2019t as readable. You don\u2019t know if I\u2019m fidgeting underneath. We have to be really tuned in. I try to keep my phone off to the side and turned upside down, because it could be really easy for me right now to be checking email while I\u2019m talking to you. So I don\u2019t have anything else up when I\u2019m on Zoom because I know I\u2019ll get distracted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aarika Camp became Goucher\u2019s vice president and dean of students this past fall. She discusses opportunities for Goucher and working through a pandemic, while keeping a sense of humor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":352,"featured_media":3780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[55427,55802],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[87484],"class_list":["post-3770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impromptu","category-web-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n