#16 - Submit a Piece of Writing for Publication

Oh, academic research.  You're so useful and important and sometimes engaging and also tedious and time consuming.  This one piece took way longer than anticipated... and I have 5 others in various stages of completion.  While 4 of those should have been simpler to produce in an article format because they're based on my dissertation, which is already written, this article got done first.  Why?  Because DeJuan Benford, my supervisor at San Diego State University, allowed me to set a goal for the year of submitting a piece of writing for publication, turn a work assignment into a full-blown research project, request assistance from one of our student leaders, and work on it at work periodically.

The original assignment was to gather sport club dues information to assist San Diego State's sport club teams in setting their team dues.  At the time, I was just starting to analyze my data for my dissertation, so I realized the value in turning information gathering into formal data collection for academic research.  At that point, I did not realize how stupidly tedious and time consuming data cleaning and formatting can be.  

After I had agreed to do the project, in a meeting with our Sport Club Executive Board, DeJuan asked the five student Sport Club Executive Board members if anyone would like to assist me with the project.  For some reason, Mark Slader volunteered.  Mark is great.  At the time, he was also in school full-time, president of his sport club team, Executive President of sport clubs, and studying for the MCAT.  Then he was signed with the San Diego Growlers, a professional team in the American Ultimate Disc League.  Plus probably some other things.  And the project was all voluntary... as in he wasn't getting paid.  So I hope some form of this research is accepted for publication so he at least gets a line on his resume out of it.

Me & King Mark

Instead of describing all the tedious steps, here's a quick summary:
IRB: me
Survey design: me
Survey testing: Mark & DeJuan
E-mail address collection: Mark & me
Survey distribution: me
Data cleaning: Mark & me
Literature review: me
Data analysis: me
Synthesis: Mark & me
Writing: me
Editing: Mark & me
Article submission: me

I actually find the literature review, data analysis, and writing to be interesting.  Data cleaning, however, is the worst.  It's one of three reasons I could never be a researcher.  (The first reason is that I'd be too lonely and the third is that I don't sit still well.)  I'm so thankful Mark helped with that part because I might not have made it to the end if I had to do all of on my own.

The article focuses on the increasingly costs of higher education, the demonstrated value of highly involved campus programs like sport clubs (particularly for low-income students who are also more likely to be members of populations already underrepresented in higher education), a summary of the findings about the variability of the costs and funding strategies in institutions, and an exploration of relationships between institutional characteristics and costs for participation in sport clubs.  I'm hopeful to further explore this topic because our findings have the potential to be useful to the profession and additional responses and validity would add to that.

So, I've now co-authored and submitted a piece of writing for publication.  I can't wait to do the next one... mostly because the data has already been cleaned and analyzed :)  I do hope to continue to do academic research, to always be working on a project, because it's really gratifying, at times fun, and so important to further the legitimacy of my profession and for informed decision making.  I'm also saying that knowing this article will likely come back with revisions (since it's the first article either of us has submitted), so maybe I'll feel differently after receiving that harsh academic feedback.

#31 - Get a Full-time Job

I really missed city living, so as I was finishing my Ph.D., I focused my job search on Chicago, New York, DC, Boston, Philly, and San Francisco.  Working in higher education, the further advanced in the career path, the fewer positions there are at each university and thus in each city.  So while it might seem like searching in these six large cities would give me a big enough net, I think I only applied to three positions in those six cities.  I (begrudingly) applied to 20+ positions outside of those cities.

(Quick pause: Yes, I understand San Diego is technically a big city.  But it doesn't have the big city
feel.  It's not quite "urban."  Even downtown is flooded with tourists who have heard how cool the Gaslamp District is.  It's not that cool.  San Diego is great.  It is.  I get to surf, play beach volleyball, sail, and wakeboard year round.  I cannot tell you the last time I checked the weather before deciding what to wear.  It's all kinds of beautiful.  The beach.  The mountains.  The desert. The sunsets.  I mean... damn.  But I miss public transit and walking between neighborhoods and world class museums, art, performance and music.)

Alan and Jesse met me for pre-interview dinner.
Yay friendship!

During the application process, I rested my hopes of moving back to an urban area on two faculty positions and one collegiate recreation position.  While the faculty positions seemed great, throughout my search process, my heart has stayed in collegiate recreation, specifically student development.  I'm still a little in awe of that the perfect position for me actually worked out.  I'm the new Assistant Director of Training and Development at Northeastern University in Boston.  (Not to be confused with Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, which was my previous full-time employer.  Just like University of San Diego, my doctoral institution, is not to be confused with San Diego State University, my part-time employer while I finished my Ph.D.  Maybe good things come in confusingly named pairs for me.)  In the position I get to supervise the student facility staff, which will be a great complement to my programming experience, as well as collaborate with all staff, professional and student, for a department-wide student development plan.  I literally get to take all of the leadership and organizational theories I studied in my doctoral program, collaborate with colleagues and students, and work in collegiate recreation to promote learning and community.  I am so excited for this next step.

#25 - Defend My Dissertation

What an emotional roller coaster.  So cliche, but I can't think of any other way to describe this process.  Here's the brief story of how this all happened.

In 2012, after 6 great years at Northeastern Illinois University, I decided I wanted to do more.  I wanted to get a Ph.D. with the hopes of pursuing a path to a Vice President of Student Affairs position, where I could effect greater changes on a campus than I could as an Aquatics Coordinator.  Plus, with a Ph.D., I'd always have the option to go the faculty route if I so chose.

Man, did I sob when I left NEIU.  It was my first full-time position in collegiate recreation and it became my home.  Most days, I loved going to work.  I worked, I played, I learned.  It was at NEIU that I first learned about privilege and started to think about my role in the systems of higher education and our nation.  I also learned I had a unique perspective about student mental health as a child of two mental health professionals.  And I learned that what I love most in the world is community building and creating safe, fun spaces that promote genuine connections.  Plus, we laughed and played a lot, things I never really realized could be incredibly valuable components of a workplace.

Just another day on the job

Very soon after starting my doctoral program in Leadership Studies at the University of San Diego, I struggled with my place and professional goals.  I didn't get a graduate assistantship and I couldn't find a job.  I finally went to the recreation office.  They rejected me.  Twice.  They kept saying they didn't take unsolicited resumes and I could visit their job opportunities website.  I did.  It only advertised a kickboxing instructor position, one of the few positions in recreation for which I have absolutely zero qualifications.  Eventually I e-mailed the Intramural Coordinator who met with me, frowned a lot at my resume, told me he'd obviously give me a job, passed on my resume to the director who gave me 20 hours a week between the office and intramurals, and eventually became my friend.

As I voiced my desire to pursue a path to the Vice Presidency, my colleagues and instructors told me I needed to get experience outside of recreation and to put my studies in another context.  My reaction was always the same: "I agree, but...  You don't have to get experience in recreation.  And recreation is just as important if not more important than other Student Affairs offices."  Then I realized that my defensiveness came from my reluctance to leave recreation.  I loved recreation.  I had wanted to become a Vice President to effect greater change, but I could effect change from anywhere, and I chose collegiate recreation.

I still struggled with finances and my not-well-defined position with USD recreation.  I eventually moved over to work part-time at San Diego State University with intramurals and sport clubs.  I love my position, my coworkers, and my students, and I'm doing my best to remain in denial that I have to leave soon.  I finally feel valued, valuable, challenged, and supported again.

Although I finally found a position that fits me, I have struggled financially throughout my entire time at USD.  When USD told me that they worked with students to ensure they had reasonable financial aid packages and that if I worked hard, I would be eligible for graduate assistantships and scholarships, I believed them.  I've worked incredibly hard.  My grades are great.  My work is even better.  My financial aid package has been comprised of student loans with decreasing grants every year even though my estimated family contribution is $0.  I have continued to pick up flexible part-time jobs so that I can pay my bills and at this point, as a Ph.D., have 5 jobs that I juggle and work as much as possible, which is usually 20-30 hours a week on top of my academic obligations.  I never have a day off completely.  The few that I have taken off, I'm riddled with guilt because I know that near the end of the semester I'll struggle to pay my rent and bills... again.

One of my happy places

When I started the program, holding a teaching assistant position and even teaching in the undergrad leadership program was voluntary.  I pursued both anyways.  Eventually they added a 1-credit stipend, which was nice, but only in that I have fewer loans as the amount was subtracted from my financial aid package, so I was still in the same place in the short run.  Every semester I requested a teaching and/or teaching assistant position and only received 2 in 4 years, including summers.  The process for choosing teaching assistants has been revamped and is supposedly more fair, giving preference to students without graduate assistantships, but I've still lost out positions to current graduate assistants who are receiving full tuition, a stipend, and benefits.  I also acknowledge it's not fair pitting us against each other.  We all want the experience on our resume.  It's just incredibly frustrating.

Another happy place

While my fruitless pursuit of funding has been overwhelming at times, the most frustrating aspect of the process is that nearly every single semester, my financial aid was incorrect.  By my second year, I was in the habit of writing to our "One Stop Student Center" a few weeks before the semester to confirm my financial aid was set to be disbursed correctly and on time.  I do not think there was a single semester that happened, and only once was it my fault (as we have to state how many credits we are taking, I registered for a different amount, but there was no where to check to see how many I had stated, so I couldn't check it).  By my last year, I accompanied each e-mail with a line to the effect of "I am registered for 1 dissertation unit, which qualifies me for full financial aid as I am a doctoral student.  Before you explain to me that 1 unit does not qualify for financial aid, please check with financial aid."

Yet another happy place

These financial struggles really affected my mental health, which was curious as throughout the program I focused my studies on campus mental health.  That, and the competitiveness I felt from some of my peers.  I still can't quite figure out why I feel as if I have to appear casually flawless in my academic and professional pursuits in the context of my academic colleagues when I do not feel that same pressure with my professional colleagues.  I do know that affected my social relationships to the point that I made a conscious decision to be less social in general and less social through my academic program in particular.

At the end of my third year, I decided to focus entirely on my dissertation and working as much as possible.  I chose the outlets of physical activity, nature, literature, and the relationships I have that make me feel the most like myself: with my parents, a few, select friends outside of San Diego, and even fewer in San Diego.  It was a difficult decision and I still feel guilty for neglecting some friendships.  However, I know that it was the right decision because the care and kindness I was able to show myself has led to healthier life choices and a confidence in my own capacities as I completed my dissertation (the biggest accomplishment of my life) and transition back to professional life.  I'm thrilled I took the time to really fall in love with San Diego and all of the activities that brought me energy and life when I needed it most.

The dissertation itself has been a bizarre process.  I was always open to changing topics and assumed I would throughout my four years, just as I had in my master's program.  However, I ended on a more-developed version of the same topic I had written about in my application to the program: campus mental health.

Growing up with two mental health professionals as parents and having mental health treatment as a common dinner table conversation, I had a unique perspective as a Student Affairs professional.  I realized how important outside-the-classroom learning opportunities and communities are for healthy campuses, how my role as a Student Affairs professional allowed me to connect with students and to create spaces for students to connect with each other, and how my knowledge of mental health and campus treatment options were vital in connecting students to care.  Not surprisingly, my dissertation results support just those ideas.  I am thrilled to have found results that support environments to intentionally foster genuine relationships and caring campus communities.  The work we do as Student Affairs professionals is so important to protect students from unnecessary distress and to respond to distress when it arises within our communities.

I am eternally thankful for my parents, who supported me emotionally, cognitively, financially, physically, and socially throughout this process.  They are and will always be my favorite people.  I was able to put my guilt aside to spend real time with them when they came to visit or I was able to visit them.  I'm thankful for the way they see me and that we have so many activities that we enjoy in common.

I am so lucky that I had courses with my dissertation committee members, Dr. Christopher Newman, Dr. Zachary Green and Dr. Lee Williams, and that they later agreed to be part of my dissertation journey.  I invited them to join my committee because I knew that they all had my best interests and academic greatness at heart.  While at times I was nervous for their feedback because I had worked so hard and the work itself was so dear to my heart, receiving the feedback was comforting as it was always given as a gift to push me and my work to be better.  I felt as if they truly believed in me and my work and were eager to see what more I could do.

I am particularly grateful for my dissertation committee chair, Dr. Christopher Newman.  I had many moments of frustration and distress, yet he always received my concern with an easy confidence that I would be fine, that I was more than capable of everything of which I was being asked.  That confidence kept me working and writing so that I finished the process a week earlier than timeline we had set.

I am thankful to have had so many supportive people in and near my dissertation defense.  I had not fully admitted how stressful the final process had been.  I had not been eating nor sleeping well.  I coped by working and working out a lot.  I had lost a lot of weight.

Before my defense, Mariko Peshon offered to practice with me.  Her feedback and willingness to spend her time while I stumbled through my first verbal reading of my material was tremendously helpful.  Grace Bagunu let me call her late at night to run through my presentation the night before, which really helped me iron out some kinks for the next day.

The night before my defense I went to yoga at Mosaic where I felt the love from Sophie, Kevin, Gracie, and later, Kevin again plus two other instructors when they happened to be at Luigi's when I went to get pizza.  (To be fair, Kevin had mentioned pizza before class, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it, so it wasn't quite a coincidence, but it was still lovely.)

The Committee and me

The day of my defense I went to a sport club council meeting in the morning and felt genuinely supported by my coworkers and the students with whom I work closely.  I was excited and nervous that my two supervisors were planning to attend the defense itself.  When I arrived at the room, my dear friend Maria Trias texted to ask if I needed anything.  She came to meet me, helped me ensure the technology would be ready, waited in line with me when I went to purchase chocolate milk, and offered to meditate with me, which I wish I would have taken her up on.  She promised to laugh quietly anytime anyone (a.k.a. Zachary) asked an incredibly difficult question, and she delivered.  After Maria, in walked another dear friend, Kai Matthews.  She was full of the warm, excited energy she is always able to bring to tense events.  I was so grateful to have her unrelenting smile in the room through the entire defense.  I was also happy to see Warren Whittaker, another classmate who is always full of encouragement and some sports talk, which is such a relief.  DeJuan Benford and Andrew Lutz, my supervisors at San Diego State, had some issues with the USD tram, but they made it in time for the questions, the wait, and the celebration.  It meant a lot to me that they took time off to support and celebrate with me.

My committee was tough but allowed me to engage with their questions in ways that were beneficial to my work as a whole.

I was so happy to see my parents sitting outside when the defense itself was over.  It was a nerve-racking 20 minutes or so, but it was fun to introduce them to the people who had supported me from near while they supported me from afar.

Christopher came into the hallway and immediately said, "Congratulations, Dr. Krone."  I still haven't processed that.  Their suggested revisions were consistent with their feedback throughout the process: all items that would improve my work and allowed for my knowledge of the work to shine through.

I celebrated with my parents, DeJuan, Andrew, Kai, and two other coworkers: AJ Gonzalez and his fiancee Lacy that night.  It was so pleasant.  The celebrations continued the next day as my parents and I drank and ate around the city.  It was a really great day.

I was able go to Chicago the following week to celebrate with some of my very favorite friends, including a nice stay with the Zanns.  It was a fantastic 5 days.

I still haven't processed that it is over.  I am just now getting back to a regular eating and sleeping schedule.  I'm so thankful and happy and relieved and proud and encouraged.

#53 - Stand Up Paddle Board

Corry & me loving our jobs

I cannot believe it has taken me so long to try out this very pleasant outdoor activity.  While I do not have direct access to the necessary equipment, it is incredibly easy to rent in San Diego, I have a
friend who owns a board, and I've lived here three years.  Silly.

I finally had the opportunity shoved in my face when my job forced me to spend a Sunday afternoon on the bay, hanging with athletic college students, with free access to a variety of aquatic sport equipment.  That's right.  I had another opportunity to hang at the fantastic Mission Bay Aquatic Center (earlier this summer I took Advanced Sailing), and this time I was paid to do it.

Most of they day was filled with lectures, workshops, and round tables with the SDSU Sport Club presidents, but at the end of the day, the gang had two hours to play on or near the bay: grass volleyball, sailing, kayaking, and yes, stand up paddle boarding (also known as paddle boarding or SUP).

The water-loving students rushed out and grabbed all of the boards and stayed out on the water FOREVER.  I later learned they were doing fun studenty things like cramming everyone onto one board, lining the boards up and attempting to run across them, and mid-water trading equipment with the kayakers.  I love my job.

Killin' it

I played some grass volleyball with the remaining students, stupidly turned down a ride on the Hobie Cat, and impatiently watched the cluster in the middle of the bay, hoping they'd come back in time for me to take a ride.  (I kept my complaints to myself as much as possible because this event was for them, not me.  Playing on the bay is just a perk of my job.)

Once they came back, I took a board out and was surprised at how easy and pleasant paddle boarding is.  It felt like taking the most calming walk in a breathtakingly beautiful place.  I paddled into the bay, admired the beauty of Mission Bay and its shores, and paddled back.

I cannot wait to go again.





UPDATE


My next SUP session was in Hawaii!  One morning we headed over to the Marriott to take advantage of a deal one of the rental companies has: $35 for 4 hours of any of their water activities.  Chris, Casey, and my mom quickly formed the Snorkel Squad: "Snorkel Squad looks out for each other."  I told them Dad and I would be the SUP Squad.  I turned around and Dad was already heading to the boards.  "SUP Squad: Every man for himself."  We paddled.  It was pleasant.  The water was a little rougher than when I first paddled in San Diego Bay but still fun.  At one point a sea turtle swam right under me.  Casey soon joined the SUP Squad though the rental folks gave her a really skinny board, so she had a rougher transition.  I eventually tried her board out and quickly fell in.  It was a lovely morning.

A few days later, my buddy Nicole Green had arrived.  We tried to go SUPing on her second day there but the rentals were expensive and the weather was not cooperating.  We managed to squeeze in about an hour before she had to head to the airport the next day though.  The entry and exit were a little rough, but the paddling was nice.

If I were planning to stay in San Diego, I'd definitely be investing in a board.  It's just so dang pleasant.