Dean of Students candidate Juliana Mosley visits campus
A string of reality TV shows led Juliana Mosley through her pitch to the University of Idaho for the vice provost of Student Affairs and dean of students position. She is the third of four finalists to visit campus, but the first to use popular entertainment to relate to the audience.
Juliana Mosley
Mosley spoke in the Horizon Room in the Idaho Commons on Thursday at 2 p.m., to an audience of faculty, staff and a few students. She exhibited her understanding of student affairs by comparing its operations and issues with reality TV shows.
Mosley compared campus partnerships between students and staff with the relationships that exist on popular TV show, “The Amazing Race.” She said collaboration between students and student affairs personnel is imperative to create a holistic learning experience.
“The stuff that student affairs does is seen as extracurricular … and not seen as educational,” Mosley said.
She also compared student retention issues to ‘Survivor,’ and said students are working too much. She cited a 2012 survey by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System that found 18 percent of fulltime undergraduate students work 20 to 34 hours a week. She also presented IPEDS graduation rates from 2013 comparing University of Idaho with the Idaho average and the national average, which found that UI had 21 percent graduation rate for black students.
“With our black student population, we are not even meeting state average, and we’re far from the national average,” Mosely said. “That’s a problem.”
She suggested improving retention rates by increasing the amount of offered work-study positions, growing the availability of online classes and further engaging minority populations at UI. With a residential campus, she said UI should also consider the importance of on-campus residence requirements.
“I know the policy changed so now first year students have to be residential. Some schools are now extending that to two years,” Mosley said. “If we can keep them residential, we can keep them on campus.”
The show ‘America’s Got Talent,’ was her next shout out and welcomed her call to increase the of talent of educators on campus. She said increased involvement with professional organizations regionally and nationally, as well as requiring faculty to have a master’s degree at minimum, would improve the excellence of UI operations.
Mosley said limited human and financial resources pose a challenge to universities nationwide, and universities need to get more creative in fundraising. She suggested embracing university assessments, paying greater attention to research and writing more grants. She said UI should grow the “wow” factor by promoting attractions that contribute to the student experience, such as the rock-climbing wall or student union facilities.
“Whether it’s a stress reliever, whether it’s the way I interact with other students, those things fall under the ‘wow’ factor, they make a difference between a student choosing us or them,” Mosely said.
She also compared an increased utilization of social media to the show ‘Big Brother.’ She said social media is a contributing factor to national increases of cyber bullying, and decreases in face-to-face human interaction.
“(Students) are struggling with face to face interaction because social media is primarily the way to communicate, and we have a job to help them develop and a task to change that course,” she said.
Mosley also addressed her philosophy on the relation- ship between students and their families.
“Parents today, in many ways, are our second subset of students,” Mosley said. “I really talk to parents about trusting their time with their kids for 18 years is a strong foundation… they’ve done their job for 18, let us do ours for the next four.”
She said even in her prior position as vice president of Student Affairs for EdwardWatersCollege,she never stopped educating in the classroom.
“I’m an educator first, my whole quest in life is to impart knowledge, and help develop people,” Mosley said. “I couldn’t imagine doing any- thing else in the world.”
George Wood Jr. can be reached at [email protected]