This spring, Jordanella Maluka \u201923 (Stockholm, Sweden; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Kasulu, Tanzania) was elected president of 日韩精品 Student Government (MCSG), after serving as MCSG\u2019s vice president and chair of the Student Services and Relations Committee. Over the next year, Maluka will work closely with Dr. Kathryn Kay Coquemont, who joined Macalester in January as the college\u2019s dean of students and associate vice president of student affairs. We sat in on a conversation between the two leaders about building relationships, seeking feedback, and reimagining the student experience with an equity lens.<\/p>\n
Kathryn:<\/strong> As a new dean of students, I\u2019m really curious: what is your vision for your presidency?<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> I decided to run because I saw this as a platform where I could enact positive change. I want to work more closely within the whole legislative body and our committees, but also with more students. We want MCSG to be accessible and transparent.<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> I love that. What I\u2019m hearing you say is that you want to make sure that students know that MCSG is their student government.<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> Exactly. It\u2019s so important for us all to realize that we are a community together, and all our voices matter\u2014and that both MCSG and the administration are ways to bring change, including through working together.<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> In a similar way, I want students to know that we are their administration, working for and with them. That doesn\u2019t mean I agree with everything that comes across my desk. I\u2019ve had conversations where I say, \u201cI see it differently, but let me explain why.\u201d At the same time, I\u2019m also here to listen. Sometimes a student has explained why they think my perception is wrong, and I change my opinion. That relationship just needs to be more in person than virtual.<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> It\u2019s really important to make sure all students feel like their voice is heard. How do we bring all those perspectives into decision-making? Right now, the role that international students have in our community is top of mind for me. How are their voices represented?<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> International students have been asking how we can better support them and their unique experiences, and I hope that you and Bobbie [Pennington \u201924, MCSG vice president] and I will be able to move the needle there considerably. I think just simply having three people at the table with overlapping goals but also diverse perspectives will help us continue to build on the progress we\u2019ve already made as a global community.<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> Do you see other ways to support students who have expressed feeling unheard on campus?<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s not that students have gone unheard or that the work hasn\u2019t been done\u2014but that input means we\u2019ve done it in a way that hasn\u2019t translated, and that\u2019s just as big a problem as if we haven\u2019t done the work at all. We need to create ongoing feedback loops, so we don\u2019t have to go all the way back to square one if a solution we try doesn\u2019t work. How can we integrate every piece of that problem-solving together?<\/p>\n And another thing about engagement: trust-building is just harder when we\u2019re on Zoom, and when we\u2019re stressed out. My hope is that we can be in an environment that creates more intentional spaces for community support in times of stress, and also thinking about how we build trust in ways that sustain us not just in happy times, but when we\u2019re in conflict.<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> I think all of this work will bring about positive change. This year I worked with the Hamre Center on increasing mental health services, which is a big topic of discussion on campus. In the recent student survey, it\u2019s one area where people want improvement.<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> And sometimes change happens, but it looks different from how students thought they would measure it. For example, from outside the Hamre Center, it might seem like we need more clinicians\u2014but this spring, we were able to build in more administrative roles to manage documentation and insurance tasks, so clinicians can have more time with students.<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> It\u2019s really good to hear that update. The conversation has been on expanding their resources, but that doesn\u2019t always mean quantity.<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> I love that reframing. We also expanded the hours for our insurance specialist, so we can work more closely with our campus-provided insurance company to bring more providers into the policy.<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> Students have lots of questions about insurance. I think it\u2019s great to see that insurance specialists will have more hours to support students.<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> I remember not understanding what a co-pay is\u2014as well as questions about dealing with a landlord, or picking a retirement plan in my first job. How are we preparing students better for the life we want y\u2019all to live, first as a student and also beyond graduation?<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> Student success goes way beyond what happens in the classroom. Such a big range of factors contribute to a student\u2019s experience on campus, and we need to always keep that in conversation when we make decisions and plan for the future.<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> That\u2019s the big question that you and I are going to tackle together with our teams: What is fair and equitable for the student experience? That can be through any lens. It can be regarding students who are coming from other countries, or working on campus, or who might not be able to go home during winter break and need housing. Equity looks different now than it did pre-COVID.<\/p>\n Jordanella:<\/strong> A hundred percent. Last fall, we were all excited to come back together in person, but we\u2019ve realized that we need to look at things in different ways. Just because something worked well ten years ago doesn\u2019t mean we need to do it that way now.<\/p>\n Kathryn:<\/strong> I love that. That\u2019s part of what we\u2019re doing this summer: having the time and space to imagine what it can look like\u2014and the path to get there. We\u2019ll come back in the fall refreshed, with great ideas to find the way forward together.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dean of students and associate vice president of student affairs Kathryn Kay Coquemont talks with 日韩精品 Student Government President Jordanella Maluka \u201923.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":18735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18670"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30835,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18670\/revisions\/30835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}