Teri Hall

The importance of inclusivity on campus goes beyond policy; it's about creating a home away from home for every student. This understanding is central to the mission of Wichita State University, and its Vice President of Student Affairs, Teri Hall. 

In today’s conversation, Co-Host of The Interview Max Webber sat down with Teri to discuss everything from strategies for building student engagement to the challenges of fostering civil conversations across political divides. 

Teri's Journey

Max: Let’s start with a brief introduction to yourself and your institution…

I'm Teri Hall, and I'm the Vice President of Student Affairs at Wichita State University, Kansas. I've been working in higher education for 35 years, and I’ve been at Wichita State for about eight years now. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Midwest, starting my career here before spending about 20 years out at Towson University near Baltimore on the East Coast, finally returning home to the Midwest to work at Wichita State. My entire professional career has been spent working on a college campus in student affairs roles. It’s been a fascinating ride, and I’ve seen the field change massively in the past 30 years or so. 

Max: What inspired you to pursue a career in student affairs?

I studied for my undergraduate degree at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and I was very involved as a student. Then, between my sophomore and my junior year, my dad passed away, and a couple of the staff members at Carbondale – Pat McHale and Savannah Richardson – really supported me and encouraged me to stay in school and finish my degree. So I've spent the rest of my life paying it forward; I want all students to be supported in the same way. I consider it a privilege to be a part of a student's journey as they figure out who they are and what they can become – just to be along for that ride is incredibly fulfilling.

Max: What’s your approach to fostering a sense of belonging and cultivating a positive campus environment for students? 

We try to do it in both large and small ways. For example, one of the things we do in the first two days of the semester is to give students a ride to class. We pick them up from the parking lot in golf carts – it’s a great way to welcome the new students to campus, and the executive Student Affairs team and the University President always ride with us. Often, we will be picking up a new student who doesn't necessarily know where they're going. And it's a way of connecting them from the very beginning and letting students know that we care. So that's just one of the small things that we do – but on a wider level, we also have an initiative to track the involvement of first-time college students to better understand the key touch points between students and the various units of student affairs. That helps us identify the students who aren’t getting connected, and then we can hold special follow-up sessions with those students to help them find their home here. The tagline for my division is “Connecting Every Student” – our mission is to help every student find their place on campus, whether that’s through a student organization or through their academic discipline. 

Max: Recent guests have discussed the challenge of engaging students beyond the classroom. What kind of programming have you been developing in this area?

One of our key initiatives is a group called College Connections and the Student Experience. That involves my folks from student affairs working with connector points within the colleges to help bridge the gap between students and the institution. Some students are more likely to connect with college through a student organization or research with faculty members, so we need to ask ourselves: How do we connect with the colleges to facilitate those connections with students? How do we program together so we're making the best use of our resources? How do we share information? How do we track involvement to make sure we’re coordinating across the institution? I always talk about how we have a tight weave on our safety net to make sure we're catching students and not letting them fall through the cracks.

Max: Free speech has become a key issue on college campuses. How can we encourage students to engage in civil conversations across political divides?

It's really hard. Even back when I was at Towson, I noticed that some students tend to get caught up in their emotions, and it can make it harder for them to listen and engage in civil discourse. So we need to think carefully about how to create spaces that enable those conversations. Freedom of expression and civil discourse are at the heart of our orientation program; from the very beginning, we're talking about the importance of free speech, and how it enables the rigorous debate on which our institutions are founded. It needs to be a tenet that we continue to uphold, and learning to have conversations across difference is an important life skill for students.

Students need to figure out how to engage in conversation in a way that gets their point across, even if some parts of the conversation are uncomfortable for them. But it’s also important to be able to truly engage in a conversation without feeling threatened or unsafe. The Midwest is a pretty conservative area, so some of the debates that are taking place on the coasts just really haven't hit us in the same way. But that also brings other issues that have become really hot topics, and the upcoming presidential elections will be a real challenge on our campus. Then, we also need to think about how to help students engage in the voting process and have challenging conversations with people of different viewpoints – ultimately, that helps students to learn, grow, and find out what they believe.

Max: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

My personal mantra is, “Don’t let the people who care less or know less stop you from doing what you know is right.” I've been reminding myself of that for my entire career. I believe that any way that I can contribute to the success of the institution is part of my success as well –  higher ed needs to be about “we”, not “me.”