Intro by King Musa
Yo, what it is. You know what it is. It's your man King Musa. Welcome to the Cheat Sheet, where we decode success for professors, creators, and business owners. I'm your host, King Musa, and today we're talking about academic support and student resources that can make all the difference in your college experience. Our guest today plays a crucial role in helping students excel academically at Stephen F. Austin State University. Joining us today is Megan Weatherly, the Executive Director of Lumberjack Learning Commons. She's here to share how students can maximize their resources and enhance their academic journey. Welcome, Ms. Weatherly.
Getting to Know Megan Weatherly
King Musa: "Did I get that right?"
Megan Weatherly: "Yes"
KM: "Okay. Okay, good, good, good. Because I'm going to find out more about it, but as a journalist, it's my job to understand what you do a little bit. But before we jump into that…Yes, ma'am. Before we jump into that, I want to know, what is the place that you like to travel to that you truly remember? Because I know you travel out of the country."
MW: "I've traveled a lot. Travel is one of my passions. My husband and I were fortunate enough right after we got married to live abroad for three years. So I've lived in Japan for three years. And since then, he's in the military. He's been stationed in Europe, and our military experience has enabled us to travel the world. But when we were living in Japan, I was working as a print journalist for what's called Marine Corps Community Services. And that unit's job is to provide morale welfare and recreation activities for service members and their families overseas. And so I got to know a lot of people living across seven bases on the tiny island. We were in the middle of the ocean, and one of the people I got to know was the travel director. And he was a former Marine, and he would lead trips to like battle sites all over the island of Okinawa. But he also led them to Iwo Jima. And Iwo Jima is a tiny island, you know, the site of a famous battle in World War II, and you can't just hop on a plane and go there. You have to either be part of the Japanese military or on one of these military flights going for a return trip, and I conned him into letting me go. And I took a photographer with me. We got to climb Mount Suribachi, go down on the beaches, which what they don't tell you is Iwo Jima is a volcanic island. It's rising. It smells like sulfur all the time because it's still active. Yeah, it's really neat. You can see the old pillboxes, but it was just this very surreal moment. My degrees are in history, so as a history student at that site was just transformative, you know, and to hike up Mount Suribachi, which at the time I was like, I was in good shape, it's like a five-degree angle up there, and these 18-year-old Marines are just running past me, making me irritated. But to think about those Marines that summited Suribachi that day, that was a feat. So it was pretty cool. But yeah, I would say that's probably one of the most meaningful. Okinawa, where we lived is about a thousand miles south of Tokyo, Japan, and it's part of Japan, but it was formerly part of China. And so it was this weird blend of like Chinese and Japanese traditions and cultures."
KM: "And how do you spell it?"
MW: "O-K-I-N-A-W-A."
KM: "But let's go ahead and jump on in. Can you introduce yourself and what you do here at SFA?"
MW: "Sure. So my name is Megan Weatherly. It's my privilege to serve as the executive director of the Lumberjack Learning Commons. So the Lumberjack Learning Commons is a compilation of six units responsible for academic support and for experiential learning. So those six units are the AARC, which everybody knows, and the office of international programs, which is responsible for study abroad, they're also the home for the international student population. Gateway was with us last week. It was awesome. The Student Success Center, which is responsible for a variety of programming to support students. Our SFA Makerspace, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and our new center for professional and continuing education. They call it PACE."
Personal Background and Passions
KM: "Before we jump into the team and what you do, I want to know about you. Where did you grow up? Did your parents go to school? Are you a first-generation student? And what got you into wanting to help students?"
MW: "It's been an interesting path. I was born and raised in Nacogdoches. My parents were both from here. I'm not a first-generation student. My mom was on the faculty here for 40 years, but she was a non-tenure track faculty member. So she did not hold a terminal degree; she didn't have the title of doctor, but she was unusual because she was a female in the College of Sciences and Mathematics and specifically in Geology at a time when there just weren't a lot of females in the field. My dad was a small business owner here in town. I grew up like one block from campus, but I tell people I was raised on this campus. I really was. I grew up running the halls of Miller Science. And when I turned 18, I was like, 'Deuces, bye Nacogdoches, never coming back.' And it's funny, my parents were not in good health when I graduated high school. So I was like, 'I'll stay a year and get my brother through till he can drive and then peace out, I'll transfer.' And then I met my husband. And I just found two mentors here who were both still here, just changed my life. And so how did I get back into higher ed? I took a break from higher ed for a while and found my way back because I knew I wanted to teach. And I got my graduate degree, and I was like, 'Well, I know people at SFA.' And at the time I was working developing online courses, it's like, 'I know I can build an online history course.' So that's what I did. I started teaching remotely when I was living out of state. And then eventually a job opened here doing what I did, and I came back to Nacogdoches, and boy, I ate those words big time, didn't I?"
KM: "Now you did mention that traveling is one of your interests and hobbies. What are some other ones?"
MW: "So I play on a competitive quiz team. We're amazing. People boo us. They love us so much. I started taking piano lessons about five years ago, so the piano and I are still coming to a pleasant place, and I play a lot of pickleball lately."
Vision for the Lumberjack Learning Commons
KM: "We're going to switch sides. We got to know about this career. What would you say is your vision and the role of the Lumberjack Learning Commons?"
MW: "Yeah, so the Learning Commons is really about supporting the development of scholarly teachers, our faculty who are highly educated in their subject matter, about helping them become highly educated about how to be an effective teacher, and then creating future-ready students. So students who know how to learn and relearn, because your market's changing all the time, right? And so we really want to serve as this hub, this hub for learning, for advocacy, for services that you guys need, and a resource to connect you to resources, to ideas, and to each other. So that's really the goal, and to support you to persist in your academic journey because the most expensive degree you can get is the degree you don't get. So we want you, you're paying good money to be here. We want you to walk out of here with a degree, and it's our job to help you get there."
KM: "And how long have you been doing it? Like how long have you been in this role?"
MW: "I've been in this role for two and a half years. Prior to this, I served as the director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. So I came back to SFA to be what's called an instructional designer or a learning designer. And so that's working with faculty to design learning experiences to yield actual learning, right? It's taking what we know about cognitive neuroscience and how the brain works and how do we design a learning experience that helps you. So I did that for a long time and primarily was focused on online education, and I thought that's what my passion was, but I came to realize my passion is really teaching and learning and student support, like student academic support. So it's kind of evolved and grown over time. That's what it's supposed to do. It's been an evolution, but I love it now. It's little bits and pieces. I lived abroad, and so now I'm working with international programs. I was an advisor when I was at a different institution. I was at Texas State for a while, and I get to work with advisors now. So it's just little bits and pieces of all these things."
Challenges and Advice
KM: "What are the challenges in your position?"
MW: "In my role? Well, I got 99 problems, and budget's one. Just, there's a lot of need on this campus and a finite set of resources, whether that's human resources. We all need more people, or just budget to spend. So it's always about, and I always tell my team, my job is to clear hurdles out of their way, to find the resources for them to do what they need to do. So you talked to Dr. Gingrich previously, and he mentioned our AARC tutors now get paid $15 an hour. That's amazing, right? But they do a lot of hard work. Be an AARC tutor on campus, you don't need to drive. You're fine. Yeah, I mean making like 10 bucks an hour, and we'd have tutors leave to go work at Chick-fil-A or Chipotle. And so that was one of the things we were able to do. So that was a resource we went after to be like, 'We need the best of the best and we need them to not be working two full-time jobs.' Nothing wrong with Chick-fil-A, but we want the best because this is an institution. When we think about what helps you build towards your career, that experience in the AARC will probably help you with your career more than…which is not to say it doesn't have redeeming qualities too. It does. Yeah, so that's my primary challenge, usually, is budget. I would say that that's number one. And also, it's just a negotiation across campus, right? It's constantly networking, building partnerships, making sure that you're working with people and aligning what you're doing. You don't want to be doing the same thing in 40 different places. So just communicating."
KM: "So communicating, finding the right resources, those naturally are some of the challenges. As far as success stories, most people hear about these things and they're just like, 'I don't think I need it. Like, I don't need the AARC until it's too late.' And I was a product of it, and that's why I'm so big about it now and making sure everybody knows who they're talking to, what they provide, and how it helps you. So to me, what is that side of the success story? How did the narrative change from 'I don't mind getting help?'"
MW: "That's part of the messaging we're really working on with the AARC is not so much that you come to the AARC because you're in a place where you need help. You come to the AARC because that's just part of what you do as your college experience, right? It's this level setting that we should all be in the AARC because we can all be doing better. So, as far as success stories, man, one of the joys of my job is I get to see students at these high highs, right? If I'm running into them, usually it's because something's going right. So we have loved seeing students who have just turned their academic journey around as a result of the AARC. The Student Success Center runs a lot of first-generation programming as well. And to hear about these students, we have this thing on the wall where they write like 'I'm First Gen Proud because,' and one of my favorites is a student wrote, 'Because my parents brag on me now since I'm in college. I'm going to be the first of my family to graduate from college.' And when you see them walk the stage, oh my gosh, it's just…sorry, I hit my mic there. It's just, it reminds you that we do what we do to get them to that end. And then lately, in the last year, you know, we've opened the Makerspace. And man, some of the creativity that comes out of there is amazing. So we had a student make a ukulele, a 3D printed ukulele. We've had some students making entire board games. One of our students right now is building a robotic hand. You should go over and see it. His name's Kamari. He's awesome. Last summer I walked in, I was like, 'Kamari, I want this robotic hand. I want it to be in a glove where it can mimic what you do when you're wearing the glove. I want to be able to throw the X.' And he was like, 'Okay.' And he did it. It was pretty amazing. So those little nuggets kind of keep you going through the days where you're like, 'Oh, we're over budget, we got to figure out how to do it.' So it's helpful to have those and to be able to have experiences like this talking to students and seeing as you are learning as you're becoming a professional and growing as a human being."
KM: "What are some initiatives, programs, events going on in Lumberjack Learning Commons?"
MW: "Yeah, so I'm fortunate. I get to work with the provost office and with UT system on a whole bunch of issues. So we're doing some cool stuff right now on the faculty side, helping our faculty become better teachers. Dr. DiTiri told you about a few of those, AQ, and we're doing this student experience project, which is centered on notions of belonging in the classroom, which is cool. But as far as new initiatives coming for students, we've been working a lot on micro-credentials. So these are short, compact learning experiences that you can do from companies like Google or Meta. And there's certificates you can put on your LinkedIn, on your resume, and they're worth a lot in the job market. So standing that up has been something I've worked on that's been fun. And then we're doing a lot with advising right now, making our advising, making sure that it's consistent across the student experience so that whether you're in the College of Liberal Arts or you're in the College of Forestry, you're getting a similar experience."
KM: "That's pretty exciting. Now, outside of the programs, what advice do you have for students who want to pursue a career where you're at? They hear your journey and they're like, 'I want to help people out because I've seen what school has done for me and I want to be right there.'"
MW: "Hundred percent, you should do it, first of all. It's much more of a profession than I ever imagined it would be, that there's a lot of research out there that supports what we do. We don't make these decisions in a vacuum. So go educate yourself about that background, so that could be getting your master's degree in student affairs and higher ed. We have a program here, or going somewhere else. But working in that space is critical. So as far as just your career progression, I would say there's no substitute for a good work ethic. Working hard will get you a lot of places, but you've got to be able to balance that with some other things in your life. So I'm big on starting from a place of gratitude and moving through a place of service. So whether that's you're answering a military call of service or you're chairing a committee at your PTO or you're serving on a committee at your place of worship, whatever that looks like for you, I'm a big believer in service and what you learn through those opportunities. And I think you have to have a servant's heart to be in the higher education space because if you're not in it for other people and you're in it for yourself, you're in it for the wrong reasons. Not to say you won't make good money, but no, we're not here for the money-making. We're not…because you're going to piss me off and I'm not going to want the money anymore and I'm going to be ready to leave. So yeah, we're…if you're looking to pursue higher education, not for the money."
KM: "Now, advice for just graduating the semester, we just started, so your whole thing is learning is important, right? So what tips, advice, tricks can students use to succeed for the rest of the semester and get to a degree?"
MW: "Yeah, so I taught for many, many years before I was full-time in administration. I still taught part-time when I was full-time. And so I would say there's a big difference between effort and mastery. So sometimes I would have students come and they'd be like, 'You know, I worked so hard on this paper,' which I appreciate so much, and that will get you so far enough, but unfortunately, it's not my job to assess how hard you work, it's my job to assess how well you've mastered this skill. So being mindful of that, remind me of the question. No, it's some advice, some tricks, you know, yeah, retrieval is a big one. So when we think about how the brain works, no matter what grade level you are, to be able to self-quiz and test yourself on material is really important. Obviously, you got to go to class every single time, even though you don't want to. Even though they say, 'I don't like attendance isn't mandatory in this class,' I still got to show up. I don't in the library. The library is an amazing place, especially that first floor, which is where the back of the AARC is, and we're working really hard to make the rest of it a nice space. So, yeah, it's you got to show up and so much of the work is just showing up. So get to know your faculty members, really get to know them as humans. Those relationships, like I said, I have two mentors here on campus that I got as an undergraduate who are still mentors to me now as a professional. One of them, like when I have an issue, that's still the person I call to this day. It'd be like, 'I need some perspective.' I mean, what a great human has as a mentor. So I just can't hammer that enough, like the value of human beings in your experience. So it's not just you're working for that diploma, right? It's not the end. It really is the journey and the means and the pieces that you pick up along the way."
KM: "I heard it? Do I got to say anything else? She done told y'all everything to know to succeed in this. And then what departments to go to. So we know exactly who it comes to. Thank you so much for taking the time out."
Outro by King Musa
KM: “Well, thank you, Ms. Weatherly, for sharing your insight and incredible academic support available at SFA. To all our students here, remember that success is within reach when you use the right resources. If you need tutoring, study space, or academic coaching, make sure you check out the Lumberjack Learning Commons."
Subscribe to the Cheat Sheet and follow us on social media and tune in for more conversations with campus leaders. This is King Musa signing off. Stay focused and keep learning.”
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