Reflections on My Chat with ACPA President Gavin Henning
I recently interviewed ACPA President Gavin Henning for The Student Affairs Spectacular Podcast which went out as a quick bonus episode in addition to our usual offerings. It was a great opportunity that I am grateful to have had.
Gavin has been making himself very accessible recently, which is very refreshing in my opinion. Usually, someone in his position would seem to be very out of reach, but Gavin has been giving much of time to do interviews, Twitter chats, and even the podcast! I hope that student affairs folks have been engaging with all of this great content, since it allows for the veil to be lifted on how someone gets to be ACPA President in the first place, and humanizes the whole organization. Accessibility and transparency are big for me, and I appreciate when leadership embodies these values.
I think more organizations should take a cue from ACPA and their recent efforts. You can engage a community a lot more by being free and open with communication versus having everything tightly controlled and infrequent. ACPA has been my professional home of choice for the past few years as I've entered the field, and while I think no one is perfect, they've done a lot of great work recently that I know has benefited the field.
While I don't think I'll be pursuing the ACPA presidency any time soon, it is nice to know more of Gavin's story and that if you work hard and commit to something, good things will come out of it. Things like that are reassuring to hear for a young professional like myself.
Check out some of the other interviews Gavin has done with some fine colleagues, Kimberly White and Brian Proffer (also both are past guests of the podcast!).