Blog 10: Group Dynamics
Over the summer of 2017, I was working at my community college in the College to Careers office as the receptionist. My responsibilities included greeting visitors, answering phone calls, connecting guests looking for specific programs, and other office responsibilities as required. There were three staff members in the College to Careers office, my boss Emma, the WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) coordinator Olivia, and the Perkins coordinator Ava. I did not have a good understanding of what their jobs were exactly nor do I remember anymore but I believe my boss was responsible for helping students looking into specific career programs like nursing, teaching, etc. The WIOA coordinator had a similar job but their responsibilities pertained to several WIOA programs offered at the college. The Perkins coordinator is the person I knew the least information about their job because during that summer the Perkins coordinator was trying to streamline the Perkins loan request process by automating parts of it and was creating a report with several other individuals that I never met except for one Mike. Ava asked if I would like to help her with trying to streamline the Perkins request process and help with some data entry for her report. I agreed as the College to Careers office rarely had someone come in or call so I had little to no work most of the time and Ava’s report was due sometime in August 2017.
I believed Ava dealt with the Federal Perkins Loan Program, which offers low-interest federal loans for undergraduate and graduate students with exceptional financial need. I found later that the Perkins Loan program ended on September 30, 2017. The reason why I do not understand Ava’s job was because the Perkins Loan program appears to only be for students but while looking over the requests for the Perkins loan all of the requests were from faculty or staff. I assume the financial aid the Perkins loan provided to students also allowed departments to somehow spend that money on equipment or upgrades they wanted.
In an effort to streamline the process, Ava tried sending a survey to faculty and staff that included asking for what department, the amount requested, what was going to be purchased, and why the item(s) were being purchased or what were they going to do with the purchased item(s). From here the survey would be added to an Excel spreadsheet. Some of the recipients did not fill out the survey or did not provide enough explanation of why they were requesting the items they listed which negatively affected Ava’s progress on her report for several weeks. Mike, one of the other people writing the report, began coming by at least once a week to discuss Ava’s portion of the report. I think Mike was the head of the group responsible for writing the Perkins report. When Ava told Mike she was making little progress on her portion of the Perkins report because she had not received a response to her survey from faculty. Mike understood why Ava was not making enough progress and followed up with the survey recipients that had not filled out the survey yet or did not provide enough information to help Ava on her portion of the report.
I left the receptionist position before Ava’s report was due because it was only a temporary position. From my final days at the College to Careers office, I believe Ava caught up to where she had to be in her report with Mike’s help. I think Ava could have avoided being behind on her report if she was more persistent or direct on getting survey responses from recipients.
I believed Ava dealt with the Federal Perkins Loan Program, which offers low-interest federal loans for undergraduate and graduate students with exceptional financial need. I found later that the Perkins Loan program ended on September 30, 2017. The reason why I do not understand Ava’s job was because the Perkins Loan program appears to only be for students but while looking over the requests for the Perkins loan all of the requests were from faculty or staff. I assume the financial aid the Perkins loan provided to students also allowed departments to somehow spend that money on equipment or upgrades they wanted.
In an effort to streamline the process, Ava tried sending a survey to faculty and staff that included asking for what department, the amount requested, what was going to be purchased, and why the item(s) were being purchased or what were they going to do with the purchased item(s). From here the survey would be added to an Excel spreadsheet. Some of the recipients did not fill out the survey or did not provide enough explanation of why they were requesting the items they listed which negatively affected Ava’s progress on her report for several weeks. Mike, one of the other people writing the report, began coming by at least once a week to discuss Ava’s portion of the report. I think Mike was the head of the group responsible for writing the Perkins report. When Ava told Mike she was making little progress on her portion of the Perkins report because she had not received a response to her survey from faculty. Mike understood why Ava was not making enough progress and followed up with the survey recipients that had not filled out the survey yet or did not provide enough information to help Ava on her portion of the report.
I left the receptionist position before Ava’s report was due because it was only a temporary position. From my final days at the College to Careers office, I believe Ava caught up to where she had to be in her report with Mike’s help. I think Ava could have avoided being behind on her report if she was more persistent or direct on getting survey responses from recipients.
This is an interesting story. But I'm unclear of whether it was intended to be talking about a conflict or not. Perhaps Mike and Ava had some tension between them. I'm not sure of that based on what you wrote. If not, then it seems mainly about Ava's frustration that she didn't get better responses from her survey.
ReplyDeleteThis is the current reality regarding online surveys. People are bombarded with them. Everyone selling something or providing a service seems to feel entitled to survey the person after the experience. Now I will talk only about me, because I don't know how others respond to these things. I used to give a response - say to my healthcare provider - but now I ignore all the solicitations. As far as I'm concerned, I'm under no obligation to complete the survey. So I don't do so.
If the faculty at the community college are somewhat like me, they may feel a small obligation to do the survey because it is work related, but they certainly won't put full effort into the task. This would be quite different if they knew Ava personally and like her. Then they would do it, for her. Lacking any personal connection, the result you wrote about are not surprising.
The conflict in the story was Ava being behind on her portion of the report because she did not have survey responses from faculty and staff at the community college. Mike helped Ava by following up with the people that had not responded yet.
DeleteI agree with your view on completing online surveys. I never fill out surveys because there is no incentive for me to do so and doing these surveys take up several to ten or more minutes to complete.
The survey Ava sent asked what the recipients intended to spend the Perkins money on if they were to receive the funding. I know this as Ava sent me a copy of the survey to review/edit. By completing the survey, the faculty/staff could have received funding for their department after their request was reviewed.