ResEdChat Ep 103: Blueprints for Success: Women in Housing Facilities Management

Crystal Lay:
Welcome back to Roompact’s ResEdChat Podcast, a platform to showcase people doing great work and talking about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. I’m your host Crystal Lay, and I use the she/her series pronouns.
Today’s topic is about women in facilities. I’m really excited about this topic because several episodes ago, I had the opportunity to talk about the partnership that should happen between housing and facilities. In my mind, housing and facilities are cousins. They should get along, they should working together. I might even dare to say siblings. But what I noticed over my time in the field was that there were not a lot of women represented in the facilities field, particularly at the leadership level, so I wanted to know more about that.
As I thought about my network, I could count on one hand the number of women who were in mid and senior levels within facilities. So I thought, “Why not reach out to one of them and learn more about their experience?” With that, I’ll have our guest introduce themselves.

Michelle Sujka:
Well, thanks, Crystal. I’m excited to be part of the conversation, and thanks for thinking of me. Hi, everyone. I’m Michelle Sujka, I use the she/her series pronouns. I am at the University of Cincinnati and I serve as an associate director for housing facility operations, which is a unique role for us and our institution.
Something that’s notable I always like to share is that we are a bifurcated system, and so I work on the housing side of the house. I work very closely with my colleagues in resident education and development or residence life on other campuses.
Thanks for having me, Crystal. I’m excited to be here.

Crystal Lay:
Well, thanks for being here. For folks who don’t know, what does it mean to be a bifurcated system?

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. No, that’s a great question. A bifurcated system is a system where the departments that work closely together, so in our case housing and residence life, report up through different vice presidents at the university. Really, our first point of connection in the chain of supervision and direct reports happens at the president. Our vice presidents and our senior vice presidents are different. Sometimes that provides some interesting challenges with competing or different priorities.

Crystal Lay:
Yes, I love that. That seems very accurate to the experiences that I’ve had, too. It’s really the hope is that folks are working within the same chapter so you can really meet your goal of meeting the needs of students who live with us, and then also staff as well. Thanks for sharing that definition.
I want to ask you, what inspires you to pursue a career in facilities management? Particularly in student housing, because I am imagining you probably didn’t say, “Hey, I want to work in facilities.” What was your pathway, and how did you get inspired to do that?

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. I always like to joke, I came to the University of Cincinnati 12 years ago almost, which is hard to believe. I came in in a very traditional residence life assistant director position. Prior to that, I had what I consider a traditional residence life path. I was an RA, I was a grad hall director, a hall director, a complex director. Then at the University of Cincinnati, I came in as an assistant director. It was a lateral move for me because my family wanted to get back to the Midwest area. I was supervising hall staff. Doing the hall staff supervision, training of professional staff, advising of RHA and other student groups in the department. Very traditional what I consider residence life assistant director position.
Then our department had a new director, we did some re-org. Wanted to create an operations position within residence life, because everybody was focused on keys, and everybody was focused on move-in or move-out. We really wanted to streamline that. We’d also made some changes at the local hall level, so those positions then reported to me through an operations lens.
Several years later, we did an external review, and the reviewers had recommended that my reporting line moved over to the housing side, because a lot of the functions of our roles really fit with operations and the housing responsibilities. We made that shift in, I think it was 2021, which was the right shift. People kept asking, “How do you feel about that?” I said, “It makes a lot of sense.” It just makes a lot of sense.
Then a year later is when my position shifted again, so I became an assistant director for facility operations. Really, that became capital planning. I have had very exciting opportunities to be part of designs of buildings, and opening newly renovated buildings. All of that happened because of my skillset, and my work ethic, and my ability, I don’t know, to ask good questions. I want to know more about the inner workings of our facilities. I share with younger professionals all the time, “I know I sound like the Peanuts teacher right now, but I encourage you to learn.” That’s something I wish I would have done as a younger professional, when the late Mark Shackley used to engage me in conversations about significant renovations happening in my building when I was a hall director or complex director. It was Peanuts sound. But I really wish I would have engaged differently back then, because it’s a really cool world with a lot of transferable skills from residence life and into facility operations.

Crystal Lay:
Wow! So much knowledge in that answer. First, definitely acknowledging Mark Shackley from Eastern Illinois. He was a fantastic human. I went to grad school there and remember him fondly. What I liked about your answer also is you were really affirming. You patted yourself on the back. You’re like, “I ask questions, I have the skills.” Yes, I love that confidence that you bring.
The other part too, it sounds like your job went from people-focused to a little bit more technical. How do you balance the technical demands of your role with the human-centered piece when you work in student housing?

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. I’m an introvert by nature, and I think that surprises folks a little bit. I draw a lot of energy from spending some time in quiet and reflection. That doesn’t mean I don’t like to be around people, but I think that that’s where I am my best self is when I have an opportunity to pause, reflect, do some introspection. I think that tapping into that skillset makes me a stronger technical person. I’m able to sit and think about big processes, all the way down from, “We’re going to build this building,” what needs to happen all the way down to the meetings that need to happen.
I think that that is a skillset that I have learned to hone in a little bit, but has always been there, is the planning, the organizing. Even when I was in high school, I’m a very proud Girl Scout, and recipient of the Gold Award award. That was part of my project, was to manage people and processes. That’s always been something I’ve enjoyed. I think I have to consciously balance the need to get things done and be very tasky, with who needs to be involved and what voices need to be at the table, including student voices, including my residence life colleague staff. Trying to balance that is where it becomes the tricky piece for me, because I’m a bulldozer sometimes and just want to get things done and get to the end product.

Crystal Lay:
Ooh, people and processes. We have to remember that in all of the work. Then they could work well together, and sometimes they can be a little mess and create barriers. I like that you named that, the people part of it and the processes, and how they can work in tandem.
Congrats on your Gold Award. That’s huge.

Michelle Sujka:
Thank you.

Crystal Lay:
I want to transition into the identity piece, if that’s okay.

Michelle Sujka:
Sure.

Crystal Lay:
What unique perspectives do you feel women bring to facilities management and housing?

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. I think it goes back to the question you just asked, about people. I think that women are able to build those relationships in a different way, in a way that benefits the project, and the students specifically when you start thinking about student housing. I know there’s a lot of folks that I know on this campus, and off this campus as well, but that I could make a phone call to and say, “Help me understand.” Or, “Hey, we cannot turn off the water, we still have full-time staff living there,” or whatever those things are. Because I’ve built that relationship with them differently than maybe my male colleagues would, they listen differently, they understand faster. They know that I’m not going to say something that’s untrue if I need a quick result.
I think the other piece of it is I’m also a mother to two adorable little humans. Good, bad, or ugly, multitasking is part of being a mother. I think that I’m able to manage a lot of big things well. I just have to learn how to organize it well. I think that that’s something that, as a woman, I do that on a daily, sometimes even an hourly process. I’ve learned how to do that well.
Well, I have learned this about myself. When I need to say, “Capacity is there. I need to stop, I need to pull back, I need someone to help me reprioritize based on other project priorities.” I think that that is unique, in that not all women are able to do that. I don’t do that well all the time, but I think that is a skillset of women to be able to say, “Okay, I’m going to have to pause on this one because I’m at capacity,” and pick and choose a little differently.

Crystal Lay:
Yeah. Setting boundaries, building relationships, and then I call it the second full-time job of motherhood. All of these things, it sounds like it’s pretty integrated. There’s this work-life piece that just feels like it’s the back of your hand, of how you incorporate those pieces into your work.
I do want to ask you, have you noticed an stereotypes or biases in your work environment related to being a woman in facilities? Then how have you overcome those?

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. I think it’s interesting. I think about this pretty regularly. I, again, have a pretty traditional, what I consider a traditional residence life background. I think that either I had the blinders on where it’s not as relevant in a residence life world. I had a lot of women as leadership and in those not really supervisory, but mentor-sponsorship sort of roles. I didn’t see things the way I see them now. I didn’t see those biases. What I’m talking about is sexism. I didn’t see the sexism in the workplace.
I shifted over to the operations lens, and it was almost on day one where we are having conversations about why it’s not appropriate to call a female colleague a B-word because she asked for keys that were needed for her building. I regularly am left off of emails that my supervisor gets when my supervisor has put forward that, “Michelle is the one in charge of this project and will be your point-of-contact.” I’m ignored in meetings, those sorts of things.
It’s exhausting. Truthfully, it’s exhausting. But I also have a really great support and advocate in my supervisor. He regularly will steer the conversation back so that I can be the expert in the conversation or the expert in the room from a housing lens. Having him as that support is helpful, and then also having some other campus colleagues who are supportive in nature.
I had a friend who is in facilities who once shared with me when I was struggling through some of this early on. She said, “Honestly, you’re not going to like this answer, but sometimes you have to get the men in your world on board to be the ones to call out the behavior.” While I don’t love that answer as a feminist, I also know that it’s highly beneficial to have other men in my corner and calling out behaviors that are problematic in the workplace.

Crystal Lay:
I have chills, Michelle. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing those pieces. And really answering the question about the things that you experienced because of your identity, and the things that you’ve had to call out. You named this piece about allyship and advocacy and support, and that can be hard when it’s like, “Ooh, in society, this group, this dominant group does these things or have these privileges.” Yet, “Hey, I need your help so I can be heard.” Ah! That’s so hard. What I appreciate is you being able to, again, share these pieces and name that you’ve had some support over the time. My heart goes out to you, as you share those pieces.
You talked about your supervisor advocating for you, you talked about this when we identify a person giving you some advice. Going a little bit further in that vein, is there a time when you had to advocate for yourself or your ideas in a male-dominated space?

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. I think there are certainly times. We’ve got some projects right now that are incredibly delayed and dealing with a project manager who is very challenging to work with. All of the project managers I work with are men, which I think is a very interesting and tell-tale sign of where we are in construction and project management as a society. But there are opportunities for me to advocate for myself.
My supervisor always encourages me to reach out to supervisors of those project managers, which I have done. I think really, at the end of the day, my residence life skills, documenting, and documenting, and documenting, and knowing how to keep those receipts has been helpful to be able to say, “No, I’ve tried all of these things. It has nothing to do with who I am, it’s a matter of the work’s not getting done. The communication is not there, the effort has been made.” Really, that’s been my most successful piece of advocacy.
The other piece happens not at the table. Is when I say to my supervisor, “I will not have that person as a project manager anymore,” and you need to be able to have that conversation when I’m not in the room. Being able to advocate for myself in a private space also, about the boundaries, like you said, that need to be put up in terms of, “I’ve done all I can on this end, they know it. I document it, I’ve been very clear. I also need you to use your title to advocate for me in the spaces that I’m not in.”

Crystal Lay:
That sounds exhausting.

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah, it is.

Crystal Lay:
I just want to name it. How do you feel comfortable and confident? Your earlier answers and even the way you’re talking about this now, I see this confidence and this advocacy that you do when you’re faced with these daily dings or pokes. Of people maybe doubting your competency or who you are because of your identity, and I think that’s signature to a lot of marginalized identities. I always have to be on, or do extra, or being that expert in documenting, like you talked about. And also, I see the bravery and the courage that you have to keep advocating for yourself and finding ways of being in work that you really enjoy. I think it seems like that’s a constant balance perhaps.

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah.

Crystal Lay:
As you think about your experiences that you’ve had, I want to throw out a question in here.

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah.

Crystal Lay:
What’s been your favorite facilities project? What’s that thing that you’re like, “Yes, this is my legacy?”

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah! I don’t even know if it’s a single project. I was a one-person show for a whole year a couple years ago, and really it was about setting the foundation. It’s a brand new position, brand new roles and responsibilities. Trying to figure out what do we do? We have a whole lot of beds, a whole lot of things. Being able to build a small team, and part of the team are some really incredibly talented and amazing students that I have. The University of Cincinnati is known for their co-op program. We have a variety of majors that need to have co-ops, or these experiential learning components for their education.
We employee now two part-time interior design co-op students who help us make sure our facilities are innovative facilities, which is one of our strategic priorities as a department. They do things as basic, and I use the word basic because it certainly is not easy as I have watched them navigate this. But as basic as reupholstering existing furniture, all the way to creating lounge spaces that make sense for the students and the students who live in those spaces that look amazing, that are functional, that ar needed spaces. They get an opportunity to work with vendors. They get to see a project from start to finish. Recently, we had them put some murals in some very noted spaces in our residence halls.
I think my legacy is providing the opportunity for students to have a really cool experience, but also do things that may take a year-and-a-half if we were to run it through our university interior designs because they have the entire university. We get to do some really fun, cool, innovative, creative projects that then they get to be proud of as well and they get to take with them as well.

Crystal Lay:
That is so cool. I think about whenever we’re able to provide an opportunity or learn from and with our students, how powerful is that for you to keep a pulse on what’s happening with the student population and the trends. But also, they get to work with someone like you and add to their toolkit as well.
These interns, is this their major? Are they an art major, a design major?

Michelle Sujka:
They are. Yeah, they’re interior design majors. They come to us typically after they’ve already had a couple of co-op experiences. Which only benefits us, because they understand how to navigate a professional setting, and present work and drafts, and those sorts of things, really, they don’t necessarily need our role for their co-op academic experience, but they’re using it as a part-time campus job that they can also use to pad their portfolio. When I say pad their portfolio, I mean we’ve asked them to create documents of what are all the projects you’ve worked on during your time with us in this role, and their documents are 65-pages long. They are incredible. I’ve only had two leave me so far. One to graduation, and one who has to go do her required two-semester co-op and will return to me in the fall, so I’m very excited for her to return. But both of them have said, “Wow, I didn’t realize how much I did.”
I think that’s a really cool opportunity for me to get to showcase and highlight all the awesome things that they did for our department. But also, an opportunity for them to reflect and say, “Wow! I really did a ton of cool work while I was in this role.”

Crystal Lay:
What a wonderful opportunity. Oh my gosh, okay. We’re going to start ending a little bit. What advice would you give to women who are watching this or folks supporting women who are like, “Ooh, I might want enter facilities within housing?” What has been helpful to you or what would you offer up?

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. I think one is express your interest to folks. A lot of the tips that I provide is I’ve served in a variety of institute faculty. So the things that I share around facilities is tell people you’re interested because we don’t know you’re interested if you’re not showing that interest or expressing some interest. It could be asking very basic questions. “Hey, the next time you go on a facility walk, do you mind if I join you?” Or, “Hey, would you join me on a facility walk of my building? I have some questions I’d like to ask you.” Those are great ways to, one, learn about the facilities that you’re already familiar-ish with. But then also, engage in conversation with folks who are doing the work on a daily basis.
I think the other thing is to really look at the transferable skills. I never, five years ago, never would have said that I would be doing capital projects and meeting regularly with interior designers, and HVAC folks, and access. But because of my skillset and being able to highlight the work that I do differently, that made a smooth transition. The learning curve has been steep, so please don’t let me steer you wrong on that. You’re going to have to learn things. But you also don’t have to know what valve on the HVAC system does this, that, or the other. The experts on campus are going to know that. But you need to know enough to be able to say, “That’s a maintenance issue, that’s a housekeeping issue. That’s an environmental health and safety issue.” And I know the people to tag in when those issues arrive.
Then I think the other thing is just don’t be afraid. I know that’s easy to say. Be brave in wanting to be excited about it. There are women, I attended the ACUHO-I Facility Network meeting yesterday and there were several women in there. I was very happy to see. But like you mentioned earlier, it’s a handful. It’s not very many women. It is a small group of us. There are folks who want to join in community as women in facilities. That are folks who want to support us as women in facilities. I think that tapping into those networks, whether they’re women-identified networks or men who want to support women in these roles, I think it’s really important that you find them and not be afraid to engage in those communities.

Crystal Lay:
It sounds like that showcasing or just being curious. Asking questions, trying to be in the right place and making connections. You also referenced this ACUHO-I learning space that you were in as well.
That brings me to my last question for you. In addition to that space, and if you want to talk more about it, if folks want to learn about how to navigate male-dominated spaces, learn more about facilities, or get some professional development in this area, do you have an recommendations on how they can do that?

Michelle Sujka:
For sure. Definitely ACUHO-I has lots of great resources and networks. The facilities one I’ve just started attending because of scheduling things, but it seems like a really great space. ACUHO-I also has a Women in Housing Network that I have been a part of, and again, is a really great space. I know that regionally, lots of regions also have some women-identified affinity groups that they can connect with for support. It may not be women who are in facilities, but it’s women who want to support women, and I think that makes a difference as well. You never know who they’re connected to, to help get you connected in facilities.
Another great plug that I’m going to share is that I host a podcast. It’s called I’m Done Apologizing. It’s about uplifting and empowering women. While it may not be specifically to facilities, it is about helping women navigate the world as a woman and some of the biases that we run into along the way.
Then, Crystal, hopefully we can link this in the show notes or something, but there’s a great podcast that I’m going to not remember the name of in this moment. It was about women in facilities, and this woman who is an architect was interviewed. She was really great about talking about the reason we have issues with facilities is because women are not at the table when the design plans are being made. One of the things that stuck out with me was that when you go to a sporting venue or a concert venue or something, why are there long lines for women? Because the bathrooms were designed by men for men, not designed by women for women. Being able to have women in the conversations was really the highlight of her podcast, and it was really insightful for me as a higher ed professional and housing professional.

Crystal Lay:
Yes. I think there’s a quote, I’m not going to get it right, Michelle. But it talks about, “If it’s not by us, it shouldn’t be for us.” This idea of, as we’re designing and creating things, how do you really think about the identities that are going to be using that space and making sure they’re at the table. Or you have some insight and you invite them in. I will definitely add all these resources to the show notes, thank you for doing that.
This was such a delightful conversation, good information. I’m so grateful, Michelle, for you joining us today.

Michelle Sujka:
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Crystal. I appreciate always the opportunity to talk about facilities and women in facilities.

Crystal Lay:
Yes! Oh my gosh. Thanks for being an advocate for women in the housing field and all the work that you’re doing in the field, and then also on your campus.
I would like to thank all of you for joining us on this episode of ResEdChat. If you have an idea of a topic or a person that you would like us to have on the show, please let us know by reaching out to Roompact. Take care.