Number of events. Average attendance. Number of *unique* attendees in a semester. Average student staff GPA. Number of Intentional Interactions per month. Number of outreach attempts for unenrolled students. Percentage of monthly report forms turned in. Number of room moves. Number of duty calls related to a smoke detector.
This is but a small portion of the different metrics my team tracks on a regular basis. We log some data monthly, while other stats are pulled on a semesterly basis. I’m guessing nothing here is too surprising. If you’ve been in Residence Life for a minute, you’re probably nodding along and thinking, “YEP. We track all that stuff too.” And then what, pray tell, do you do when you’re done pulling and logging that data?
*crickets*
We are all guilty of that cardinal data sin: doing a lot of work to locate and organize the numbers and then just letting them languish in a spreadsheet somewhere. Maybe we share a few stats as “fun facts” at our next team meeting.
Feeling called out? I’ve been there. Here are some fundamental principles to guide your work with data and ensure that your team’s work is purposeful.
Behind every number is a name. We all know that these numbers are merely representations of the thousands of very real students, faculty, and staff we interact with on a regular basis. We can’t describe every single intentional interaction with our residents, so we just say “Our staff conducted 9,560 intentional interactions this semester” and hope that the sheer size of the number will impress our administration. But that number loses its relativity if it isn’t complemented by spotlight stories of some of those interactions. Of course there are some student stories that shouldn’t be shared widely, but there are many that can be.
Humanizing the efforts behind a strategy like intentional interactions accomplishes several goals:
- Sharing stories draws attention to the various challenges and success of current students, helping people understand what students are facing here and now. No more assuming you understand your students based on memories of 5, 3, or even 1 year ago.
- By diving into even one student story, administrators gain appreciation for the time, care, and training required to serve as an RA or Mentor. When one story is shared in depth, then the multiplier becomes impressive. If it took that much care and effort to help one student, now I understand the massive accomplishment and impact represented by thousands of interactions.
- At my institution, we talk a lot about the value of University Housing. Stories of an RA helping a student navigate a personal crisis or a Mentor providing support and guidance through a student’s major change demonstrate the type of one-on-one support that can’t be found in an off-campus setting.
The mantra “we eat with our eyes first” applies to data, too. I’d argue that we consume data visually much more effectively than simply reading a list of metrics. Infographics are popular for a reason: they make data easy to digest and can even help provide immediate and easily discernible context for the information at hand. Even something as simple as a bar graph can help give someone an anchor for considering your data.
You can also get a little more creative with visualizing your data. For example, here we showed a calendar of the fall semester with a heat map-style coloration of each day by number of events held. The darkest colored days were our days with the most events. No surprise we saw a condensed block of color in September, when our curriculum is heavily loaded with a ton of resident programs. And this calendar makes it really easy to see that Thursdays are by far the most popular day to hold a program!
Two sources I love for inspiring creativity around data:
- The Dear Data project from 2013 was an analog data drawing project by two information designers sending each other data-filled postcards over the course of the year. Their data has nothing to do with Residence Life but everything to do with displaying data in unique, detailed ways that inspire curiosity and further investigation.
- Tableau Public’s “Viz of the Day” is a bit more technical in its presentation. Tableau is a visual analytics platform that has one kajillion (yes, I said kajillion) ways to display any set of data. Disclaimer: Tableau itself is quite pricey and has an intense learning curve if you’re not in it every day. However, the charts and analytics available on the public website can still inspire a ton of new ways to share your team’s story.
Data MUST be more than just “interesting.” If all we do is look at our data and go, “Huh, I wouldn’t have guessed that,” or “Wow! That’s pretty neat! Anyway…” then we are absolutely wasting our time. How many times have you heard someone describe themselves as a “data-driven leader?” While the descriptor might be a bit cliché, the sentiment is crucial. We must commit to interrogating our data. Here are a few questions you can ask your data:
- If we wanted to improve this metric, what would have to change? What resources would we need to deploy?
- How can we learn more about this data point? If we don’t know enough context, what populations do we need to talk to for further clarification?
- Have we appropriately disaggregated this data? Does the high-level data point accurately represent your full population? Or are smaller groups getting lost in the totals?
- Who needs to hear the story this data is telling? Our team? Upper-level university administrators? Prospective students and their families?
Don’t hide your data away or let yourself be overwhelmed with a lengthy list of numbers. Humanize, visualize, and deploy your data—by doing so, you’ll make sure that your efforts to collect data transform into real impact.
