The Key to Strong Student Relationships in Higher Education [QUIZ]

Have you ever had a horrible relationship with a student and could not figure out why? Or an awesome one? There may be one simple answer.

Listening and communicating to students effectively is vital to the advisor-student relationship, and yet there is little information to be found on the topic. 

I am obsessed with listening to ACPA’s Higher Ed Live podcasts, which often discusses “how to market to alumni” or “how to use social media to connect with current students.” When searching on the site for “listening” or “hearing,” it yielded no results.

So, I moved to TedTalks to see if any information could be gleaned from their resources and found only one: “5 Ways to Listen Better,” which pointed out that 60% of our communication time is spent listening and only 25% is retained.

Lisa Markwick, a prominent consultant leadership psychologist and innovation facilitator, suggests that leaders are often the worst listeners since they are always problem-solving.

I know that poor communication has had major impacts on some of the relationships I had with advisors as a student leader. One advisor simply refused to listen to anything I had to offer: I once pointed out that it was a violation of the Panhellenic Unanimous Agreements to include a GPA requirement for potential new members in the recruitment rules, found the agreement in the Manual of Information per her request, and her response was that the rule was not going to be eliminated.

How to we keep ourselves accountable as student affairs practitioners and help ourselves listen better? I think we first must understand what listening actually is.

Commonly taught is the HURIER Model, created by Judi Brownell. I put together a short description in this infographic.

It may seem like common sense, but sometimes our ability to exhibit each of these steps can vary due to the situation or any underlying "noise." According to Frances Hesselbein, President and CEO of The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute,  creating a connection is an essential part of listening; a connection that is most successful when it’s circular.

As student affairs practitioners, it is common knowledge that listening is important to success in creating positive relationships with students. However, I encourage you to take the time to evaluate how you are listening and communicating with your students. 

This quiz may give you an overview of where you might need to strengthen your listening skills. 

In my Critical Listening class, we had to have a peer, a professor, and a boss fill out an evaluation of our listening skills. You could do the same with the quiz and replace the professor with a student!

What do you think of the HURIER model? Is there a step that you need to improve?

What tips do you have for better listening and communication with students?

What results did you receive when you (or your peer, student, boss) took the quiz? 

 Please comment below so I can listen to your feedback!