The transition from high school to college comes with a lot of change. Jim Gamble, Dean of Students at Grace Christian University, offers helpful perspective on how students can navigate it well.
The Role of Dean of Students
Bella: Â My name is Isabelle Sitzema. I’m here with Jim Gamble, our Dean of Students here at Grace Christian University. Today we’re going to talk about the transition from high school to college.
Tell me more about your job. What is it to be Dean of Students?
Jim: As the Dean of Students, I work at our Student Affairs Office, and so I deal with a lot of different student issues. I suppose the big one that stands out is often the disciplinary issue. I get to deal with students when they make mistakes or poor decisions sometimes, but I also work with all of our students through student leaders. I work with our resident directors and our RAs and our student government. I just want to make sure that this is a place where our student leaders can claim a gospel-centered environment where they will thrive.
Mistakes Are Part of the Process
Bella: You talked about discipline a little bit. What does that look like when students mess up academically or spiritually here at Grace?
Jim: That is not something to be afraid of, in my opinion. I think the college environment is the perfect place to make mistakes. I like to approach it as a learning laboratory, where when you do things, you should be able to learn from them. We want students to fail forward. We want this to be a place where if you do make those mistakes, there’s somebody either on staff or another student leader who can walk alongside you and help you make meaning out of those mistakes.
A student might make mistakes academically. They get behind. We have a student success center here that reaches out to students. It tries to provide resources so that those students who have gotten behind, missed a class or two or seven, and are finding their classes overwhelming, we have a student success center that helps students catch up with that. I myself also help students with things like time management, because there are a lot of things you need to learn to become the person that you’re going to be in your college environment.
Our goal is to make this a safe place to fail and make sure that you have a soft landing when you do fail, and that you can make meaning out of it. Mistakes are not something a college student should be afraid of. I would like them to be willing to make more mistakes.
Staying Rooted in FaithÂ
Bella: You mentioned a little bit about faith. How can students stay rooted in their faith here at Grace when routines and structures fall away?
Jim: That’s a good question. I was talking to somebody not that long ago who was concerned about the college environment and how so many students, when they go off to college, lose their faith.
Our mission at Grace Christian University is to graduate courageous ambassadors who make an eternal impact everywhere they go. The last thing we want is for anybody to decline in their relationship with God and in their faith in Jesus Christ. A lot of students come to Grace with routines that have been established in the household in which they grew up, the church they grew up attending.
They have routines: going to youth group, going to church every Sunday. It’s our hope that students, when they arrive at Grace, will want to continue those things. But there’s not necessarily somebody here who’s able to hold their hand and drag them to church every Sunday. So we have things worked into the life of campus, small groups for anybody living in one of our residence halls, chapel three days a week. These are the routines that are ultimately going to form somebody over their time at Grace. And all of our students take 30 hours of Bible and theology. There are classes where you’re going to learn more about God’s word.
Building Habits That Form You
Jim: Aside from that, if you’re coming to Grace Christian University, I’m assuming you really want, on a deep level, to develop your faith into something that is going to be lifelong. I remember when I was in my 20s, looking at and admiring the people who were older than me who had a deep, encyclopedic knowledge of God’s word. I envied those people. I said, “That’s what I want to be like someday.” I cared about that, and yet the routines in my life didn’t really support me becoming that kind of person. So I realized at one point that I needed habits that were going to form me, that were going to help me become well-versed in God’s word.
I said, “If I’m going to know God’s word,” I need to read it every day. If you think that’s who you want to become, somebody who knows God’s word really well, you’re not going to get there without reading God’s word. It’s on you to establish some of those rhythms yourself as you go through your college experience.
Learning to Advocate for Yourself
Bella: How can students advocate for themselves without feeling annoying or guilty? How can they approach this in the right way? Frustrations do come as a college student, how can they do this appropriately?
Jim: See the value in it, first and foremost. You have to advocate for yourself because you likely don’t have a parent or somebody else to do that for you here on campus. Whatever the issue might be, you need to be willing to put yourself out there. Connect with your instructor, the business office, or somebody in student affairs or housing. These become life skills that you need to exercise across life. You need to become somebody who advocates for themselves in whatever forum you’re in.
On the staff side, I’d say staff genuinely, authentically want to see every student succeed. If we have a student who is struggling, we want them to advocate for themselves. We can’t always step out and find them and connect with them to correct that. So we hope students are aware of their situations to the point that they’re willing to advocate for themselves and connect with staff. That’s part of being a courageous ambassador for Christ, learning how to appropriately advocate for yourself.
Unlearning Old Habits
Bella: What habits do students need to unlearn fast to succeed here?
Jim: There are lots of habits people bring with them to college. Some of them are productive, some of them aren’t. As students begin their college education, I think one of the most important habits for them to unlearn is the dependence on somebody else to carry them along.
If you’re coming from a home where mom and dad really supported you well, I’m very happy you had that support throughout your K-12 education. But now in college, you’re going to need to learn that there aren’t necessarily schedules and templates set out for you to follow. In high school, everybody’s kind of on the same schedule for the most part, when you’re going to go to class. Those decisions have been made for you. You’re in the rhythm of life where you hopefully go to bed on time and get up on time, and that routine doesn’t necessarily follow you to college.
So at that point you need to unlearn the habit of other people making decisions for you and telling you where to go and when. Instead, assume responsibility for your decisions and for the outcomes you’re looking for. You’re the one who’s going to be responsible for that, taking ownership of the decisions you make and the progress you want to make along the way through college.
Advice for Incoming Freshmen
Bella: What should a freshman know before stepping onto the Grace campus for the first time?
Jim: We have a team of people here who are excited to see you become a courageous ambassador for Christ. We want that more than anything for every student who steps on campus here at Grace Christian University. We want you to grow in your faith, to grow in your confidence, to serve Christ wherever you land and make an eternal impact for him. Know that staff here are here to support you. Some of us look scary sometimes, but we’re not, we’re here to help you succeed.
A lot of your change, your development, and your progress as a person is going to be slow. It only happens through the routines and rhythms and habits you establish in your college experience. You’re going to change a lot. You’re going to grow a lot over four years. It might not always feel like it within one year or one semester. Roll with the punches. You walk into Grace as one person as a freshman. You walk out as a senior, as another. No matter how long it takes, four years, four and a half, five years, you really change.
You Won’t Flip a Switch at Graduation
Jim: Just to echo something I said earlier: show up. Be active in the life of the community. Go to all your classes. That’s how you succeed at Grace, you show up. And you need to be able to laugh at yourself. You can’t live being afraid of mistakes. You’re going to make them. The only thing fear adds is fear. The mistakes are going to happen no matter what.
I’d encourage you to also have in mind the kind of person you want to be as you walk across the stage after four years at graduation. Who is that person you want to become? Put yourself on track with habits that are going to help you become that person. You will not suddenly flip a switch at graduation and have all the knowledge you need for a career. You may not have the soft skills to do an interview really well, or the interpersonal skills to relate to and connect with other human beings. That takes practice over time. You grow those slowly, and if you initiate those habits, that’s exactly the person you will become.
