ResEdChat Ep 63: The Value of Private-Public Partnerships in Residence Life with Cassandra Acin

Dustin Ramsdell:
Welcome back everyone to Roompact’s Res Ed Chat podcast. I’m your host, Dustin Ramsdell, here again featuring another interview in this podcast series, which features a variety of topics of interest to higher ed professionals who work in and with college and university housing, residential education, whatever you might call it.
Our guest today, I’ll just speak upfront, a good friend of mine. I’ve known her for a very long time sort of thinking in the new year, interesting people or just fun people to talk to. They’ve had either interesting career paths; they do interesting stuff. Cassie, she has worked in a variety of different contexts in residence life and I figured it’d be cool to get her experience, perspectives, and reflections on that. We’ll get to it towards the end, but I know you have a passionate background and experience with NACURH, something that’s a little bit like… I don’t know how all that works. I’ll be the naive lay person coming into all that, but we’ll start as we always do, Cassie. If you want to briefly introduce yourself and go over your professional background, which is what we’re digging into, but just how you got to be where you are today?

Cassandra Acin:
Sure, absolutely. So happy to be here. Dustin is a dear friend and longtime listener of everything that he has been doing throughout the year, so thrilled to be a part of this next chapter, but yeah, Cassie [inaudible 00:01:25]. I’m an operations manager for American Campus Community, so right now, I work at property that houses an internship program for a pretty well-known theme park. Historically, I’ve been involved in student housing for a really long time. Graduated with my Master’s in Higher Ed from the University of Maine in 2017, which feels like a lifetime ago now.
Before that, was an RA. Really that classic story that we see: got involved as an undergrad; fell in love with all that is student affairs; stayed the course. Had bopped around quite a bit, as Dustin said. Started in at the University of New Hampshire, worked at Arizona State University: big jump from New England life. Then, I worked at Bentley University in Massachusetts, worked with Guild Education, which is a interesting partnership with higher ed providing higher education to frontline workers, and then where I am now, American Campus. Again, still working in that student housing realm, but in a little bit of an interesting lens, working with students who are working full-time, so a great journey it’s been.

Dustin Ramsdell:
Well yeah, because I think there’s always a multitude of reasons why because push and pull factors around job transitions and that sort of thing. Even maybe the initial just pivot around why even any job that has… A big focus, I think, of our conversation here is just that data mix of public private partnerships and how that shows up in the residential education context. You took that first pivot into that world. Was that intentional? Did you know what you were getting yourself into? Because I think sometimes it’s like it matters, but it doesn’t, how explicit maybe institutions choose to be about that sort of arrangement. So what was the dynamics of that initial transition where you walked into this wider world?

Cassandra Acin:
I think my first exposure to this was unintentional. And so I worked at Arizona State University on the university side and it was really my first time. I worked at the University of New Hampshire, which is a state institution, but on a much smaller scale… if you’re familiar with these two schools… than the Arizona State University. And so their partnership with the company I work with now, American Campus, I didn’t really know exactly what it was or what was going on. I was hired to work on the university side, but then I got there and I understood more of what was going on.
So the company provides the opportunity for the university to expand their on-campus housing to work together to provide more onsite or local living opportunities for the residents. And so fell in love with the company that I work for now through working with them just in partnership there. But really was eyeopening coming from my undergrad, very small liberal arts school, very standard: you live on campus; you don’t live off; four-year residency requirement. And so, learning the levels of options and opportunities that become available to universities to expand and to provide opportunity for residents was pretty eye-opening. I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but it’s been really exciting to be on both sides of that coin, but started in the higher ed realm specifically.

Dustin Ramsdell:
I guess why maybe the idea of this topic resonated with me is in a very different context, working in the online program management OPM world where it’s very similar like this company augmenting the capacity of an institution and really doing it in deep partnership where it is, at the end of the day, their academic program: they’re choosing which students to admit and certify them to graduate, all those sort of things. It’s their faculty members, but you’re finding the right ways to empower that institution to, in that case, embark into the digital education frontier.
But I think it is that idea of there is that traditional notion of you’re living on campus, all in, maybe the entire time of your degree program. At institutions where you’re able to do it, if it’s not that then you’re just living in an apartment or renting a house or something and you’re left to your own devices or the whims of your landlords, and that sort of thing. So the idea that there could be, and I’ll bounce this back to you, a lot of potential for meeting in the middle where it’s, well, it’s not on campus; it’s not off campus. It’s something that hopefully is getting the best of both worlds. Is that what your reflection or understanding of what the reality of this… how it plays out?

Cassandra Acin:
For sure. I think you’re really hitting on it. It’s amazing what you don’t know until you know. There are a variety of companies that provide this in-between experience and I think the biggest touch point is that sense of community. So we learn from the first day in grad school from higher ed, and it reigns true: that sense of community and that sense of belonging is what is missing for a lot of our students. So to be able to create that while still getting some of those added benefits of learning what it means to be a leaseholder, learning what it means to pay your rent, learning some of those things can be really advantageous for a lot of students. But again, I think you’re really hitting on it. It is that middle ground. It’s not necessarily living in a residence hall. It’s not necessarily living on your own in someone’s rented town home or something like that, but it is really that right in-between. A sweet spot, I think.

Dustin Ramsdell:
Because I think you even do see that if you live certainly in a exclusively off campus apartment complex that’s marketing to students. They might try to amplify like, “Hey, we give you that community stuff too,” or whatever. But then in this sort of situation, and I don’t know how much an awareness you have of this, but certainly, like you said, a big benefit is going to be creating community likely in collaboration with the university or being really plugged into that. Is there different models of how something like this can work out? Because I think my understanding is sometimes there might be RAs that either work for the university or somewhere. What are the ways that this can happen?
Because I would imagine the furthest extent of this bubble of what we’re talking about is where it’s just like it’s university sanctioned off-campus housing, but there’s no student staff. They’re giving a blessing of, “We put a bus stop out in front,” or something, that sort of thing where it’s like you’re in the furthest reaches of the campus community, but there’s maybe not a huge amount of active community building going on. Is there a spectrum of how something like this might take shape?

Cassandra Acin:
Yeah, for sure. I think that it really depends on the company that’s involved and what their priorities are, if they are more private housing leaning, student housing leaning. I think there’s a big sense of responsibility when you identify yourselves as a student housing company to provide some of that nurturing and educational and opportunistic environment because these are, again, as we learn, students in a really pivotal point and really transformational period in their lives. And so, I do think people are proud to say they’re a student housing company because they know that it is a different kind of experience from just being a landlord or just being a residence, a residence.
So I do think that it runs the gamut. It really depends on the university that people partner with, the company itself and their values and priorities. Sometimes we see public private partnerships where the university staffs. I’ve worked in environments before where we, as the university, were in charge of the RAs like you nodded to. We were in charge of the community development, the programming, the conduct, and the policy enforcement, but the company was in charge of the facilities or the turnover of apartments. So it really becomes an ecosystem, like a living, breathing thing of figuring out how you work together, how you ebb and flow, especially when it’s a university that has certain policies, standards like a public institution and then a private company which has a little more leeway, a little more flexibility. And so it really can depend. I do think that’s true.

Dustin Ramsdell:
Well, and it’s good to know that there’s… in your experience working with these sort of partnerships in this context, there can be flexibility. Because in my mind, my gut check is it feels like what you’ve explained of there’s university staffing for the community building, and that sort of thing, and then the company takes care of the facilities. That feels like what would naturally make the most sense, but if an institution wants to go one way or another, then there’s options for that.
So yeah, I think just where we are now with the way that hired professionals are pursuing their careers, and that sort of thing, the idea that for years ago it was happenstance in a good… where it’s just like, “Okay, cool. This makes sense. This dynamic is working out for me and whatever,” but that folks maybe can now be more intentional and knowledgeable or purposeful in the sense of, “Yeah, I think this model is incredible. That sounds like it makes so much sense. I would like to try to pursue something like this and whether it’s just on principle or to get exposure to this sort of dynamic or something.”
Because I think I remember too from my days in the OPM world there’s just always this existential dilemma of, “How much are we the man behind the curtain? Pay no attention to us kind of thing,” and, “How much do we lead where it’s like, ‘Hey, this is a program brought to you by us; we’re doing it and that’s why it’s so amazing'”? That sort of promotional piece versus… And again, that’s just each one is always going to be a different extent of that of how much can we show our work or show ourselves saying that we’re doing this in collaboration with this great university partner or whatever.

Cassandra Acin:
I think there’s a lot of power in being able to embrace that collaboration. I think there’s a lot of… and rightfully so… there’s a lot of pride and a lot of history behind what we do in higher education. But I think this new frontier is really allowing us to develop these partnerships to reach out and to find support and collaboration in places where historically we may not have done so.
The landscape is changing. I feel like I sound cliche, but it really has changed even dramatically from when I was a student to now, and so how do we create partnerships that will be long-lasting that create opportunities that will remain? So we want residents to live near or on campus. We want them to invest in higher education. We don’t want everything to be 24/7 commuter. We believe in that history of the benefits of being together and the benefits of that community. And so, how do we ensure that we’re building something that can sustain economic flow or budgeting and things. Everyone in higher education knows the woes of finances, and so how do we make sure that we’re not losing ground, even if we can’t sustain these things internally in the institution? I think it’s opportunistic and more and more people are becoming open-minded to this and learning that there is that power in partnership.

Dustin Ramsdell:
I think it has been one of those protected gardens, maybe of the residential experience and that idea that, in all aspects, whether it’s just the prevalence of something like online education, that does provide some contrast to some of those very traditional notions. It’s just how do you manifest that same experience but digitally and the idea that, “No-one can do it like us,” or something. It’s like, all right, it’s no longer taboo. We’ve reached whatever tipping point and critical mass of these sort of partnerships developing and maybe people being more forthcoming about, “Well, we’re only achieving this level of success because we’re using this partner.”
So yeah, it’s definitely an interesting moment. I think maybe the final note on all of this is that you’ve been on both sides of the equation. You’ve worked on a purely campus-based residential life program in collaboration in-between. And even working at a company where it’s like you’re fully on the other side working with an institution, maybe not even with a guild, like not in the residential life context. So as all that blends together, what are insights that you’re able to integrate into your professional perspective and how you operate? Obviously, some people only have the corporate context, but they’re still working with institutions or vice versa, and that has its pros and cons. So how do you feel like it really helps you to have all sides of the equation?

Cassandra Acin:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it was an eye-opening experience for me. I’m in a role now where I don’t do a lot of the feelings work anymore. I’m not on the ground level with the residents anymore. I’m not really interacting with them. I don’t see them as much. I used to be so involved and that’s where I took a lot of my meaning from my work away from was establishing those relationships: people knowing who I was. “Oh, that’s my residence director. She’s at my program. She knows me.”
I supervise the staff and I really work more in the weeds now. I’m an operations manager, so I really focus on managing projects. I’m managing turnover, and so I’m doing a lot of things in spreadsheets and on a computer. I found that the satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping and you’re still making a difference to this demographic, which I feel really strongly advocating for and really respect the time in their lives. You’re still able to do that no matter what you are doing specifically and that was a really eye-opening experience for me because I was one of those people that was like, “I’m a res lifer for lifer,” but as we all experience, there’s a lot of entry level positions and there are fewer as you go. So you can still make a difference. You can still be impactful in these spaces.
I work for a company that our number one value is to put residents and students first. That’s the first thing that you’re taught when you walk in the door, and that has remained true for me. That’s a core value for me as a person. And so to be in alignment like that in a space that others would consider a little bit off the beaten path is still just as rewarding for me as being the first person they see when they walk in their residence hall every day.
So you can be on both sides and you can get that fulfillment if you’re working with the right people, and you’re aligned in your values with the company or the opportunity that presents to you. So it’s okay to look around. It’s okay. I think we think about expats or we think about things, and it’s controversial to leave higher education proper or the brick and mortar, but if the care for students is there, then the work has meaning. And then, if the care for students is prioritized, then you still go home feeling good and knowing that you’re making a difference which, as a helping professions individual, has always been important for me.

Dustin Ramsdell:
I think just recognizing what you’re saying of that there’s… Kind if like a dog piling that happens in certain kind of roles that are still student facing, but maybe moving up, and just recognizing that you can still have a really positive meaningful impact, even in a operations role because it’s like, “Well, I’m either empowering the people that are doing that work to do their best work or just creating an environment on that operation side to make sure that they’re just having the best seamless experience possible,” and whatever else.
I feel like it’s even just that idea of recognizing the skills for making a connection with people, being empathetic and all that. It’s like you’re still working with people, but just in a different way. That idea of those things that I feel people overlook or take for granted where it’s like, well, the same skills that made you a really good community builder with your residents, it’s like you’re going to help build incredible teams, or just be able to work well with colleagues, and those sort of things.
And again, we’re in a moment where I think people are trying to find those threads and those transferable skills and everything. So I feel like it’s just a natural place in that reminder of just there’s these unique opportunities, to find that transferability and still work to support student success, and certainly in a residential education context. Because the thing that I was thinking of too when you’re talking, just before we move on, is that idea, like you said, of knowing how valuable a student being in a residential life context where there’s a proximity to all the supports and things that they would need and all that.
It’s just that idea of with the moment we’re in, let us not overlook how valuable that is, especially for students who may be coming from under backgrounds or first generation. There’s still such a strong place for creating an environment where you’re trying to remove as many points of friction as possible. Let’s just have you stress about one less thing while you’re pursuing your degree and everything. So I think that idea that you can still create desirable experiences for where a student lives while they’re studying, that doesn’t have to be the way that a lot of people think of it as it was. There’s a lot of potential and opportunity for finding those opportunities for partnership to supplement/amplify your residential life program.
We will move on now, so we’ll see where this question takes us. I feel like I’m sure you can probably talk about this for a very long time, and please do talk about it as long as you want to talk about it. But NACURH I know is a very big organization that relates to residence life. Again, I don’t really know anything about it, so feel free to get into the weeds explaining how this all works, and certainly your experience with it. So if you want to start just with what is NACURH to make sure you capture that and then your experience with it?

Cassandra Acin:
Absolutely thrilled when I saw this, when you let me know you wanted to talk about NACURH. I was very excited. I was not expecting to talk about NACURH, but I’m always happy to. For those who don’t know, don’t have exposure, NACURH’s the National Association of College and University Residence Halls most often tied to a residence hall association and those National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) organizations. So we see those at universities across the country.
I’m a little rusty. If you had asked me five years ago, I could regurgitate this, probably without even blinking, but comprised of regions throughout the country, which are their smaller way of… depending on geographically where you live. So I’m a New Englander, proud Massachusetts, born and raised. So I was a part of NEACURH, which is the North East Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls, and so I was really involved in this.
I started as an RHA member in undergrad because I was, again, bit by the res life bug right away, and then I became RHA president. From there, I got more involved in NEACURH itself. I served as a coordinating officer of RHA development, which was a board of directors position there that worked with RHA presidents. Then I actually served as the regional director of NEACURH, and when I was in grad school, which was I always say one of the most thrilling opportunities that I’ve had as a young person still. I’m sure there are many things that someday I’ll look back and be like, “Okay, this topped it.” Maybe when I have my first child and things like that, but right now I’m like, “That was pretty good.” Don’t tell my husband. Our wedding is up there too, but this one was pretty exciting. And so it’s such a unique opportunity to take responsibility, to grow as a leader, to really see your small… in some situations (my school was very small), the impact our small organization can have on a more regional/national scale.
They host conferences throughout the year. New England is known for being the region that does not host two business conferences. They host a business conference and then a fun conference, and they’re the only region that does that, and so it’s a big of thing if you’re in New England to know that you are a part of that. But was super involved for about four years, met a ton of people, many of which I’m still friends with today. I’m a huge advocate for the program. It really enables you to develop skills that you can’t necessarily learn in a classroom, which is I think its biggest power.
Some of the things you may not necessarily use parliamentary procedure in your day to day, but being able to speak on a topic, being able to advocate for a policy change, or present on something that’s meaningful to you on such a large scale and to come back with people asking you hard-hitting questions. Because if you’ve participated in NEACURH, you know nobody is serious as a person asking you a question in then NEACURH boardroom. You might as well be on display in front of the United States Senate. It’s very serious and so really you think on your feet. I could go on. It is a great opportunity. So I don’t know what you want to know specifically, but I can’t wait to talk about it.

Dustin Ramsdell:
Well, I think that’s the two things you mentioned were we met when you were in grad school. You were in the same program as my now wife. I knew that that was a thing that you were doing, so that’s why I think it always stuck with me that it was prominent and that you have this whole community network of people that you can tie back to that. I guess to clarify, because I don’t think you maybe honored this point as much. It’s entirely student run too, right? That’s a defining feature of NEACURH.

Cassandra Acin:
Yes. Someone can fact check this for me later, but as far as I know this remains true, that NEACURH is the largest student run corporation in the world. So, there is no “adults” per se, quote-unquote. These are young adults, so they may not consider themselves adults at the time, but there’s no professional staff member that’s responsible. There’s a chair person who is a student. There’s a chief operating officer. Some of their titles may have changed throughout the times, but there’s the NEACURH chairperson, the CEO effectively, a student, chief operating officer, a student, chief financial officer, a student.
There is. Of course, as in all things, an advisor: a wise partner that is there to help you and guide you. But being a part of this for so many years, I can say that the advisor is truly that, an advisor, so wisdom to impart on you, but everything is student-run, student-facing, student-decided. Through highs and lows of the lessons that you learn being a student responsible for an organization, it really does enable you to make decisions on a scale that some people won’t do in their professional lives again for many years. So that is their claim to fame really: they’re largest student run organization entirely from top to bottom.

Dustin Ramsdell:
It’s really amazing. I think, just like you said, it’s such a good pipeline for developing future res life talent or just building really great skills wherever these students go in their professional lives. So at this formative time where you can still have a little bit of the bumpers up. It is really incredible the work that they do, the passion that people seem to have for it. I was never involved with it. Again, just an observer and just being like, “Wow, this seems to be an experience that people find really fun and really valuable,” so I wanted to honor that because I know that is a big part of your story. And certainly, it’s just part of what I’m sure led you to be where you are today and enable you to feel comfortable and confident navigating all these different way points in your professional journey so far, but we will wrap up here.
Just, I always… the eternal optimist like to ask people. Certainly, we’re recording this February 2024, still I feel like in the guise of the new year. There’s a whole calendar year ahead of us, but with your work, is there anything in particular that you’re looking forward to? Certainly, we’ve got the end of the spring semester coming up, or if there’s stuff going on in the summer, what are you looking forward to in your work?

Cassandra Acin:
I’ll say my year in the role that I have here is really unique as we don’t operate on a traditional academic calendar because we’re not affiliated with an academic program, so we just really wrapped up our busy, busy season. We started 2024 being the busiest that we will probably be throughout the year, and so I think what I’m really excited about right now, and I was just talking with my supervisor about is when she thinks about goals, is we’re really in the spot where we’re ready to optimize, and we’re ready to really sit down and brainstorm.
I just recently hired a team under me, so it was myself and a co-manager. We restructured, so now it’s myself and I have coordinators and a more entry level position that works under me now. We’re really all in alignment with where we want to go, and so it’s the first time in my professional career where I’ve been that person seated in the decision making seat. And so I’ve always been a little bit more entry level. I was an RD or an assistant, and so this is my first time sitting in that manager position. So really excited to help develop others in the way that I’ve been so blessed throughout my career to have been developed.
I’ve had some great mentors. I feel like you could fill a whole other podcast with mentorship, and I’m sure you have, but just the people who I’ve met along the way. It’s exciting to me to be in that seat now and hopefully positively impact other people. That’s the goal, but looking forward to really just turning everything into our own and I think calling back to the beginning an opportunity that is unique in some of these partnerships that we don’t always see in higher education is the willingness to reinvent the wheel. And so, I definitely work in a place where changes are welcome, changes are happening, and so being the pilot is exciting to me.

Dustin Ramsdell:
I think that’s what a lot of folks aspire to at some point in their career is just feeling like they’re in a place where they can enact a vision for a department, for a team and that sort of thing. So I’m really glad that you’re getting that opportunity. I know you’ll do amazing things, and I think… I’m glad we had a moment. We’ve captured this stage in your career of reflecting on what brought you here and looking towards the future and talking about just unique ways that these opportunities in these programs develop and why they’re relevant and I think meaningful options for institutions to look into and implement, and all that good stuff.
So we’ll have ways to connect with you and check out NEACURH and everything else that we talked about in this episode, but just thanks so much for hanging out and sharing all that you did and for doing this episode with me.

Cassandra Acin:
Always a pleasure, Dustin.