By Cameron Miranda-Radbord

What the heck happened to the staff who were supposed to conduct Signature Program Assessments?

No, really – as I spoke to a Student Life staff member, I was perplexed by her explanation of why many of the Signature Program Assessments were not completed. Administrators, she told me, had moved departments. If that was the sole justification – and indeed, it was the only justification she gave to me for the incomplete status of the SPAs – nearly all of the 20+ staff members who were listed as report leads had switched jobs. How was that possible? 

As a researcher, staff turnover was a mystery I wanted to solve. But it was almost entirely unrelated to the focus of my research, which was about how Accessibility Services assessed its offerings. As a consequence, I did not end up including the bizarre staff relocations in my final report. And indeed, while I would have liked to discuss the turnover here, I never quite got to the bottom of that particular mystery. Every staff member at Student Life I spoke to expressed an effusive fondness for their job, and they had held jobs within their unit for several years. All particularly enjoyed the interdisciplinary nature of their roles: each expressed a variation of the statement that every day was different, and they were able to explore a variety of subjects that interested them – for one staff member, Student Life was something she had studied in an academic context. When I asked staff directly about why they thought turnover was so high, the answer was a shrug – that was just how units typically operated, with COVID potentially playing a role in people deciding to take on other opportunities. 

I bring this up not only because I think it is something interesting I uncovered during my research process but because I think it was relevant to my learning about ethnography. Initially, I felt as though digging on this particular issue in interviews with administrators was a waste of time: that I was asking questions that had nothing to do with the final report I was going to write. As it turns out, the answers did not end up being helpful, but I do think the questions were worthwhile. Perhaps it was the case that the SPA writing process was so traumatic that the staff members responsible felt compelled to resign or be transferred. Perhaps they were under pressure from some higher administrator to come up with particular findings. Neither is true – but if I had not explored what to me was quite a burning issue, I would never have been able to conclusively say. 

So, it seems that the turnover around SPAs was entirely reasonable and, aside from the pandemic, normal – or if it was not, it would take a better ethnographer than me to find out. But it was a lead I’m glad I followed up on, and one that led to other, much more useful questions I explore in my final report.