Why Students Wait: Unpacking Academic Procrastination - Adventures in Advising

Brendan Caputo, director of student affairs at Long Island University, shares his inspiring path through higher education and his mission to support student success. From living on campus to leading LIU’s innovative Center for Student Success and Coaching, Caputo offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to build a responsive, student-centered support system. He dives into his research on academic procrastination—uncovering how intrinsic motivation can be a game-changer—and opens up about the importance of self-care and professional growth for those working in higher ed. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome to the adventures in advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and let's welcome our guest for today, and that is Dr. Brendan Caputo. Dr. Caputo is a seasoned higher education professional with nearly two decades of experience in academic advising and student affairs, currently serving as the Director of Student Affairs at Long Island University. Brendan is dedicated to fostering student success professional development and mentorship within the advising community. Brendan holds an EDD in educational leadership, where his dissertation focused on understanding academic procrastination and at risk college sophomores. He also earned two master's degrees, one in educational leadership and policy studies, and another in college student development counseling. His academic background is complemented by a BA in psychology. Throughout his career, Brendan has been a passionate advocate for student success and advisor development. He has presented at numerous conferences sharing insights on advising, motivation, professional development and student support. His research at work focused on two main areas, how mid level and senior staff can be or can better support new advisors to create a culture of mentorship and professional growth, and how advisors can help students identify and address academic procrastination to achieve holistic success. In his current role at Long Island University, Brendan oversees all co curricular and academic support services within the Division of Student Affairs. He leads retention efforts, manages division wide training and investigates conduct related situations to ensure a safe and supportive campus environment. Brendan, welcome to the podcast.

Brendan Caputo  
Thanks for having me, Matt. Very excited for today. 

Matt Markin  
Like we do with all interviews, I'd like to start off asking you, you know, we've read your bio, but can you go a little bit more from your bio, what's been your journey in higher ed?

Brendan Caputo  
Wow, good question. It's been quite a journey, I must say, let's see. I went to Stone Hill College as an undergrad, like you mentioned, got my BA in psychology, and really got involved there, started with student government, became an RA, was a three time orientation leader, and then someone encouraged me within student affairs to join student government. I ran for vice president, and I won. And for me, that really was the beginnings of what I knew that support meant in higher education, as for academic advising, I was mostly advised by the religion department faculty, so it was quite unique to being at a Catholic institution, and I really leaned on faculty more so than a centralized academic advising support system. And just finished college and decided I wanted to work with folks on the spectrum, so I immediately went to work, working with kids on the spectrum in like an at home setting, and determined very quickly that while I was good at it, it's it's quite an undertaking, and while it's a rewarding profession, I wanted to work with folks who were in college, um, perhaps folks on the spectrum, folks with disabilities, etc. And that's really how I got my start. I got a great break at Hofstra University, where I met someone while I was going for my first masters in higher education, Ellen Miller, who's fantastic. She's still at Hofstra. She decided to kind of take me under her wing and say, I think you'd make a great academic advisor. Why don't you come and work with the pre med team? I didn't really know what that was, because my only expertise, or I should say, my only experience with it, was working with the religion faculty, and that's how higher ed got started for me. Worked at Hofstra University as an academic advisor for about five years. Got the nudge to go into more into student activities. I did that for a year, and then realized I wanted to get back to working with underserved populations in an academic setting. Headed over to Malloy College, and spent the next 10 years there, probably doing everything under the sun. I was a tennis coach. I was an academic advisor. I worked for the TRiO program, where, basically the folks in the TRiO program very similar to Upward Bound, or SSS, really fueled my fire to want to go back to school. I wanted to understand why underserved populations were at risk, and what could at risk populations be? And that's when I went for my doctorate in education, stayed at Malloy for quite a while, doing a whole bunch of of roles, and made my way over here and now to Long Island University, where I spent the last two and a half years in two main roles. One is the director of promise. The office has now changed its name to the Center for Student Success and coaching. And as most institutions might think, you go to your academic advisor to the right and to the left is financial aid, and over there is Residence Life. The Center for Student Success and coaching is a one stop shop model that I helped to oversee now as Director of Student Affairs. So think of it of about pretty much anything regarding, you know, your student life, but that's been my journey so far. In the briefest nutshell, I know it's just the first question, but it's been very rich, and I've been very privileged and very lucky.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. Are you still doing sports coaching?

Brendan Caputo  
I had to give that up now, formally in the higher ed realm, but I do give tennis lessons on the side, and I still play about four times a week myself. Love tennis.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. So still staying active. That's great.Yeah, tell me. Tell me more about Long Island University.

Brendan Caputo  
So Long Island University is a division one institution. We're looking to obtain the next level of research. So we're very much a research driven institution. We have 38 athletic teams, and here we have, we're split up into two main campuses, although we have some other campuses as well further out on Long Island. But contrary to the name we we do have one campus that is not technically located on Long Island. It's in Brooklyn. The campus that I work in is Brookville. So sometimes people get them confused, Brooklyn, Brookville, two main campuses. We have a very robust campus life, and there's so much going on, we're located on the Gold Coast. So if you've ever seen anything like The Great Gatsby, we're located in what the Gold Coast would be in that book. And that's that's pretty much Long Island. We are known as the sharks. And here at the Lau, what I can say is students come from all different areas. I thought maybe Long Island University when I didn't know too much about and I started to doing, to do my research, even though I grew up on Long Island. Might have been all Long Islanders, and it's quite the opposite. I would say it's about 5050. We have people from so many different countries. We have athletes that come here from Norway and Sweden and Jamaica. It's it's incredible. So we have a pretty rich diversity here. And there is just so much to do. So love it here.

Matt Markin  
So you've been there now, you said, two and a half years. And then during that time being director of promise has been two and a half years as well. Or did that you transition into that? 

Brendan Caputo  
So, starting the beginning of the school year in September, as we change the name from promise to Center for Student Success and coaching is kind of when I started my transition over to the be the director of Student Affairs. 

Matt Markin  
I'm really intrigued by, like, this one stop kind of shop. I was hoping you can kind of go more in depth about how that's developed. And you know, anything you want to add about kind of how the structure is with with, with your office.

Brendan Caputo  
Sure, so think about it as a college student. Maybe we can put our college student hat on and you're new to college, and maybe you attend orientation, which the promise office, or Center for Student Success Office now helps to oversee once you leave orientation. I think in higher ed, we kind of find that unless there's some sort of guidance, you could get lost, right? So if I'm a I'm a freshman or a transfer student or a first time graduate student. Thanks for coming. Now, what right? So, what the Center for Student Success and coaching does, it's kind of a multi tiered leadership structure. Kind of the ground roots level that you would think about is your success coach. There are about 15 to 17 success coaches that kind of have two roles. Each. Everyone is an academic advisor, and then everyone has a secondary role, split up into residence, life, financial aid, service, learning or community service, clubs and organizations and academic and career success, and the list goes on. So every success coach is the perfect person for you, because they all work on the same floor. They all work in this open concept office where they get to feed off of each other. So if I'm an incoming first year student and I'm struggling academically, and I want to get connected to maybe a experiential learning, an internship I might go to my success coach, whose experience is more related to getting involved in clubs and organizations. But all I have to do is walk you over one desk and I'm talking to the person in charge of experiential. Learning, or if I have a problem with housing, or I'm like, You know what, I might want to change my room, or I'm looking for how my meal plan can be increased. They're all on the theme floor. Then there's associate directors that oversee each team. Recently, we've divided the team into first and second year and third and fourth year. That way, the services that are provided for each demographic of student is really based upon not just freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, but first and second and third and fourth give enough that if a student were to come in with credits, they're still pretty new, so they still need to receive some of the services that a new student would, whereas a third and fourth year team was focused really on internships, your clinical hours, those sorts of things. And then on top of that, there is a director. And the director oversees literally everything, clubs and organizations, all the events on campus, Student Conduct, and just kind of the holistic overview of what the staff would go over.

Matt Markin  
And do your success coaches have, like, a certain case load of students?

Brendan Caputo  
So, the case loads can vary. So folks in Residence Life, the success coaches in Residence Life, have a few less why? Well, because the safety of the well being of their the buildings, the folks in their buildings is important. So they're doing rounds in the buildings, and they're making sure that they're they are more on campus. So their caseload might be closer to 100 to 150 whereas maybe someone who does career or academic advising as their primary role would be closer to 250.

Matt Markin  
Nice. Just kind of thinking, I really love the concept of it, especially when you're talking about, like, well, if a student has a question, and you can just direct them to the person next to you, versus, like, go to this building on the other side of campus, find this room number, and hopefully you go and hopefully someone's there to help you.

Brendan Caputo  
And that's the beauty of the model, is if you are a student that is willing to seek out opportunity and seek out help, everything's on the same floor, and if you're a student that is not willing to seek out help and opportunity, you can't escape. You're right there, we're going to walk you over and make sure that at least you make the connection with the right person. So the model, in and of itself, really lends itself to to helping those who don't want help or might not know that they need it, or giving extra guidance to those who really want extra leadership opportunities and getting involved.

Matt Markin  
I guess because you also do a lot with, like, professional development, I would imagine that, like, if you have however many success coaches, and then they also kind of have, like a mini expertise in something, if a few years go by and they're like, I'm interested in now this other aspect I still want to do advising, potentially, there's an opportunity for them to professionally develop And and maybe go into, like another coordinating type role?

Brendan Caputo  
Yeah, I can think of one staff member off the top of my head there. They started within Greek life, right? Because we also have a very robust we have eight organizations here that are Greek lettered organizations. That person started as the person overseeing Greek life truly had an interest in doing more in the Residence Life area, and then, because everyone's a success coach, he really became very skilled at what each program needed. So yes, he was helping students get involved. By the time he was done with two and a half three years he became the person in charge of academic and career success meets with the faculty now to make sure that four year plans are accurate and graduation plans are accurate, and now is the person in charge of all kind of career stuff. So there is opportunity to move over if your area of expertise shifts, or if you wanted to change to maybe broaden what you're good at. 

Speaker 1  
I mean, again, you know, you mentioned, like the one stop shop. How's that for you? Though, as kind of the as a director, I would imagine day to day is always different, but I could also imagine it's a lot of work as well.

Brendan Caputo  
Absolutely. So, yes, I have learned a lot. There is a lot. When you are the director of the Center for Student Success and coaching, think about it right one minute you're walking in, and maybe something happened, maybe a student fell on campus, and I need to be alerted, and I need to make sure that we have emergency services for that student the very next hour, once I know that that student as well, I could be working with a family, an incoming family on a four year plan, and then turn and work with the person in charge of all of our events on campus to plan our next carnival, and then have a staff meeting going over professional development and going over the Financial Aid rules. You really have to take off a lot of those hats and put on new ones. But you learn very quickly that it's not necessarily about being able to do seven things at once. It's being able to do one thing really well at a time and then slowly shift.

Matt Markin  
No, absolutely. And one of the things that you know was mentioned your bio, you had a dissertation where you explored academic procrastination and at risk college sophomores. I was wondering if you can maybe talk a little bit more about that dissertation and kind of where the interest came from, for that particular topic?

Brendan Caputo  
Okay, let me tell you this. This is the for me. It's a little bit nerdy and a little bit part of how I grew and and developed. I don't think anybody goes to college thinking. I want to write a big paper on why people procrastinate. That's just that wasn't my intent, but I had Dr. Mary Ann Fallon was my first professor in psychology. She handed out an article from Tyson valmeister in 1997 why do we procrastinate? Why do college students procrastinate? And are there any benefits? I'm like, oh, that's going to be me. I'm going to show the world that there are benefits to procrastinating. That's how I got started reading that article. She asked me to do a presentation in front of the class on it, kind of debrief the class. And I wanted to know more. And so in my next psychology class, my professor asked me about two or three weeks before our sophomore thesis was due, what was my topic? And I'm like, Well, I have more time. I've got three weeks. I don't really have it right now. And she's like, well, you know, you can't really procrastinate on this. I'm like, Oh, my God, that's it. It's from my last class, I should do it. So that began my journey into researching and looking into procrastination. Little did I know, by the time I reached my senior year, there really are no benefits to procrastinating, for the most part, as I found in my research and then when I went on for both of my master's degrees, there are elements to academic procrastination. You know, within both of my master's degrees, when I went from my doctorate, was when I was able to do my research in the way that I wanted to do it. So why did I study sophomores? I think I kind of if we go back to one of the questions that you asked me earlier, we know that freshmen typically are seen as a vulnerable population at any college, but I wanted to know what happens when you complete that first year your university or your college has really gone to the 10th to the nth degree to really guide you. What happens when you come back for your second year? Do you fall off? Do you not? What habits do you find healthy or not? And I wanted to look at those that were already academically at risk for maybe not succeeding or not persisting. And so my research was on students who maybe came in having to take a remedial course or two from the start and look at their own metacognition, meaning they're thinking about thinking when they came in for their sophomore year. Did you even know that you might be a procrastinator? So I did a qualitative study looking at their own perceptions of their procrastination. I asked questions, I did interviews. I saw them around campus. I would stop them, ask them some questions there, and I found that really it's about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. That's a big piece of it. The students that claims not to be a procrastinator were the ones that had a lot of intrinsic motivation. They went to school and did their homework and studied because they enjoyed the joy of learning, the procrastinators were more the ones saying to me quotes like, well, as long as I get it done or I'm doing it for the grade, I'm doing it for that external reward, etc. There was, there was so much more that I learned in the dissertation, but what I learned the most, if there's one takeaway point from my dissertation was that students are generally aware as to whether or not they're delaying their task or not. They know it, but some of them either ignore those red flags, like this is happening, Oh, geez. What should I do next? And some of them say. Hey, wait a minute, I need to go find help. And so if we're looking at the outcomes of my dissertation, what was the number one solution? The antidote, as I like to say, to procrastinating it, was finding an accountability system or a community of learners. And so the students who developed from my study, which was kind of weird, that your study not only becomes the mode to ask questions, but also the solution. We had a couple of group sessions where I would ask group questions and students would bounce their ideas off of each other, etc. And when they left, a majority of them said, This is what I needed, an open area to speak with, a person asking questions, and other people in my situation who either are procrastinating or who aren't. And I want to hear how others fail and how others succeed. And so what I learned from that as part of the surprise, part of my findings was that students really wanted a level of support and community, and that's how they got through the procrastination. And the ones that didn't procrastinate really enjoyed that sort of mentorship role of like, look, I'm doing a good job. Let me help you. It was kind of this very altruistic, how can I help folks at my own university? So really, really cool finding can go into greater detail, but just is something that I continue to study and research today.

Speaker 1  
Did you have any of the students that were like, This is how I've always been, and I work better under pressure?

Brendan Caputo  
Yes, probably about a handful, let's say five students in my studies like, please don't try to change me. I don't want to be changed. If I wait until 10 o'clock the night before the paper is due, I do better. That was something I heard a lot, which the research does not support the research. Research shows that those that wait till later, even if the outcome is they got an A from the teacher, which is really what they were looking for, it didn't necessarily help them. Why? Well, folks who wait till last minute typically go to the doctor more often, right? So the research is clear that they are folks that report being sick, they, like I said, have more doctors visits. And even if their grade at a certain point of the semester is an A they typically have lower quality of work. So if you take objective measures and you look at the quality of their writing or the consistency of their grades, they can't produce the same consistency and quality of work that a non procrastinator would.

Speaker 1  
And with your study, because it was for sophomores. So are these softwares based off like their units, that they're at sophomore level or that they're a second year student?

Brendan Caputo  
So in the case of my study, with students who had 30 to 59 and a half credits, who came in having to take at least one remedial or college preparatory class. So that's how I define being a sophomore and being academically at risk.

Speaker 1  
And did they know there that they had the label at risk? 

Brendan Caputo  
No, they all knew. I mean, when they came into Malloy or when they came into their institution, they pretty much knew that they were going to have to take a college catch up class, so to speak. I never assigned the label of at risk. It was just one that I defined at the time. It's interesting because since then, one of my mentors in the academic realm has said, we're trying to move away from using the term at risk. And I totally I can appreciate that. It's just that the literature has not caught up to what is, what could be a better term that accurately describes them, so I pretty much just use at risk. I'm open if anyone's listening to this podcast, what are better ways that we can provide descriptors for our students, other than saying that they're at risk? 

Speaker 1  
I think a lot of people agree that with higher ed, things kind of take a while to change, especially in the scholarship of how long things just think of writing an article just even get it published from start to finish, how long that ends up taking? But, you know, let's say someone's listening to this and like this, all sounds great. You know, I'm an advisor. I'm success coach. You know, maybe it's a mentor. You know, I talk with students all the time. What can I do to help students maybe shift from procrastination or to have more proactive habits without, you know, shaming them or overwhelming them.

Brendan Caputo  
Yeah, I think you're kind of the way that you led. The last question was very accurate. Have I ever had a student that said this is always the way that I've been to. Typically students don't enter college and say, Okay, I want to start procrastinating now. They probably it's a learned behavior from high school or middle school or growing up. And chances are, the research shows that 20% of those that procrastinate are chronic procrastinators or habitual procrastinators, which means they do it across the board, not just in academics, but in their chores, putting away their clothes, making sure that they have their day set having their clothes laid out, all that stuff. So you're not just looking at one area of a student's life, you're looking at the totality of it. So what would I tell an advisor? What do I tell my team right now as to how to help the procrastinator? The first thing is to start not by labeling. It's to start by asking open ended questions. How do you study what are the types of of habits that you have around your academics? Who are the people that you lean on when you're struggling. What resources have you already used on campus? And what resources do you want to know more about, perhaps in our next advising session or in a workshop, etc? That's where I would start if you're able to have one on one, meaningful, holistic conversation, as we know, in higher education, especially in academic advising, some folks probably listening have case work case loads of upwards of 400-500 students. So the one on one interaction is a little bit hard, so I've developed kind of this problem solving model. It's called as well. It's based upon Aspen wall and Taylor's proactive coping for stress. You can look it up in a simple engine search, Aspen wall and Taylor's proactive stage, stages of proactive coping for stress. Okay, the first thing that you would want to ask your students, even if you want to put it in an email, can you look at the resources you already have in your own tank? That could mean family support, financial support, a financial aid office, an academic advisor, Student Affairs, etc. The next step would be take a look at scanning your environment. This is the awareness part that I think we skip over as higher ed professionals, because we like to ask questions and then go and do the solution you have to allow a student, whether it's in an email or a survey, are you aware of potential stressors in your life? Are you aware that you procrastinate on certain types of activities, whether it's a certain class or not, right? Then the next step is, if I have procrastinated on something and I'm in it like, wow, it's five hours before the paper, What Do I Do? Do I realize it does that red flag go off, right? And then skipping forward just a little bit when I get to the end, which I believe is the most important part of the process for the advisor, is there a reflection phase. So if a student really has very limited ability to look back and see, I put that paper off until last minute. I did not study. I didn't seek guidance or help. Do they have the ability to reflect? So if you're an advisor and you're listening, maybe sometimes a good idea is every other week, what I used to do sending just one quick email saying, hey, what were what was the highlight of your week, what was the low light of your week, and what was something that you're very proud of. It asks in three very simple questions for a student to really look at their week holistically, or their semester holistically, just gets them thinking. So that's a good way for advisors to get started on how to help their students who procrastinate. 

Speaker 1  
I like how you mentioned, like, even it's an email, or if it's an appointment, asking the student, but the highlight of the week? Because I think a lot of times, if a student meets with us, it's always talking about potentially something negative, about a lower grade, or, you know, dropping a class or something, but not like, Well, what was the highlight? What was the positive going on?

Brendan Caputo  
And, you know what, too, Matt, like for me, I'm a big believer that the things you do really, really well are the things that it's just a higher version or the other end of the scale of the things that maybe you don't do well. So I often hear students say, because one of the reasons we procrastinate is because we have fear, right? So let's look at that for a moment. Like I'm afraid that I'm going to get a bad grade. I'm afraid the teacher won't like what I write or say in class. That's realistic. You're in a new environment with a new teacher, someone maybe you don't know very well, and so you're scared. That's normal to have. You. What do we do after that? So do we take it to the next level and be courageous and write what we really think or ask questions early on, so that we don't have to be five hours before our paper is due? So what we do really, really well and asking that question that can be a great reminder that fear was the first thing I remember. But what did I do as a result of that? Did I ask questions ahead of time, or did I wait till last minute? 

Speaker 1  
Kind of thinking like, you know, in an appointment, we only have so much time with that student. But also it's like, what trust have we built with that student to feel that they can be open and tell us what's really going on. You know, because we can ask open question, open ended questions all day. But I think sometimes a student might think I'm going to maybe give the answer that I think my advisor wants to hear, and then we end up not really helping the student. I mean, especially, like, if it's Hey, I see that you're not doing well in this current class, tell me what's going on. And they might say, like, I'm, you know, I'm studying. I'm studying. A question I like to ask students in those type of situations is like, Well, tell me what your process was like with your studying leading up to this exam. Like, how many days in advance Did you prepare for it? And I think it's asking a lot of those, like, very specific type questions too, in addition to, like, some of these open ended ones, to really, kind of get the broader picture of, okay, what really is going on versus what the student might be saying.

Brendan Caputo  
That's a good strategy. And for me, I would add one last thing, is that maybe the follow up is equally as important as the conversation. So if you're a great listener, which I know that you are, if you're a great listener and you're listening to a student, maybe you're jotting down some notes. The questions that you ask in that session will very likely pay dividends when you are following up with them a few days later, because perhaps face to face, they lacked the either awareness or the courage, at the moment, to give you that answer, but later on, can really synthesize a very cogent response, or a follow up appointment with you to go, you know what? I am really struggling with that, and I put it off, or I've recognized a better pattern. Can we talk about that? 

Speaker 1  
And I get that like, you know, we have, lot of us have large case loads and, you know, but we can always still do that follow up. And, you know, yes, we might have that 15 to 30 minutes in that appointment, but we don't have to squeeze every single type of topic. You know, if it's one where it's like, I think this, let's say procrastination, or the time management, or whatever it might be, let's focus on it, because we have this moment right now. And if we can improve on this, or help guide we can always follow up on the other stuff later. Exactly, want to get your opinion on this, you know, because we're talking about procrastination with students. But I would also imagine, as higher ed professionals, some of us might also procrastinate. What's your thoughts on that? Any advice?

Brendan Caputo  
Totally real. I do it myself. I never really was a procrastinator. I don't know what has happened, but I think it's just that we've all gotten so busy. So what I can say for folks in higher ed, if you're an advisor, you probably are mislabeling. Feel like there's a theme lately, but you might be mislabeling procrastination, putting something off because you have too much to do, or you need to meet a certain deadline, or you're reprioritizing is not procrastination. It's just figuring out in a world where advisors are being asked to do more, our case loads have more. There's more holistic things that need to be discussed with each student, and then when we get home, the world is busier than ever, so our ability to decompress after a really long day becomes very difficult. So I do understand that some of what happens to let's say you're a director and you're listening to this or a mid level professional, it might be perceived that your staff is procrastinating. I would re examine that with your staff in a real conversation, whether it's one on one, or with a group to say, like, maybe they're not. Maybe they just have a lot and they need help. Reprioritizing procrastination, by its very true definition, is consciously knowing that putting off a task will have more harmful effects than it will good. And sometimes, I think, as advisors, we just we know that we have to put something off because there is a specific expectation, right? So it is, it is real. But for those that are procrastinating, a really cool tool is just simply asking, how invested Are you in the work that you're doing right now? And if you're truly invested. And being an academic advisor and helping out a student grow holistically, then I think you're able to kind of see that there are things that you need to reprioritize. It's the folks that don't have that sense of awareness that I think that question might start to trigger a little bit of a thought for them.

Speaker 1  
What about advisors that you know they've been in the game. They love what they do. They like meeting with their students and helping their students succeed. But maybe it's to a point where they they have some of that compassion fatigue or that burnout, like, how do you as a leader? I guess maybe see that going on and help your staff.

Brendan Caputo  
Yeah, one thing that I do I have work together Wednesdays. So every Wednesday at noon, our staff has the opportunity to come to my office and just decompress. So sometimes that means they're overwhelmed or overwrought with, you know, Brendan, you'll never guess the student had this happen in their life, and then they had this, and then they had that. It's a chance for them to talk it through if they want guidance, or they get to start their statement with, I just want you to listen, right? I mean, I'm not, while I have a degree in counseling, I'm not a certified counselor, so I never provide certified advice, so to speak, but I provide Brendan's advice, and typically it's come to my office. And there's also a zoom link for those that can't attend in person, you need to just take a quick moment for yourself. I had someone call me the other day from another institution, not someone currently here at Liu, excuse me. And she said to me, she goes, Brendan. I'm so overwhelmed, I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, and I really feel for my students. What do I do? I'm like, Well, did you get a drink of water today? No, but you don't understand. I'm really busy. Like, no, no, I get it. I think you need to take just a moment. And if that means you need to excuse yourself to use the restroom and take three minutes instead of two, then maybe that's what you need. But I think higher ed can do a better job in providing intentional spaces and intentional time periods, where not just academic advisors, but all professionals can take a moment to decompress, because I think we are living in a world that's ever changing and rapidly changing, and it's just natural as a human being to say, Oh, Matt, what is going on with you? And then I take that home with me, and that's exhausting. 

Brendan Caputo  
Now I can, and there are going to be those times where it's going to be go, go, and, but yeah, like you're saying you can take a pause, like things will get done. I mean, especially in peak registration time, when it's work, if you booked for weeks in advance, you got to have those moments where you can take that pause, or take that at least mini break, because you still, you know you're going to run out of gas at some point. Yeah. So, oh and so you call it a what was it on Wednesdays? What's the actual term? 

Brendan Caputo  
Work together Wednesdays. 

Speaker 1  
But I guess, what does that do for you? Though? Like having to hear all take all this in, what are you doing for your wellness?

Brendan Caputo  
Well, I have my own mentorship group outside of higher education, so it's a group of young male professionals who understand what it's like to be in a helping profession. So it's not just all academic advisors. Some folks are even outside of higher ed, and we talk about the struggles of what it means to be a male in a helping profession, because that has its own stigma. Some folks talk about what it's like to go home to a family and kids after a really long day, and some folks talk about what it's like to go home to a place where they don't have a partner and they really don't have many built in outlets. This sort of of network, professional network, allows us to sometimes deal with very difficult situations and sometimes just say, like, I'm overwhelmed. Are you? Are we in the same boat? So I think that's been really helpful. And then I also think having a physical outlet, like for me, tennis is very important. I'm working on a 10,000 steps a month challenge, or 10,000 steps a day for a month challenge, which is really helpful. And I also meditate every single morning for at least 20 minutes. It's helps me set my intentions for the day, so little things like that.

Matt Markin  
How are the steps going so far?

Brendan Caputo  
So far, so good. Because I like to walk and play tennis both on the same day and really take it to the limit. I just hurt my foot. So the steps are not going so good. Great. But what's great about those automated tennis machines? They spit out the balls in one spot. You don't have to move. So I'm not stopping. I'm still going with what helps me, at least.

Matt Markin  
At least you still remain active.

Brendan Caputo  
So yeah, very much. 

Matt Markin  
But I want to talk about the mentorship piece you know you've done. You've done extensive work on advisor, motivation and mentorship, I guess. What's your advice for leaders? You know, maybe director, Assistant Directors of staff, you know how they can maybe help build a stronger mentorship culture among their own staff?

Brendan Caputo  
Sure, I've been saying this for about 10 years, and I haven't been a director for 10 years, but it just has come naturally. We are human beings, not human doings, so we're allowed to exist. And if you're a mid level professional or an executive level professional, and you're listening right now, my advice to you would be that it's okay to not know everything, right in a world where we have aI at our fingertips, you've done great work on your podcast with interviewing folks on about artificial intelligence, and it's very helpful. But what I have found, as you know somebody that oversees a lot of people is those in the middle feel the need to gather more information, because they feel as though if their staff and the team that reports to them and their students has more information, they're going to be more equipped. What I would argue is that it's not that people need more information. They need to synthesize the information better. They need to be able to sift through the patterns of data. So I would encourage anyone mid level, if we're just talking about the intellectual component of like, how do I intellectually and organizationally better manage my team as a mid level or executive level professional help yourself and help your staff sift through data and provide meaningful patterns of where are we with retention? Where are we with the humanistic component of our student? How are our levels going? Where? What's the vibe happening here? I don't think we need more data. I think we need to do a better job of managing the data that we have.

Speaker 1  
100% agree with that. Can you share an example, maybe like a professional development initiative or training that that you've done or been a part of, that you feel has been really kind of had that meaningful, been very impacted, or has had a meaningful impact on your advising team?

Brendan Caputo  
Sure. So when I was director of the Center for Student Success and coaching every single week for 15 minutes, so this doesn't require a lot of time, for about a year and a half, so a year and a half of my two year tenure as director, we did professional development in our staff meetings. So on a rotating sign up as you want basis, every single member of the staff, from person who entered two days ago to person who's been here 20 years, would train the staff on something that was either interesting to them, new, exciting or needed. Or they can invite an outside guest speaker, virtually or in person, and that was a game changer, because typically, I mean, I'm not old, but my staff is much younger. Sometimes they joke and they're like, hey, you know, you've been in this field so long, you know, share your pearls of wisdom. I'm like, but what I try to do is flip the script like you're young, so you've got energy, you've got motivation, you've got a fresh eye. Teach me, so we've had everything from like, you know, all of the self care things to, you know, the newest financial aid guidelines to like, what it means to work across, you know academic departments, even what it's like to work with other schools, and what I have found, sure, the information is great, but getting up and practicing a presentation in front of your fellow staff, having conversations, sometimes difficult conversations, about Hot Topic issues that are going on in our world about religion or or what's going on in terms of new laws that are changing, or what's happening, we're able to be honest in a safe setting, and the person who's in charge of that 15 minutes of that meeting becomes a facilitator, a de facto facilitator, where they try to manage what It means to have a room of people with very differing opinions. To me, that has been something that has continued, even though I'm not the director of that office anymore, and I don't know, I just it's been very impactful for the team, and it's been impactful for me.

Speaker 1  
Oh, that's like that you have. They get the kind of professional development, maybe indirectly, that they don't know of by doing that, but everyone gets a chance to participate, and because we all know something, so they can actually feel they're part of doing something for the larger good for everyone that's there.

Brendan Caputo  
Exactly. And people don't like the word icebreaker anymore. I have found so replacing a five minute icebreaker with a 15 minute topic that you're really passionate about, it's a win, win.

Brendan Caputo  
Oh, I would agree. I like, I I don't like ice the term icebreaker, you know, I'm like, Can we skip that and move on to something else? But like, something like this, I could definitely get get behind. Now, we were talking like, you know, a couple months ago, talking about potentially doing a podcast interview you had mentioned that you also live on campus. Is that correct?

Brendan Caputo  
That's correct. I live on campus.

Speaker 1  
So tell me about kind of that experience, how that all came about and and I guess, how that's all going.

Brendan Caputo  
Well for selfish reasons, I mean, it's great because my commute is like, four minutes, so how awesome. I don't have to waste gas on driving car. Don't have to take public transportation. I can walk to work every single day. It's fantastic. It's also really cool, because I get to see the students sometimes in a different light. Nine to five, the team and myself are helping with academic advising and Residence Life and student activities, etc. There's something about the after five vibe that students are a different person, right? And may I'm a different person too. So when I used to have a dog, I would walk my dog around campus, and, you know, no one cared about me. They would want to see the dog, which is great. And you got to follow up with a student, informally, like, So, how you doing? How's that going? So I think that's really cool. But I was very blessed. I was in a transition in my life where moving to the place where I worked was really, really helpful, and because I serve as part of an on call rotation, it's really nice to not have to in case there is an emergency travel to campus. So I'm part of a team of professionals who serves in an on call rotation. We have a tiered level so everyone knows what an RA is, and an RA would assess if there's an emergency, but the RA would call up to the on call administrator. The on call administrator would assess to see what they could do. They're typically a residence director, and then if, for some reason something needed to be escalated. They would call me or another team member that's on what we call a secondary rotation. And in the world that we live in today, where mental health is so important and it's important to respond efficiently and appropriately, I would get the phone call to maybe originally chat with the student and refer them to our counselor on call or to show up at the scene. And it's, it's very helpful to be able to respond very quickly in a very timely manner when I'm here on campus. And then, last but not least, it's, it's a beautiful place. Just Long Island University is a beautiful place. It's very green. It's very lush. It's very much what you think about a traditional college campus. I have all of that at my fingertips. It's basically like this beautiful suite, and everything that you could think of, you know, is is right here. So it's really nice. Other people on call also have their own place. And so if you're looking to work at an institution that potentially could, you could be an academic advisor and have that secondary role while also being on call. You gain crisis management and emergency management experience, and you want a place to live like, it's a pretty good deal.

Matt Markin  
Yeah. I mean, I think people listening me included, it's like, yeah, don't have to get in the car and and drive and be stuck in traffic, Oh, I get to get up and walk to walk to my job that that's awesome being on call, like, were you provided any like, extra training for this kind of extra role that you're doing?

Brendan Caputo  
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, that was probably one of the first things that upper administration so our vice presidents and our emergency management team, Public Safety Center for Healthy Living, which is like our counseling center, any outside sources, like we have local places for domestic violence or suicide prevention, etc, all of that was provided for us. And then as director, and now director of Student Affairs, I'm kind of in charge of overseeing that that doesn't become a one time only training, right? So it ties into my wheelhouse of like, we need to update this consistently. Does the manual need to be changed? Do we need different on call? Phones? Should our chain of command be different? So there's lots and lots of training. So if you were thinking like, hey, I want to work at Lau, and I might want to be on call, but I'm really, really scared that I'm not going to be able to handle this situation. A, you're going to get training and B, for the first, like, six months, you really don't do it alone. If you're secondary, you have, like, a backup secondary, who you would call to say, I'm not quite sure how to handle this. How can I move forward?

Matt Markin  
Well, I imagine, for your day to day, yeah, it's never a dull moment. There's always something going on. But it also allows, in your role to really kind of consistently self reflect and just look at, well, what's our processes right now? Why do we have this? How do we need to update? Do we need to try to change it? So you're definitely a change maker every day.

Brendan Caputo  
I hope so.

Matt Markin  
But I really enjoyed this interview. I mean, we've covered a lot of different topics, and I feel like we could go on for another couple hours, but we have reached our time. But Brandon, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. 

Brendan Caputo  
Thank you so much, Matt, and I appreciate the work that you do. I'm sure everyone listening does and congratulations on your award. You have Well well well deserved it.

Matt Markin  
I appreciate that that. Thank you