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  • The #SAgrow - more than a hashtag

    By Eric Stoller November 17, 2010 4:45 am EST

    It all started when Brian LeDuc, a Graduate Hall Director at Texas A&M University, put out a call on his blog for student affairs graduate students to participate in a new twitter hashtag: #sagrad. The concept was simple. Modeled after the #sachat hashtag, the "grad" group would form a Twitter-based digital cohort of student affairs graduate students. The #sagrad hashtag has been tremendously active. Students have been including the hashtag in their student affairs-related tweets and a weekly chat (moderated by @SAGradMOD) has been taking place on Monday nights at 7PM EST. Topics for the chat have included: professionalism, national job search tips, summer internships, and professional development opportunities. LeDuc has been instrumental in getting the hashtag and chat up and running. LeDuc "built the logistics around making the chat successful: creating polls, recruiting moderators for our discussions, and posting transcripts." Throughout the entire process, LeDuc has been excited by the response to #sagrad: "We're all the voice; without a collaborative vision and purpose behind it, it's just any other hashtag."

    On November 2nd, Ed Cabellon, a mainstay in the student affairs social media community, asked a terrific question: "It would be interesting to see if any #sachat pros would be interested in mentoring #sagrad's." Cabellon's tweet was answered by Tina Horvath: "Creating mentoring connections for #sagrad with willing #sachat pros has limitless possibilities." Cabellon created separate sign-up forms within Google Docs for #sachat members (mentors) and for #sagrad students (mentees). Participants in the newly minted "#SAgrow" community were matched up by Cabellon in an effort to "grow" the profession of student affairs. At present, 62 student affairs professionals have been matched up with 62 graduate students.

    I had my first conversation with my #SAgrow mentee today...via the luck of the draw, I get to be Brian LeDuc's #SAgrow mentor. We spoke for an hour and I am thoroughly excited to get to know Brian and to support his endeavors as an up-and-coming student affairs professional.

    Twitter has proven to be an amazing communications tool for connecting groups of people. I love how student affairs professionals have used Twitter to create community and expand opportunities for mentoring.

    Do you tweet? Let's connect. Follow me on Twitter: @EricStoller...and don't forget to follow my new mentee: @BrianFLeDuc. He's awesome!

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Comments on The #SAgrow - more than a hashtag

  • Posted by Brian LeDuc on November 17, 2010 at 9:00am EST
  • Thanks for the shoutout, Eric! It has been incredible to watch the community grow; without the amazing foundation and model developed through #sachat,I'm certain the call (and opportunity) for #sagrad would have been far less viral. I'm so appreciative of their creation, and what innovators like Ed are doing to bring the community together!

    - Brian
  • Another Shoutout for Brian
  • Posted by Deb Taub , Professor, Higher Education at UNCG on November 17, 2010 at 10:00am EST
  • It has been a pleasure for me, as a Student Affairs/Higher Ed faculty member, to see the success of @BrianLeDuc's #sagrad. Grad students (and some prospective grad students) are finding each other to provide support (and challenge), answer questions, and share ideas and stories. I will be interested to follow (no Twitter pun intended) the development of #sagrad -- and the grads I have met through it already.
  • Thanks for featuring!
  • Posted by Kathy Petras , Assistant Director of Student Life at Baldwin-Wallace College on November 17, 2010 at 10:45am EST
  • Thanks for featuring this on your blog Eric! It's been so exciting to be a part of this community & to start working with my own mentee. I'm proud of Brian for getting #sagrad going as well. Having been able to work with him this summer, it's good to see that all the great things he did here weren't a fluke. ;-)
  • Posted by Ed Cabellon , Director, Rondileau Campus Center at Bridgewater State University on November 17, 2010 at 10:45am EST
  • Thank you Eric for your mention above, but all credit goes to Brian for starting this whole thing. It is fascinating watching all the Student Affairs communities grow online and I look forward to seeing where it goes next :-)
  • Jealous of Brian
  • Posted by Jeff Jackson , Podcastor at BreakDrink.com on November 18, 2010 at 9:15pm EST
  • I want Eric to be my mentor.
  • Posted by Brian LeDuc on November 19, 2010 at 1:15pm EST
  • This thread is too kind and brightened my Friday. Thank you all for the support; this is a perfect example of why the Student Affairs community on Twitter is so vibrant (and hysterical, re: Jeff Jackson)!

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