Transcript
In the Lounge with Billy Boulden
Billy Boulden (00:00):
Name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (00:07):
Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of "In the Lounge." On this podcast, we meet with experts from the higher education field to share ideas, learn from their experiences, talk about new trends we're seeing, and get an unseen perspective of what's going on in the space. If you have any questions for my guests today, just send them over in an email and we'll get back to you with an answer. My email is dominic@lounge.live.
Today we're in the lounge with Billy Boulden. Billy is Assistant Dean of Students for Development and Student Leadership at Iowa State and the Director of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement. He has held various leadership positions at AFA and NACA. He has won a number of awards and has been honored by various organizations throughout his work spanning nearly two decades, including Campus Administrator of the Year in 2016 by Chi Phi Fraternity and FSL Advisor of the Year by Beta Theta Pi in 2018.
He's a speaker, a volunteer, and a coach. He's one of the best people to know in the space, and it's a pleasure to be chatting with him today. Billy, welcome. Thanks for joining me.
Billy Boulden (01:21):
Yeah, thanks Dominic. I'm excited to be here.
Dominic (01:22):
Billy, you and I have talked a lot about various components of fraternity and sorority life over the past years that we've known each other. One of my favorite things about you is that you have an ability to create these perfect analogies for themes that come up in the space. And that's not to create any pressure on you for this podcast, but more for people to know that your passion and knowledge of higher education is remarkable. And you do such a good job of sort of synthesizing and delivering thoughts in a way that's understandable and eye-opening.
I don't often just start a podcast with a bunch of compliments, but I felt like I had to today with you. But look, you've had a major impact on students and peers throughout your career, myself included. Can you tell us why you got into this space?
Billy Boulden (01:52 — Journey into Higher Education by Accident):
Yeah, I think it's actually a really, really great question. I got into higher education kind of by accident. It wasn't my plan. I was a classic over-involved student. So I played two sports in college. I was in a fraternity. I was in student government. I was in the school paper as an editor. You know, I did a ton of things in college and my original plan was to go to law school after I graduated. And I just needed a break from school.
And so I was given the opportunity to work for my national fraternity as a consultant right out of college and got to travel around the country and open some new chapters and then got to work, specifically just kind of coaching some of our existing chapters through their operations. And I really learned in that experience how cool of a job that was and how people could work in higher education as a career field. I didn't even know it existed. Even though I had people that I worked with on campus as an undergrad, I had advisors, I had people that helped me out, had campus administrators, did a lot of things. It just never dawned on me that they actually got paid to be there.
Dominic (03:00):
Did you kind of know what you were getting yourself into or did it come as a surprise once you were in it?
Billy Boulden (03:06):
A little bit of both, I mean, definitely working with a fraternity was a surprise. Like I didn't really know what I was getting into. I mean, we had great training and great resources, but I didn't necessarily understand the full picture of what it was. And then as I started meeting with campus professionals through that role, that's when I think I kind of learned of like, "Oh, this is a whole job. This is a career path and this is what you can do. And this is why this is important." And then obviously I went into higher ed and started working on campuses after that and just shaped my experience differently.
Dominic (03:31):
Amazing. Fast forwarding to today, what does your day-to-day look like in these roles as an assistant dean of Iowa State, but also as an FSL director? What does that look like?
Billy Boulden (03:38 — Day-to-Day as Assistant Dean & FSL Director):
Yeah, I mean, transparently, a lot of my job is meetings, probably the part that I don't love. But I mean, there's a necessary piece to that, right? And, you know, collaborating with campus partners or, you know, setting agendas or working through crisis or risk management issues, I think is an important component of what my job is at this point in my career. But it's also the one-on-one meetings that I have with students and coaching them in their work and their efforts. And I think that's the part that has been really rewarding to me throughout my career is being able to sit with a student and help them wrestle the monster that's in front of them that they're trying to navigate and help find resources and support and strategies for them to be resilient and overcome those challenges. And hopefully helping students build that capacity that they can do that on their own beyond their experience of their time with me.
Dominic (04:30):
And do you think that's something as a skill set for you that you've been able to kind of grow and nurture? Is it something that you've always been maybe a strength of yours or is it something that again sort of comes with time?
Billy Boulden (04:42):
Transparently, I would say all the above. I think I'm incredibly talented at it. And I think I'm horrible at it. Yeah, I mean, I genuinely mean that. I mean, I think there's students that I have met with over my career who I've tried to help them and how to work with them. And I just was not the right one to make the connection to help that student. Even though my advice may have worked, it didn't work for that student. And they would have been better off meeting and connecting with somebody else. And so I think there's a power in team and also understanding of like, "Hey, I'm not resonating with this," or my approach isn't coming off with the student and who I work with. Absolutely.
Dominic (05:13):
And that can be a skill itself, identifying that maybe you're not the right fit at that time.
Billy Boulden (05:18):
Yes, absolutely. And figure out who is, right? What does that look like? Or where do I have to gain more capacity? You know, I had a staff member who worked for me years ago and she wasn't a big sports fan. But a lot of the students that she ended up meeting with were students that were diehard sports fans. They all had a team. And so she came into my office one day and said, "I'm going to pick a team."
Like, what do you mean? She's like, "I need a professional sports team in every sport." And so she did. And then she started following those teams and started learning about those teams. So then when she came in and she had somebody that was like, "Oh, I love football." And she was like, "Oh, what did you see, you know, XYZ team play this weekend?" And they're like, "No." She's like, "Well, that's my favorite team." And they didn't play well, but you know.
Dominic (05:55):
That's a great way to handle that situation, or at least finding something that you can connect with. I think it goes even outside of just connections with students or the folks that you're directly advising. That's true for your whole career, for your whole life. It's like finding—Yeah.
Billy Boulden (06:09):
I think it's just a care for people, right? And it is not that she was never not into sports. She just she wasn't a diehard fan, right? She just kind of casually liked sports and so something triggered her to say, "You know, I know I really got to pick a team. I'm gonna learn more." And I think that happens to a lot of us in our careers. We need to learn more. We need to learn more about different populations, different people, different experiences. We may never fully understand it enough, but if that gives us enough resource to be able to, you know, start a conversation with some students or engage them in a way that's different than before, I think it's really helpful.
Dominic (06:40):
In terms of like your favorite areas of focus, can you tell us a little bit about kind of what draws you most to the work you do, maybe more recently what you've been focusing on in your study or in your field?
Billy Boulden (06:52 — Focus on Leadership Development):
I mean, leadership studies has always been a guiding factor for me. I was very fortunate as an undergrad to have the opportunity to experience a really university-supported leadership studies co-curricular experience. And so I was able to earn a minor in leadership studies and also have this out-of-classroom experience that was incredibly developmental for me. And I think throughout my career, I've kind of constantly seen that come back is how can we help develop skills or abilities to lead others? And so that's a framework that I really rely on in my day-to-day work, because I'm meeting with students. That's kind of the question. I'm like, "Okay, well, if you were to present this to your fraternity or your sorority or your student organization"—I do some student organization work—"what would be their response? Are they going to buy into this?" And they're like, "Well, they'll just do it because I told them to." "Are they really going to do it?" Like, they might not, right?
How do you make those connections? How do you lead and how do you create that buy-in? And seeing and watching students grow and learn in that way. I've got a student right now that I've always thought they were a good leader since the beginning, since they took over in their role and position. I thought they were a strong leader. There's some things that I've noticed over the last four, five months and I'm like, "Man, I wish I had more time with this student because there's some things that I think could have really elevated their cause." And in some of that, they had to learn. They had an event which could have been way better, but it was still a good event. And so the student and I were kind of processing that of like, "You know, what are all these things that we could have done? Some things different that we could have moved forward differently or how we could have tied with something?" And they had really great reflection and they were able to kind of showcase this whole other vision and plan for what they would do differently. I'm like, "That's what really jazzes me up." It's kind of seeing students have this experience in which they're growing, they're learning, but even when they don't, they understand like what they need to do in the next situation to be a better leader.
Dominic (08:39):
And the sort of post-game analysis, I think is so interesting too, being able to sit with them and say, "Look, here's what happened or here's what didn't happen." It's not so much about like the front-end side of saying, "This is how being a leader can be effective," but it's so much about learning from actually doing it. And I think what's interesting is the fraternity and sorority space is so much about leadership. I think it's such a repetitive theme that we see, and it is so much about why we do what we do and why folks join fraternities and sororities, and it's something that they carry onward into their later adult life and their careers. And I think it makes a lot of sense that it's something that you resonate a lot with because, yeah, it can be such a huge impact from that point in university all the way through the rest of their life.
Billy Boulden (09:20 — The Million-Dollar Organization Analogy):
And I think that's a point that's maybe understated sometimes too. And not everyone's the same way, right? Fraternities and sorority communities are not all the same way. They don't have the same resources or the same students. Here at Iowa State, because we have larger chapters, because a lot of our chapters have housing and meal plans associated with their expenses, fraternities and sororities are unique here in that in any given year, they'll see almost a million dollars of revenue come into the organization, right, through dues. So they'll see income of about a million dollars, whether that's for housing, meal plans, dues, et cetera.
Hundreds of members, right? They'll probably have a million minus $1 in expenses for those things also, right? They get a new president every year. Let's call the president the CEO, okay? So they get a new CEO every year. And in a four-year plan, they'll have 100% turnover of members. Let's call those employees, right? So name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (10:15):
Exactly. Yeah, that's such good perspective. I think that's what I was talking about early on in my introduction to you. That is the kind of perspective that you're able to give to folks. There's another piece that you shared with me a few months ago in the same vein of, I think it was more particularly to event management, but in terms of the work that these students have to do and that we're kind of asking them to do, it is so unique. And when you put in perspective kind of what they're being asked to do, it really helps us understand and it helps leadership understand, "Okay, how can we best help them?" And I think that connection is really something you do well. I'm going to butcher this, but I think it was something along the lines of "name an event that has this"—you can probably do a better job than I can. How does it go?
Billy Boulden (11:19):
Yeah, name an event that has over 400 guests at the party. Outside of the party, take it outside of fraternity and sorority context. What do you call an event that has over 400 people as guests? And yeah, the answer to it would be a wedding. So think about somebody you know that's planned a wedding. How long have they been planning their wedding?
Dominic (11:24):
That's right. Of course I forgot the other side of it. About a year, about, at least.
Billy Boulden (11:39):
At least, right? I know people that plan their wedding for 25 years, right? Since the first time they thought about going to a wedding, they started planning what the details would be and all those types of things. So you think like on the short end, we got 25, 30, 40 years of wedding planning. On the short end, we're talking six months to a year to have a party with 400 people. Our collegians think they can pull that off on the same day, right? And manage all the risk and how the details match and things like that. And it's just not the case, right? We need time to plan out to make sure that we have our I's dotted and our T's crossed and that we're having a fun event, but also a safe one.
Dominic (12:13):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're one of the—I think your work in risk management and some of those best practices stands out. I think, you know, you travel a lot to other universities, you speak, can you tell us a little bit about what it's like speaking at other universities, what your favorite part about that is, and share a little bit about that journey and that sort of side of your life?
Billy Boulden (12:31 — Speaking & Risk Management Work):
Well, you know, I think a big thing is trying to be helpful. When I first started traveling and speaking to other schools, I think one of the things I was concerned about was I didn't want to be this guy that just comes in and cashes a check, right? Like, so I tried to be different and I tried to be something that could be a support system. And some people just want you to come in and talk, right? Okay, so we'll do that, right? But I think when I have an opportunity to go in and actually help a community to think about the culture that they're trying to create within their organization and to think about the progress they've made, the steps they're taking, and kind of what the next step is. That's when it's most rewarding for me. That's when I enjoy the experience the most. I want to be helpful. I want to be someone that gives back, and I want to be someone that inspires people to do it better than we did. My generation did a lot of things wrong, right? That's why we have a lot of rules and policies. I think about something like, you know, driving down the interstate. When did we create speed limits? Right? At some point in time, there wasn't a speed limit. You can only go as fast as the horse could run. Right? But then we started getting cars and we needed speed limits for safety and security for people. Right? And so it's a necessary rule that we learned. Same thing has happened in sorority, fraternity, and student organizations that we've learned over time. And we have some more guardrails up to help kind of keep people in line and keep them safe.
Dominic (13:42):
Yeah. And what has changed or I guess over your time at Iowa State, what are some of the things that you've seen change and related to that, what are the things that you're most proud of that maybe you had a role in changing?
Billy Boulden (13:54 — Values vs. Principles in Organizational Change):
Yeah, I mean, I think change is inevitable. And I think that that's something that we don't want to talk about enough. That things can't stay the exact same way that they have to forever. But there's components that can be. And I think it's helping people understand what is really critical to us and what needs to be there. And without becoming the analogy guy, I've got another one for you.
Dominic (14:15):
Okay, great.
Billy Boulden (14:16):
I would argue that our values change over time and our principles remain constant over time. What is the difference between values and principles?
Dominic (14:25):
I'd say values are things we like and care about and principles are things that we sort of are almost rules or things that we live our lives by. That would be my definition.
Billy Boulden (14:34):
Yeah, so I think it's pretty good. I would buy those. So I drive a truck. My truck needs gas to go. I know there's a lot of vehicles and all that kind of stuff. My truck's not an electric vehicle, right? My truck needs gas. The principle of needing gas in my truck has remained constant from the time that—this morning when I filled up gas was $2.78. Six months ago I was paying $3.35. I was out in California, I was paying $6. The value of gasoline is different. Different at different places, it's different at different times. It changes, but that principle of needing gas in the truck remains constant. And so when I think about our experiences, how can we develop things, ideas, actions, events, programs that keep our principles in alignment but shift our values? So when a chapter wants to change their philanthropy event, when they don't want to sell the food product they've been selling for years and instead they want to create a haunted house, the principle of raising money for charity remains the same. The value of selling hot dogs or corn dogs or french fries or whatever it is has diminished to a level that we're no longer interested in, and now we want to have a haunted house. Okay, well we value something different, but our principle of raising money for charity has remained the same. And we need to focus more on our principles and be less concerned about the momentary value that exists.
Dominic (15:53):
It's almost like the mission of these, our missions and our organization's missions are fairly constant. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that is perceived overall as a great thing. And then the question of how we kind of meet those and how we support those, that is the variable you're saying. And that's where we can, we may have a little room to explore or change year over year, maybe follow some trends, but so long as it's in support of the main mission.
Billy Boulden (16:20):
Yeah, and we see this, we're seeing this across the country right now with policy changes. Certain things people can talk about, certain things they can't talk about. And I'm not advocating one way or the other. That's not my positionality today. My positionality today is what is our principle? Our principles are to educate students. That's our job. Our job is to follow that principle and to educate students. And to do so in a way that is fully compliant with laws and expectations. Okay, I can totally do that. And it's less about whether do I agree or disagree with what is being valued by institutions or the government or whoever is just making those decisions, right? It's not about that. What is the principle? The principle is to be an educator. I can be an educator and I can do so fully compliant.
Dominic (17:04):
And when you sort of visit that topic and you think about, okay, staying passionate through the work over the last couple of decades nearly, in the next decade, what are some things, obviously there are some areas that really resonate with you, the leadership, delivering impact to students. What are some of those things that you get up in the morning and you're like, "This is why I do it, I'm so passionate about this"?
Billy Boulden (17:25 — What Keeps the Passion Alive):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think a big piece of that is the work, while it's the same, it's never predictable. Right. And that just resonates with who I am as a person. Right. Like I like that spontaneity. If I had a friend that called me today and said, "Hey, let's go on a trip to Texas tomorrow." Great. Let's go. Right. Like. Yeah.
Dominic (17:42):
That is true you. Yeah, and for folks that don't know, you are someone that will jump at opportunities. I feel like you're also one of the busiest people in the space. I think that's very much your mantra.
Billy Boulden (17:54):
Yeah, I think you have to be, right? What's the old Wayne—who is it? Wayne Gretzky quote, right? "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," right? I'm gonna shoot my shot, right? I didn't mean to have to do the thing, but like, put the stick in my hand, I'm gonna hit the puck, right? I'm going for it. And so I think part of that is in this work, that's what I get, right? A student comes to my office every day with something new. And while I have a task and a project and things to do, part of that support system of helping students be successful is the unknown and being equipped and prepared to help them.
Dominic (18:25):
Can you tell us something that maybe folks, either a fact or something you've come across as a trend that folks currently may not be aware of or new folks in the space haven't heard yet? Something that you think is quite an interesting change or development in the space, whether it be student leadership or fraternity and sorority life, could be generally.
Billy Boulden (18:44 — Challenging Assumptions About Student Engagement):
Yeah. You know, I don't know that I have a good answer to that question. I think that there are a lot of people right now in higher ed that have opinions about things or maybe there's a false narrative, maybe it's true, I don't know. But one of the things that we hear is that students don't like to sit in sessions for more than an hour. I would argue that students also don't like to be bored. So is it really around being there for an hour or is it that your content is boring?
Dominic (19:19):
Right. That's it. That's a great—Yeah, you can—
Billy Boulden (19:20):
Or is it both? Or is it both, right? I don't know, right? So I mean, there's people that are saying some things. I talked to a colleague that says students don't want to take any more in-person classes. They want to do everything online. Do they? Or is your in-person class not worth their time or attention in the students' mind, right? Obviously you as the instructor, like you think it's totally worth your time. So I think part of this is like trying to figure out like, we don't just say the punchline or the fact or the thing that we know to be true, but we share our whole story. So "Here's this trend that I've been, you know, had and students have reported to me that they don't like sessions where they're sitting in a classroom for more than an hour. And here's all the data that proves this." Right? "Here's some reasons why I think that they might be saying that. How am I addressing those things?" Like, I think that's what we need to be doing more of. Right? Because I would take myself in that situation. I don't like to sit and listen to somebody talk to me for an hour. I want to be active. I want to do things, right? Like you said, I'm about to go to Texas on a trip because you called and said, "Let's go," right? Like, how do we make these things interactive and engaging so that students are, they want to be a part of it? Sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you have to just listen and be the person that listens to the content. But I think we've got to think about ways that we don't just share everything we hear and know as a complete fact that we're telling the whole story about how we got, how we got to where we are, how we got there so that we can then think about what our next action step is. And I think that's a lesson that not only works for us as administrators and professionals in higher ed, but also to our student leaders, right? Just because your grades went up doesn't necessarily mean you have a better academic program. You might've just recruited smarter people to your organization. So how do you know this thing is the thing that changed it? I think that's something that we need to do more work on.
Dominic (21:05):
That's really interesting. It's about asking kind of the "why," because you can see data at face value. But if you take the kind of result and you don't understand how you got there, you can be completely misinformed. And then you can misinform the kind of next few steps you take. We talk a lot about student engagement, obviously with our universities. But I think so much of it is about, "Let's get the data. Let's get like, how many events are they doing? How much attendance is there?" And I think what's really interesting is you can—one example we give is you can basically have data on a group that came to an event that they were supposed to come to. And that looks like engagement, but equally they may not come to that event because they don't like going to events. But meanwhile, they're chatting, they're having conversation, they're collaborating online, they're hosting virtual meetings or games, whatever they do. That's a really strong community. So it's not just about the face value data, it's about the—
Billy Boulden (21:59):
Yeah, and I think sometimes too, you know, we craft questions or develop programs in a certain way where the response indicates a certain answer. Right. And I don't think people are always prepared to answer why they really did that. Right. So if you said, "Why did you come tonight?" Right. Did you come because there was free pizza? Did you come because a friend invited you? Did you come because you were really interested in the topic? It could be all the above, could be none. You might have come because your friend has actually invited you, but the reason that you actually got off the couch on campus is because there was free pizza. So those are really hard questions. It's hard to get good answers to understand what actually is the thing, because we'll never know what somebody else's motivation is.
Dominic (22:36):
Yeah, also when you try to do that with one student, that's one thing, but when you're trying to collect feedback and information from 10,000 students or even a thousand students, it becomes a much bigger task.
Billy Boulden (22:47):
Yes.
Dominic (22:47):
So what can you do to maybe make some of that feedback stronger, better, a bit more creative?
Billy Boulden (22:52):
I mean, I think one of the questions we started asking ourselves here is what is our purpose for doing this thing that we're doing? Right? And while I would love every student to love every program that we host, I'm more interested in what a student learned or gained from being a part of my experience than whether they loved the experience in and of itself. And maybe that's a wrong approach. I don't know. But that's currently where I'm sitting of, I need you to be able to do X, Y, and Z. Can you do X, Y, and Z? Great. Did you like the way in which you were taught X, Y, and Z? No? Okay. That's feedback. And for me, I got to do this better. But that was still a very effective program because you learned how to do X, Y, and Z.
Dominic (23:27):
I feel like some of these conversations we have should be in like a leather chair. I should be by a fire. We need to like, you know, have a really some sort of—yeah, it's a really interesting conversation that I think can go in many different directions because there's so much in terms of the importance of this for the actual outcome of a student and also the implications it can have for a practice that we do in higher education. It's super, it's just important.
Can you tell us a little bit about your life outside of work? What do you do? What do you get up to? Tell us a little bit about Billy Boulden as a person.
Billy Boulden (23:58 — Life Outside Work: Athletics & Community):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I've always identified as being an athlete. It's been a huge part of my life. And so I played two sports in college and really found myself again post-college in participating in CrossFit. And so having a gym and a community to go to and be a part of people that support me, but also just a place to try to work on my own fitness and health has been really rewarding for me. So I spend most of my free time outside the gym there. Trying to finish my PhD, so when I'm out of work, I'm a student. And outside of that, spending time with family, spending time with my dog or traveling is really important to me.
Dominic (24:32):
And can you tell us, how can people sort of follow you? What are your upcoming projects that you're excited about? Is there any way folks can keep in touch and speak with you?
Billy Boulden (24:42):
Yeah, so on all social media, it's just my name, Billy Boulden. I think on Instagram, there's no space, but everywhere else is just my name. It's the easiest way to get connected with me. No major projects to share right now other than my dissertation needs to get finished. And then I'm sure I'll have a bunch of projects after that. I've got a ton of ideas, but I don't get paid for ideas, so—
Dominic (25:05):
I'm excited. I'm going to subscribe to your notifications for your dissertation so I can watch it. And last question, who would you tap to come in the lounge with me and join me next? Either somebody from the space you've met or from your team, who do you want to see out on the podcast?
Billy Boulden (25:11 — Who to Invite Next to The Lounge):
Oh my goodness, such a good question. I would tap Marlon Gibson. Marlon is an incredible colleague. He's been in the industry for, I'm gonna say as long as me. I don't wanna age Marlon that way. He's based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He's a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. He works full-time professionally for Kappa Alpha Order, as well as does some of his own consulting and speaking. But Marlon, I've never met somebody in my life who cares more for humans than Marlon. Like even when I think like I'm doing a good job caring, I'm humbled by Marlon and his care and generosity in the way in which he experiences the world and sees people for who they are.
Dominic (26:05):
Incredible. Well, I'll reach out to him. You've also given me a good lesson not to use the decade word again. I think I threw that out a few too many times. For me, it's like exciting to see how experienced folks are. But I realize now once you hit a certain age, it becomes something you want to talk about less, I think.
Billy Boulden (26:22):
I think it depends on the person, right? I think some of us are comfortable with it. I tell my students here I used to be 35 and now I'm not.
Dominic (26:30):
That's great. I'm gonna use that. Love that. Okay, well, thanks so much, Billy. It's been a pleasure to have you and yeah, looking forward to seeing you next probably at AFA. Amazing.
Billy Boulden (26:32):
Yeah, sounds good.
Join us In the Lounge as we sit down with Billy Boulden – Assistant Dean of Students for Development and Student Leadership at Iowa State University and Director of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement. We explore his journey from his surprising entry into higher education to becoming a respected voice in fraternity and sorority life. Billy shares his signature analogies that perfectly capture the unique leadership development opportunities in Greek life, from managing organizations with annual leadership turnover to planning events at scale, quickly and safely. Discover his insights on the difference between values and principles, why student engagement isn't always what it seems, and his mission-driven approach to helping students build resilience and leadership capacity that lasts beyond graduation.
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Timestamps
00:00 — Intro
01:21 — Journey into Higher Education by Accident
03:31 — Day-to-Day as Assistant Dean & FSL Director
06:52 — Focus on Leadership Development
09:20 — The Million-Dollar Organization Analogy
12:13 — Speaking & Risk Management Work
13:54 — Values vs. Principles in Organizational Change
17:25 — What Keeps the Passion Alive
18:44 — Challenging Assumptions About Student Engagement
23:58 — Life Outside Work: Athletics & Community
Transcript
In the Lounge with Billy Boulden
Billy Boulden (00:00):
Name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (00:07):
Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of "In the Lounge." On this podcast, we meet with experts from the higher education field to share ideas, learn from their experiences, talk about new trends we're seeing, and get an unseen perspective of what's going on in the space. If you have any questions for my guests today, just send them over in an email and we'll get back to you with an answer. My email is dominic@lounge.live.
Today we're in the lounge with Billy Boulden. Billy is Assistant Dean of Students for Development and Student Leadership at Iowa State and the Director of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement. He has held various leadership positions at AFA and NACA. He has won a number of awards and has been honored by various organizations throughout his work spanning nearly two decades, including Campus Administrator of the Year in 2016 by Chi Phi Fraternity and FSL Advisor of the Year by Beta Theta Pi in 2018.
He's a speaker, a volunteer, and a coach. He's one of the best people to know in the space, and it's a pleasure to be chatting with him today. Billy, welcome. Thanks for joining me.
Billy Boulden (01:21):
Yeah, thanks Dominic. I'm excited to be here.
Dominic (01:22):
Billy, you and I have talked a lot about various components of fraternity and sorority life over the past years that we've known each other. One of my favorite things about you is that you have an ability to create these perfect analogies for themes that come up in the space. And that's not to create any pressure on you for this podcast, but more for people to know that your passion and knowledge of higher education is remarkable. And you do such a good job of sort of synthesizing and delivering thoughts in a way that's understandable and eye-opening.
I don't often just start a podcast with a bunch of compliments, but I felt like I had to today with you. But look, you've had a major impact on students and peers throughout your career, myself included. Can you tell us why you got into this space?
Billy Boulden (01:52 — Journey into Higher Education by Accident):
Yeah, I think it's actually a really, really great question. I got into higher education kind of by accident. It wasn't my plan. I was a classic over-involved student. So I played two sports in college. I was in a fraternity. I was in student government. I was in the school paper as an editor. You know, I did a ton of things in college and my original plan was to go to law school after I graduated. And I just needed a break from school.
And so I was given the opportunity to work for my national fraternity as a consultant right out of college and got to travel around the country and open some new chapters and then got to work, specifically just kind of coaching some of our existing chapters through their operations. And I really learned in that experience how cool of a job that was and how people could work in higher education as a career field. I didn't even know it existed. Even though I had people that I worked with on campus as an undergrad, I had advisors, I had people that helped me out, had campus administrators, did a lot of things. It just never dawned on me that they actually got paid to be there.
Dominic (03:00):
Did you kind of know what you were getting yourself into or did it come as a surprise once you were in it?
Billy Boulden (03:06):
A little bit of both, I mean, definitely working with a fraternity was a surprise. Like I didn't really know what I was getting into. I mean, we had great training and great resources, but I didn't necessarily understand the full picture of what it was. And then as I started meeting with campus professionals through that role, that's when I think I kind of learned of like, "Oh, this is a whole job. This is a career path and this is what you can do. And this is why this is important." And then obviously I went into higher ed and started working on campuses after that and just shaped my experience differently.
Dominic (03:31):
Amazing. Fast forwarding to today, what does your day-to-day look like in these roles as an assistant dean of Iowa State, but also as an FSL director? What does that look like?
Billy Boulden (03:38 — Day-to-Day as Assistant Dean & FSL Director):
Yeah, I mean, transparently, a lot of my job is meetings, probably the part that I don't love. But I mean, there's a necessary piece to that, right? And, you know, collaborating with campus partners or, you know, setting agendas or working through crisis or risk management issues, I think is an important component of what my job is at this point in my career. But it's also the one-on-one meetings that I have with students and coaching them in their work and their efforts. And I think that's the part that has been really rewarding to me throughout my career is being able to sit with a student and help them wrestle the monster that's in front of them that they're trying to navigate and help find resources and support and strategies for them to be resilient and overcome those challenges. And hopefully helping students build that capacity that they can do that on their own beyond their experience of their time with me.
Dominic (04:30):
And do you think that's something as a skill set for you that you've been able to kind of grow and nurture? Is it something that you've always been maybe a strength of yours or is it something that again sort of comes with time?
Billy Boulden (04:42):
Transparently, I would say all the above. I think I'm incredibly talented at it. And I think I'm horrible at it. Yeah, I mean, I genuinely mean that. I mean, I think there's students that I have met with over my career who I've tried to help them and how to work with them. And I just was not the right one to make the connection to help that student. Even though my advice may have worked, it didn't work for that student. And they would have been better off meeting and connecting with somebody else. And so I think there's a power in team and also understanding of like, "Hey, I'm not resonating with this," or my approach isn't coming off with the student and who I work with. Absolutely.
Dominic (05:13):
And that can be a skill itself, identifying that maybe you're not the right fit at that time.
Billy Boulden (05:18):
Yes, absolutely. And figure out who is, right? What does that look like? Or where do I have to gain more capacity? You know, I had a staff member who worked for me years ago and she wasn't a big sports fan. But a lot of the students that she ended up meeting with were students that were diehard sports fans. They all had a team. And so she came into my office one day and said, "I'm going to pick a team."
Like, what do you mean? She's like, "I need a professional sports team in every sport." And so she did. And then she started following those teams and started learning about those teams. So then when she came in and she had somebody that was like, "Oh, I love football." And she was like, "Oh, what did you see, you know, XYZ team play this weekend?" And they're like, "No." She's like, "Well, that's my favorite team." And they didn't play well, but you know.
Dominic (05:55):
That's a great way to handle that situation, or at least finding something that you can connect with. I think it goes even outside of just connections with students or the folks that you're directly advising. That's true for your whole career, for your whole life. It's like finding—Yeah.
Billy Boulden (06:09):
I think it's just a care for people, right? And it is not that she was never not into sports. She just she wasn't a diehard fan, right? She just kind of casually liked sports and so something triggered her to say, "You know, I know I really got to pick a team. I'm gonna learn more." And I think that happens to a lot of us in our careers. We need to learn more. We need to learn more about different populations, different people, different experiences. We may never fully understand it enough, but if that gives us enough resource to be able to, you know, start a conversation with some students or engage them in a way that's different than before, I think it's really helpful.
Dominic (06:40):
In terms of like your favorite areas of focus, can you tell us a little bit about kind of what draws you most to the work you do, maybe more recently what you've been focusing on in your study or in your field?
Billy Boulden (06:52 — Focus on Leadership Development):
I mean, leadership studies has always been a guiding factor for me. I was very fortunate as an undergrad to have the opportunity to experience a really university-supported leadership studies co-curricular experience. And so I was able to earn a minor in leadership studies and also have this out-of-classroom experience that was incredibly developmental for me. And I think throughout my career, I've kind of constantly seen that come back is how can we help develop skills or abilities to lead others? And so that's a framework that I really rely on in my day-to-day work, because I'm meeting with students. That's kind of the question. I'm like, "Okay, well, if you were to present this to your fraternity or your sorority or your student organization"—I do some student organization work—"what would be their response? Are they going to buy into this?" And they're like, "Well, they'll just do it because I told them to." "Are they really going to do it?" Like, they might not, right?
How do you make those connections? How do you lead and how do you create that buy-in? And seeing and watching students grow and learn in that way. I've got a student right now that I've always thought they were a good leader since the beginning, since they took over in their role and position. I thought they were a strong leader. There's some things that I've noticed over the last four, five months and I'm like, "Man, I wish I had more time with this student because there's some things that I think could have really elevated their cause." And in some of that, they had to learn. They had an event which could have been way better, but it was still a good event. And so the student and I were kind of processing that of like, "You know, what are all these things that we could have done? Some things different that we could have moved forward differently or how we could have tied with something?" And they had really great reflection and they were able to kind of showcase this whole other vision and plan for what they would do differently. I'm like, "That's what really jazzes me up." It's kind of seeing students have this experience in which they're growing, they're learning, but even when they don't, they understand like what they need to do in the next situation to be a better leader.
Dominic (08:39):
And the sort of post-game analysis, I think is so interesting too, being able to sit with them and say, "Look, here's what happened or here's what didn't happen." It's not so much about like the front-end side of saying, "This is how being a leader can be effective," but it's so much about learning from actually doing it. And I think what's interesting is the fraternity and sorority space is so much about leadership. I think it's such a repetitive theme that we see, and it is so much about why we do what we do and why folks join fraternities and sororities, and it's something that they carry onward into their later adult life and their careers. And I think it makes a lot of sense that it's something that you resonate a lot with because, yeah, it can be such a huge impact from that point in university all the way through the rest of their life.
Billy Boulden (09:20 — The Million-Dollar Organization Analogy):
And I think that's a point that's maybe understated sometimes too. And not everyone's the same way, right? Fraternities and sorority communities are not all the same way. They don't have the same resources or the same students. Here at Iowa State, because we have larger chapters, because a lot of our chapters have housing and meal plans associated with their expenses, fraternities and sororities are unique here in that in any given year, they'll see almost a million dollars of revenue come into the organization, right, through dues. So they'll see income of about a million dollars, whether that's for housing, meal plans, dues, et cetera.
Hundreds of members, right? They'll probably have a million minus $1 in expenses for those things also, right? They get a new president every year. Let's call the president the CEO, okay? So they get a new CEO every year. And in a four-year plan, they'll have 100% turnover of members. Let's call those employees, right? So name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (10:15):
Exactly. Yeah, that's such good perspective. I think that's what I was talking about early on in my introduction to you. That is the kind of perspective that you're able to give to folks. There's another piece that you shared with me a few months ago in the same vein of, I think it was more particularly to event management, but in terms of the work that these students have to do and that we're kind of asking them to do, it is so unique. And when you put in perspective kind of what they're being asked to do, it really helps us understand and it helps leadership understand, "Okay, how can we best help them?" And I think that connection is really something you do well. I'm going to butcher this, but I think it was something along the lines of "name an event that has this"—you can probably do a better job than I can. How does it go?
Billy Boulden (11:19):
Yeah, name an event that has over 400 guests at the party. Outside of the party, take it outside of fraternity and sorority context. What do you call an event that has over 400 people as guests? And yeah, the answer to it would be a wedding. So think about somebody you know that's planned a wedding. How long have they been planning their wedding?
Dominic (11:24):
That's right. Of course I forgot the other side of it. About a year, about, at least.
Billy Boulden (11:39):
At least, right? I know people that plan their wedding for 25 years, right? Since the first time they thought about going to a wedding, they started planning what the details would be and all those types of things. So you think like on the short end, we got 25, 30, 40 years of wedding planning. On the short end, we're talking six months to a year to have a party with 400 people. Our collegians think they can pull that off on the same day, right? And manage all the risk and how the details match and things like that. And it's just not the case, right? We need time to plan out to make sure that we have our I's dotted and our T's crossed and that we're having a fun event, but also a safe one.
Dominic (12:13):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're one of the—I think your work in risk management and some of those best practices stands out. I think, you know, you travel a lot to other universities, you speak, can you tell us a little bit about what it's like speaking at other universities, what your favorite part about that is, and share a little bit about that journey and that sort of side of your life?
Billy Boulden (12:31 — Speaking & Risk Management Work):
Well, you know, I think a big thing is trying to be helpful. When I first started traveling and speaking to other schools, I think one of the things I was concerned about was I didn't want to be this guy that just comes in and cashes a check, right? Like, so I tried to be different and I tried to be something that could be a support system. And some people just want you to come in and talk, right? Okay, so we'll do that, right? But I think when I have an opportunity to go in and actually help a community to think about the culture that they're trying to create within their organization and to think about the progress they've made, the steps they're taking, and kind of what the next step is. That's when it's most rewarding for me. That's when I enjoy the experience the most. I want to be helpful. I want to be someone that gives back, and I want to be someone that inspires people to do it better than we did. My generation did a lot of things wrong, right? That's why we have a lot of rules and policies. I think about something like, you know, driving down the interstate. When did we create speed limits? Right? At some point in time, there wasn't a speed limit. You can only go as fast as the horse could run. Right? But then we started getting cars and we needed speed limits for safety and security for people. Right? And so it's a necessary rule that we learned. Same thing has happened in sorority, fraternity, and student organizations that we've learned over time. And we have some more guardrails up to help kind of keep people in line and keep them safe.
Dominic (13:42):
Yeah. And what has changed or I guess over your time at Iowa State, what are some of the things that you've seen change and related to that, what are the things that you're most proud of that maybe you had a role in changing?
Billy Boulden (13:54 — Values vs. Principles in Organizational Change):
Yeah, I mean, I think change is inevitable. And I think that that's something that we don't want to talk about enough. That things can't stay the exact same way that they have to forever. But there's components that can be. And I think it's helping people understand what is really critical to us and what needs to be there. And without becoming the analogy guy, I've got another one for you.
Dominic (14:15):
Okay, great.
Billy Boulden (14:16):
I would argue that our values change over time and our principles remain constant over time. What is the difference between values and principles?
Dominic (14:25):
I'd say values are things we like and care about and principles are things that we sort of are almost rules or things that we live our lives by. That would be my definition.
Billy Boulden (14:34):
Yeah, so I think it's pretty good. I would buy those. So I drive a truck. My truck needs gas to go. I know there's a lot of vehicles and all that kind of stuff. My truck's not an electric vehicle, right? My truck needs gas. The principle of needing gas in my truck has remained constant from the time that—this morning when I filled up gas was $2.78. Six months ago I was paying $3.35. I was out in California, I was paying $6. The value of gasoline is different. Different at different places, it's different at different times. It changes, but that principle of needing gas in the truck remains constant. And so when I think about our experiences, how can we develop things, ideas, actions, events, programs that keep our principles in alignment but shift our values? So when a chapter wants to change their philanthropy event, when they don't want to sell the food product they've been selling for years and instead they want to create a haunted house, the principle of raising money for charity remains the same. The value of selling hot dogs or corn dogs or french fries or whatever it is has diminished to a level that we're no longer interested in, and now we want to have a haunted house. Okay, well we value something different, but our principle of raising money for charity has remained the same. And we need to focus more on our principles and be less concerned about the momentary value that exists.
Dominic (15:53):
It's almost like the mission of these, our missions and our organization's missions are fairly constant. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that is perceived overall as a great thing. And then the question of how we kind of meet those and how we support those, that is the variable you're saying. And that's where we can, we may have a little room to explore or change year over year, maybe follow some trends, but so long as it's in support of the main mission.
Billy Boulden (16:20):
Yeah, and we see this, we're seeing this across the country right now with policy changes. Certain things people can talk about, certain things they can't talk about. And I'm not advocating one way or the other. That's not my positionality today. My positionality today is what is our principle? Our principles are to educate students. That's our job. Our job is to follow that principle and to educate students. And to do so in a way that is fully compliant with laws and expectations. Okay, I can totally do that. And it's less about whether do I agree or disagree with what is being valued by institutions or the government or whoever is just making those decisions, right? It's not about that. What is the principle? The principle is to be an educator. I can be an educator and I can do so fully compliant.
Dominic (17:04):
And when you sort of visit that topic and you think about, okay, staying passionate through the work over the last couple of decades nearly, in the next decade, what are some things, obviously there are some areas that really resonate with you, the leadership, delivering impact to students. What are some of those things that you get up in the morning and you're like, "This is why I do it, I'm so passionate about this"?
Billy Boulden (17:25 — What Keeps the Passion Alive):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think a big piece of that is the work, while it's the same, it's never predictable. Right. And that just resonates with who I am as a person. Right. Like I like that spontaneity. If I had a friend that called me today and said, "Hey, let's go on a trip to Texas tomorrow." Great. Let's go. Right. Like. Yeah.
Dominic (17:42):
That is true you. Yeah, and for folks that don't know, you are someone that will jump at opportunities. I feel like you're also one of the busiest people in the space. I think that's very much your mantra.
Billy Boulden (17:54):
Yeah, I think you have to be, right? What's the old Wayne—who is it? Wayne Gretzky quote, right? "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," right? I'm gonna shoot my shot, right? I didn't mean to have to do the thing, but like, put the stick in my hand, I'm gonna hit the puck, right? I'm going for it. And so I think part of that is in this work, that's what I get, right? A student comes to my office every day with something new. And while I have a task and a project and things to do, part of that support system of helping students be successful is the unknown and being equipped and prepared to help them.
Dominic (18:25):
Can you tell us something that maybe folks, either a fact or something you've come across as a trend that folks currently may not be aware of or new folks in the space haven't heard yet? Something that you think is quite an interesting change or development in the space, whether it be student leadership or fraternity and sorority life, could be generally.
Billy Boulden (18:44 — Challenging Assumptions About Student Engagement):
Yeah. You know, I don't know that I have a good answer to that question. I think that there are a lot of people right now in higher ed that have opinions about things or maybe there's a false narrative, maybe it's true, I don't know. But one of the things that we hear is that students don't like to sit in sessions for more than an hour. I would argue that students also don't like to be bored. So is it really around being there for an hour or is it that your content is boring?
Dominic (19:19):
Right. That's it. That's a great—Yeah, you can—
Billy Boulden (19:20):
Or is it both? Or is it both, right? I don't know, right? So I mean, there's people that are saying some things. I talked to a colleague that says students don't want to take any more in-person classes. They want to do everything online. Do they? Or is your in-person class not worth their time or attention in the students' mind, right? Obviously you as the instructor, like you think it's totally worth your time. So I think part of this is like trying to figure out like, we don't just say the punchline or the fact or the thing that we know to be true, but we share our whole story. So "Here's this trend that I've been, you know, had and students have reported to me that they don't like sessions where they're sitting in a classroom for more than an hour. And here's all the data that proves this." Right? "Here's some reasons why I think that they might be saying that. How am I addressing those things?" Like, I think that's what we need to be doing more of. Right? Because I would take myself in that situation. I don't like to sit and listen to somebody talk to me for an hour. I want to be active. I want to do things, right? Like you said, I'm about to go to Texas on a trip because you called and said, "Let's go," right? Like, how do we make these things interactive and engaging so that students are, they want to be a part of it? Sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you have to just listen and be the person that listens to the content. But I think we've got to think about ways that we don't just share everything we hear and know as a complete fact that we're telling the whole story about how we got, how we got to where we are, how we got there so that we can then think about what our next action step is. And I think that's a lesson that not only works for us as administrators and professionals in higher ed, but also to our student leaders, right? Just because your grades went up doesn't necessarily mean you have a better academic program. You might've just recruited smarter people to your organization. So how do you know this thing is the thing that changed it? I think that's something that we need to do more work on.
Dominic (21:05):
That's really interesting. It's about asking kind of the "why," because you can see data at face value. But if you take the kind of result and you don't understand how you got there, you can be completely misinformed. And then you can misinform the kind of next few steps you take. We talk a lot about student engagement, obviously with our universities. But I think so much of it is about, "Let's get the data. Let's get like, how many events are they doing? How much attendance is there?" And I think what's really interesting is you can—one example we give is you can basically have data on a group that came to an event that they were supposed to come to. And that looks like engagement, but equally they may not come to that event because they don't like going to events. But meanwhile, they're chatting, they're having conversation, they're collaborating online, they're hosting virtual meetings or games, whatever they do. That's a really strong community. So it's not just about the face value data, it's about the—
Billy Boulden (21:59):
Yeah, and I think sometimes too, you know, we craft questions or develop programs in a certain way where the response indicates a certain answer. Right. And I don't think people are always prepared to answer why they really did that. Right. So if you said, "Why did you come tonight?" Right. Did you come because there was free pizza? Did you come because a friend invited you? Did you come because you were really interested in the topic? It could be all the above, could be none. You might have come because your friend has actually invited you, but the reason that you actually got off the couch on campus is because there was free pizza. So those are really hard questions. It's hard to get good answers to understand what actually is the thing, because we'll never know what somebody else's motivation is.
Dominic (22:36):
Yeah, also when you try to do that with one student, that's one thing, but when you're trying to collect feedback and information from 10,000 students or even a thousand students, it becomes a much bigger task.
Billy Boulden (22:47):
Yes.
Dominic (22:47):
So what can you do to maybe make some of that feedback stronger, better, a bit more creative?
Billy Boulden (22:52):
I mean, I think one of the questions we started asking ourselves here is what is our purpose for doing this thing that we're doing? Right? And while I would love every student to love every program that we host, I'm more interested in what a student learned or gained from being a part of my experience than whether they loved the experience in and of itself. And maybe that's a wrong approach. I don't know. But that's currently where I'm sitting of, I need you to be able to do X, Y, and Z. Can you do X, Y, and Z? Great. Did you like the way in which you were taught X, Y, and Z? No? Okay. That's feedback. And for me, I got to do this better. But that was still a very effective program because you learned how to do X, Y, and Z.
Dominic (23:27):
I feel like some of these conversations we have should be in like a leather chair. I should be by a fire. We need to like, you know, have a really some sort of—yeah, it's a really interesting conversation that I think can go in many different directions because there's so much in terms of the importance of this for the actual outcome of a student and also the implications it can have for a practice that we do in higher education. It's super, it's just important.
Can you tell us a little bit about your life outside of work? What do you do? What do you get up to? Tell us a little bit about Billy Boulden as a person.
Billy Boulden (23:58 — Life Outside Work: Athletics & Community):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I've always identified as being an athlete. It's been a huge part of my life. And so I played two sports in college and really found myself again post-college in participating in CrossFit. And so having a gym and a community to go to and be a part of people that support me, but also just a place to try to work on my own fitness and health has been really rewarding for me. So I spend most of my free time outside the gym there. Trying to finish my PhD, so when I'm out of work, I'm a student. And outside of that, spending time with family, spending time with my dog or traveling is really important to me.
Dominic (24:32):
And can you tell us, how can people sort of follow you? What are your upcoming projects that you're excited about? Is there any way folks can keep in touch and speak with you?
Billy Boulden (24:42):
Yeah, so on all social media, it's just my name, Billy Boulden. I think on Instagram, there's no space, but everywhere else is just my name. It's the easiest way to get connected with me. No major projects to share right now other than my dissertation needs to get finished. And then I'm sure I'll have a bunch of projects after that. I've got a ton of ideas, but I don't get paid for ideas, so—
Dominic (25:05):
I'm excited. I'm going to subscribe to your notifications for your dissertation so I can watch it. And last question, who would you tap to come in the lounge with me and join me next? Either somebody from the space you've met or from your team, who do you want to see out on the podcast?
Billy Boulden (25:11 — Who to Invite Next to The Lounge):
Oh my goodness, such a good question. I would tap Marlon Gibson. Marlon is an incredible colleague. He's been in the industry for, I'm gonna say as long as me. I don't wanna age Marlon that way. He's based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He's a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. He works full-time professionally for Kappa Alpha Order, as well as does some of his own consulting and speaking. But Marlon, I've never met somebody in my life who cares more for humans than Marlon. Like even when I think like I'm doing a good job caring, I'm humbled by Marlon and his care and generosity in the way in which he experiences the world and sees people for who they are.
Dominic (26:05):
Incredible. Well, I'll reach out to him. You've also given me a good lesson not to use the decade word again. I think I threw that out a few too many times. For me, it's like exciting to see how experienced folks are. But I realize now once you hit a certain age, it becomes something you want to talk about less, I think.
Billy Boulden (26:22):
I think it depends on the person, right? I think some of us are comfortable with it. I tell my students here I used to be 35 and now I'm not.
Dominic (26:30):
That's great. I'm gonna use that. Love that. Okay, well, thanks so much, Billy. It's been a pleasure to have you and yeah, looking forward to seeing you next probably at AFA. Amazing.
Billy Boulden (26:32):
Yeah, sounds good.
Transcript
In the Lounge with Billy Boulden
Billy Boulden (00:00):
Name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (00:07):
Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of "In the Lounge." On this podcast, we meet with experts from the higher education field to share ideas, learn from their experiences, talk about new trends we're seeing, and get an unseen perspective of what's going on in the space. If you have any questions for my guests today, just send them over in an email and we'll get back to you with an answer. My email is dominic@lounge.live.
Today we're in the lounge with Billy Boulden. Billy is Assistant Dean of Students for Development and Student Leadership at Iowa State and the Director of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement. He has held various leadership positions at AFA and NACA. He has won a number of awards and has been honored by various organizations throughout his work spanning nearly two decades, including Campus Administrator of the Year in 2016 by Chi Phi Fraternity and FSL Advisor of the Year by Beta Theta Pi in 2018.
He's a speaker, a volunteer, and a coach. He's one of the best people to know in the space, and it's a pleasure to be chatting with him today. Billy, welcome. Thanks for joining me.
Billy Boulden (01:21):
Yeah, thanks Dominic. I'm excited to be here.
Dominic (01:22):
Billy, you and I have talked a lot about various components of fraternity and sorority life over the past years that we've known each other. One of my favorite things about you is that you have an ability to create these perfect analogies for themes that come up in the space. And that's not to create any pressure on you for this podcast, but more for people to know that your passion and knowledge of higher education is remarkable. And you do such a good job of sort of synthesizing and delivering thoughts in a way that's understandable and eye-opening.
I don't often just start a podcast with a bunch of compliments, but I felt like I had to today with you. But look, you've had a major impact on students and peers throughout your career, myself included. Can you tell us why you got into this space?
Billy Boulden (01:52 — Journey into Higher Education by Accident):
Yeah, I think it's actually a really, really great question. I got into higher education kind of by accident. It wasn't my plan. I was a classic over-involved student. So I played two sports in college. I was in a fraternity. I was in student government. I was in the school paper as an editor. You know, I did a ton of things in college and my original plan was to go to law school after I graduated. And I just needed a break from school.
And so I was given the opportunity to work for my national fraternity as a consultant right out of college and got to travel around the country and open some new chapters and then got to work, specifically just kind of coaching some of our existing chapters through their operations. And I really learned in that experience how cool of a job that was and how people could work in higher education as a career field. I didn't even know it existed. Even though I had people that I worked with on campus as an undergrad, I had advisors, I had people that helped me out, had campus administrators, did a lot of things. It just never dawned on me that they actually got paid to be there.
Dominic (03:00):
Did you kind of know what you were getting yourself into or did it come as a surprise once you were in it?
Billy Boulden (03:06):
A little bit of both, I mean, definitely working with a fraternity was a surprise. Like I didn't really know what I was getting into. I mean, we had great training and great resources, but I didn't necessarily understand the full picture of what it was. And then as I started meeting with campus professionals through that role, that's when I think I kind of learned of like, "Oh, this is a whole job. This is a career path and this is what you can do. And this is why this is important." And then obviously I went into higher ed and started working on campuses after that and just shaped my experience differently.
Dominic (03:31):
Amazing. Fast forwarding to today, what does your day-to-day look like in these roles as an assistant dean of Iowa State, but also as an FSL director? What does that look like?
Billy Boulden (03:38 — Day-to-Day as Assistant Dean & FSL Director):
Yeah, I mean, transparently, a lot of my job is meetings, probably the part that I don't love. But I mean, there's a necessary piece to that, right? And, you know, collaborating with campus partners or, you know, setting agendas or working through crisis or risk management issues, I think is an important component of what my job is at this point in my career. But it's also the one-on-one meetings that I have with students and coaching them in their work and their efforts. And I think that's the part that has been really rewarding to me throughout my career is being able to sit with a student and help them wrestle the monster that's in front of them that they're trying to navigate and help find resources and support and strategies for them to be resilient and overcome those challenges. And hopefully helping students build that capacity that they can do that on their own beyond their experience of their time with me.
Dominic (04:30):
And do you think that's something as a skill set for you that you've been able to kind of grow and nurture? Is it something that you've always been maybe a strength of yours or is it something that again sort of comes with time?
Billy Boulden (04:42):
Transparently, I would say all the above. I think I'm incredibly talented at it. And I think I'm horrible at it. Yeah, I mean, I genuinely mean that. I mean, I think there's students that I have met with over my career who I've tried to help them and how to work with them. And I just was not the right one to make the connection to help that student. Even though my advice may have worked, it didn't work for that student. And they would have been better off meeting and connecting with somebody else. And so I think there's a power in team and also understanding of like, "Hey, I'm not resonating with this," or my approach isn't coming off with the student and who I work with. Absolutely.
Dominic (05:13):
And that can be a skill itself, identifying that maybe you're not the right fit at that time.
Billy Boulden (05:18):
Yes, absolutely. And figure out who is, right? What does that look like? Or where do I have to gain more capacity? You know, I had a staff member who worked for me years ago and she wasn't a big sports fan. But a lot of the students that she ended up meeting with were students that were diehard sports fans. They all had a team. And so she came into my office one day and said, "I'm going to pick a team."
Like, what do you mean? She's like, "I need a professional sports team in every sport." And so she did. And then she started following those teams and started learning about those teams. So then when she came in and she had somebody that was like, "Oh, I love football." And she was like, "Oh, what did you see, you know, XYZ team play this weekend?" And they're like, "No." She's like, "Well, that's my favorite team." And they didn't play well, but you know.
Dominic (05:55):
That's a great way to handle that situation, or at least finding something that you can connect with. I think it goes even outside of just connections with students or the folks that you're directly advising. That's true for your whole career, for your whole life. It's like finding—Yeah.
Billy Boulden (06:09):
I think it's just a care for people, right? And it is not that she was never not into sports. She just she wasn't a diehard fan, right? She just kind of casually liked sports and so something triggered her to say, "You know, I know I really got to pick a team. I'm gonna learn more." And I think that happens to a lot of us in our careers. We need to learn more. We need to learn more about different populations, different people, different experiences. We may never fully understand it enough, but if that gives us enough resource to be able to, you know, start a conversation with some students or engage them in a way that's different than before, I think it's really helpful.
Dominic (06:40):
In terms of like your favorite areas of focus, can you tell us a little bit about kind of what draws you most to the work you do, maybe more recently what you've been focusing on in your study or in your field?
Billy Boulden (06:52 — Focus on Leadership Development):
I mean, leadership studies has always been a guiding factor for me. I was very fortunate as an undergrad to have the opportunity to experience a really university-supported leadership studies co-curricular experience. And so I was able to earn a minor in leadership studies and also have this out-of-classroom experience that was incredibly developmental for me. And I think throughout my career, I've kind of constantly seen that come back is how can we help develop skills or abilities to lead others? And so that's a framework that I really rely on in my day-to-day work, because I'm meeting with students. That's kind of the question. I'm like, "Okay, well, if you were to present this to your fraternity or your sorority or your student organization"—I do some student organization work—"what would be their response? Are they going to buy into this?" And they're like, "Well, they'll just do it because I told them to." "Are they really going to do it?" Like, they might not, right?
How do you make those connections? How do you lead and how do you create that buy-in? And seeing and watching students grow and learn in that way. I've got a student right now that I've always thought they were a good leader since the beginning, since they took over in their role and position. I thought they were a strong leader. There's some things that I've noticed over the last four, five months and I'm like, "Man, I wish I had more time with this student because there's some things that I think could have really elevated their cause." And in some of that, they had to learn. They had an event which could have been way better, but it was still a good event. And so the student and I were kind of processing that of like, "You know, what are all these things that we could have done? Some things different that we could have moved forward differently or how we could have tied with something?" And they had really great reflection and they were able to kind of showcase this whole other vision and plan for what they would do differently. I'm like, "That's what really jazzes me up." It's kind of seeing students have this experience in which they're growing, they're learning, but even when they don't, they understand like what they need to do in the next situation to be a better leader.
Dominic (08:39):
And the sort of post-game analysis, I think is so interesting too, being able to sit with them and say, "Look, here's what happened or here's what didn't happen." It's not so much about like the front-end side of saying, "This is how being a leader can be effective," but it's so much about learning from actually doing it. And I think what's interesting is the fraternity and sorority space is so much about leadership. I think it's such a repetitive theme that we see, and it is so much about why we do what we do and why folks join fraternities and sororities, and it's something that they carry onward into their later adult life and their careers. And I think it makes a lot of sense that it's something that you resonate a lot with because, yeah, it can be such a huge impact from that point in university all the way through the rest of their life.
Billy Boulden (09:20 — The Million-Dollar Organization Analogy):
And I think that's a point that's maybe understated sometimes too. And not everyone's the same way, right? Fraternities and sorority communities are not all the same way. They don't have the same resources or the same students. Here at Iowa State, because we have larger chapters, because a lot of our chapters have housing and meal plans associated with their expenses, fraternities and sororities are unique here in that in any given year, they'll see almost a million dollars of revenue come into the organization, right, through dues. So they'll see income of about a million dollars, whether that's for housing, meal plans, dues, et cetera.
Hundreds of members, right? They'll probably have a million minus $1 in expenses for those things also, right? They get a new president every year. Let's call the president the CEO, okay? So they get a new CEO every year. And in a four-year plan, they'll have 100% turnover of members. Let's call those employees, right? So name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (10:15):
Exactly. Yeah, that's such good perspective. I think that's what I was talking about early on in my introduction to you. That is the kind of perspective that you're able to give to folks. There's another piece that you shared with me a few months ago in the same vein of, I think it was more particularly to event management, but in terms of the work that these students have to do and that we're kind of asking them to do, it is so unique. And when you put in perspective kind of what they're being asked to do, it really helps us understand and it helps leadership understand, "Okay, how can we best help them?" And I think that connection is really something you do well. I'm going to butcher this, but I think it was something along the lines of "name an event that has this"—you can probably do a better job than I can. How does it go?
Billy Boulden (11:19):
Yeah, name an event that has over 400 guests at the party. Outside of the party, take it outside of fraternity and sorority context. What do you call an event that has over 400 people as guests? And yeah, the answer to it would be a wedding. So think about somebody you know that's planned a wedding. How long have they been planning their wedding?
Dominic (11:24):
That's right. Of course I forgot the other side of it. About a year, about, at least.
Billy Boulden (11:39):
At least, right? I know people that plan their wedding for 25 years, right? Since the first time they thought about going to a wedding, they started planning what the details would be and all those types of things. So you think like on the short end, we got 25, 30, 40 years of wedding planning. On the short end, we're talking six months to a year to have a party with 400 people. Our collegians think they can pull that off on the same day, right? And manage all the risk and how the details match and things like that. And it's just not the case, right? We need time to plan out to make sure that we have our I's dotted and our T's crossed and that we're having a fun event, but also a safe one.
Dominic (12:13):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're one of the—I think your work in risk management and some of those best practices stands out. I think, you know, you travel a lot to other universities, you speak, can you tell us a little bit about what it's like speaking at other universities, what your favorite part about that is, and share a little bit about that journey and that sort of side of your life?
Billy Boulden (12:31 — Speaking & Risk Management Work):
Well, you know, I think a big thing is trying to be helpful. When I first started traveling and speaking to other schools, I think one of the things I was concerned about was I didn't want to be this guy that just comes in and cashes a check, right? Like, so I tried to be different and I tried to be something that could be a support system. And some people just want you to come in and talk, right? Okay, so we'll do that, right? But I think when I have an opportunity to go in and actually help a community to think about the culture that they're trying to create within their organization and to think about the progress they've made, the steps they're taking, and kind of what the next step is. That's when it's most rewarding for me. That's when I enjoy the experience the most. I want to be helpful. I want to be someone that gives back, and I want to be someone that inspires people to do it better than we did. My generation did a lot of things wrong, right? That's why we have a lot of rules and policies. I think about something like, you know, driving down the interstate. When did we create speed limits? Right? At some point in time, there wasn't a speed limit. You can only go as fast as the horse could run. Right? But then we started getting cars and we needed speed limits for safety and security for people. Right? And so it's a necessary rule that we learned. Same thing has happened in sorority, fraternity, and student organizations that we've learned over time. And we have some more guardrails up to help kind of keep people in line and keep them safe.
Dominic (13:42):
Yeah. And what has changed or I guess over your time at Iowa State, what are some of the things that you've seen change and related to that, what are the things that you're most proud of that maybe you had a role in changing?
Billy Boulden (13:54 — Values vs. Principles in Organizational Change):
Yeah, I mean, I think change is inevitable. And I think that that's something that we don't want to talk about enough. That things can't stay the exact same way that they have to forever. But there's components that can be. And I think it's helping people understand what is really critical to us and what needs to be there. And without becoming the analogy guy, I've got another one for you.
Dominic (14:15):
Okay, great.
Billy Boulden (14:16):
I would argue that our values change over time and our principles remain constant over time. What is the difference between values and principles?
Dominic (14:25):
I'd say values are things we like and care about and principles are things that we sort of are almost rules or things that we live our lives by. That would be my definition.
Billy Boulden (14:34):
Yeah, so I think it's pretty good. I would buy those. So I drive a truck. My truck needs gas to go. I know there's a lot of vehicles and all that kind of stuff. My truck's not an electric vehicle, right? My truck needs gas. The principle of needing gas in my truck has remained constant from the time that—this morning when I filled up gas was $2.78. Six months ago I was paying $3.35. I was out in California, I was paying $6. The value of gasoline is different. Different at different places, it's different at different times. It changes, but that principle of needing gas in the truck remains constant. And so when I think about our experiences, how can we develop things, ideas, actions, events, programs that keep our principles in alignment but shift our values? So when a chapter wants to change their philanthropy event, when they don't want to sell the food product they've been selling for years and instead they want to create a haunted house, the principle of raising money for charity remains the same. The value of selling hot dogs or corn dogs or french fries or whatever it is has diminished to a level that we're no longer interested in, and now we want to have a haunted house. Okay, well we value something different, but our principle of raising money for charity has remained the same. And we need to focus more on our principles and be less concerned about the momentary value that exists.
Dominic (15:53):
It's almost like the mission of these, our missions and our organization's missions are fairly constant. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that is perceived overall as a great thing. And then the question of how we kind of meet those and how we support those, that is the variable you're saying. And that's where we can, we may have a little room to explore or change year over year, maybe follow some trends, but so long as it's in support of the main mission.
Billy Boulden (16:20):
Yeah, and we see this, we're seeing this across the country right now with policy changes. Certain things people can talk about, certain things they can't talk about. And I'm not advocating one way or the other. That's not my positionality today. My positionality today is what is our principle? Our principles are to educate students. That's our job. Our job is to follow that principle and to educate students. And to do so in a way that is fully compliant with laws and expectations. Okay, I can totally do that. And it's less about whether do I agree or disagree with what is being valued by institutions or the government or whoever is just making those decisions, right? It's not about that. What is the principle? The principle is to be an educator. I can be an educator and I can do so fully compliant.
Dominic (17:04):
And when you sort of visit that topic and you think about, okay, staying passionate through the work over the last couple of decades nearly, in the next decade, what are some things, obviously there are some areas that really resonate with you, the leadership, delivering impact to students. What are some of those things that you get up in the morning and you're like, "This is why I do it, I'm so passionate about this"?
Billy Boulden (17:25 — What Keeps the Passion Alive):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think a big piece of that is the work, while it's the same, it's never predictable. Right. And that just resonates with who I am as a person. Right. Like I like that spontaneity. If I had a friend that called me today and said, "Hey, let's go on a trip to Texas tomorrow." Great. Let's go. Right. Like. Yeah.
Dominic (17:42):
That is true you. Yeah, and for folks that don't know, you are someone that will jump at opportunities. I feel like you're also one of the busiest people in the space. I think that's very much your mantra.
Billy Boulden (17:54):
Yeah, I think you have to be, right? What's the old Wayne—who is it? Wayne Gretzky quote, right? "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," right? I'm gonna shoot my shot, right? I didn't mean to have to do the thing, but like, put the stick in my hand, I'm gonna hit the puck, right? I'm going for it. And so I think part of that is in this work, that's what I get, right? A student comes to my office every day with something new. And while I have a task and a project and things to do, part of that support system of helping students be successful is the unknown and being equipped and prepared to help them.
Dominic (18:25):
Can you tell us something that maybe folks, either a fact or something you've come across as a trend that folks currently may not be aware of or new folks in the space haven't heard yet? Something that you think is quite an interesting change or development in the space, whether it be student leadership or fraternity and sorority life, could be generally.
Billy Boulden (18:44 — Challenging Assumptions About Student Engagement):
Yeah. You know, I don't know that I have a good answer to that question. I think that there are a lot of people right now in higher ed that have opinions about things or maybe there's a false narrative, maybe it's true, I don't know. But one of the things that we hear is that students don't like to sit in sessions for more than an hour. I would argue that students also don't like to be bored. So is it really around being there for an hour or is it that your content is boring?
Dominic (19:19):
Right. That's it. That's a great—Yeah, you can—
Billy Boulden (19:20):
Or is it both? Or is it both, right? I don't know, right? So I mean, there's people that are saying some things. I talked to a colleague that says students don't want to take any more in-person classes. They want to do everything online. Do they? Or is your in-person class not worth their time or attention in the students' mind, right? Obviously you as the instructor, like you think it's totally worth your time. So I think part of this is like trying to figure out like, we don't just say the punchline or the fact or the thing that we know to be true, but we share our whole story. So "Here's this trend that I've been, you know, had and students have reported to me that they don't like sessions where they're sitting in a classroom for more than an hour. And here's all the data that proves this." Right? "Here's some reasons why I think that they might be saying that. How am I addressing those things?" Like, I think that's what we need to be doing more of. Right? Because I would take myself in that situation. I don't like to sit and listen to somebody talk to me for an hour. I want to be active. I want to do things, right? Like you said, I'm about to go to Texas on a trip because you called and said, "Let's go," right? Like, how do we make these things interactive and engaging so that students are, they want to be a part of it? Sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you have to just listen and be the person that listens to the content. But I think we've got to think about ways that we don't just share everything we hear and know as a complete fact that we're telling the whole story about how we got, how we got to where we are, how we got there so that we can then think about what our next action step is. And I think that's a lesson that not only works for us as administrators and professionals in higher ed, but also to our student leaders, right? Just because your grades went up doesn't necessarily mean you have a better academic program. You might've just recruited smarter people to your organization. So how do you know this thing is the thing that changed it? I think that's something that we need to do more work on.
Dominic (21:05):
That's really interesting. It's about asking kind of the "why," because you can see data at face value. But if you take the kind of result and you don't understand how you got there, you can be completely misinformed. And then you can misinform the kind of next few steps you take. We talk a lot about student engagement, obviously with our universities. But I think so much of it is about, "Let's get the data. Let's get like, how many events are they doing? How much attendance is there?" And I think what's really interesting is you can—one example we give is you can basically have data on a group that came to an event that they were supposed to come to. And that looks like engagement, but equally they may not come to that event because they don't like going to events. But meanwhile, they're chatting, they're having conversation, they're collaborating online, they're hosting virtual meetings or games, whatever they do. That's a really strong community. So it's not just about the face value data, it's about the—
Billy Boulden (21:59):
Yeah, and I think sometimes too, you know, we craft questions or develop programs in a certain way where the response indicates a certain answer. Right. And I don't think people are always prepared to answer why they really did that. Right. So if you said, "Why did you come tonight?" Right. Did you come because there was free pizza? Did you come because a friend invited you? Did you come because you were really interested in the topic? It could be all the above, could be none. You might have come because your friend has actually invited you, but the reason that you actually got off the couch on campus is because there was free pizza. So those are really hard questions. It's hard to get good answers to understand what actually is the thing, because we'll never know what somebody else's motivation is.
Dominic (22:36):
Yeah, also when you try to do that with one student, that's one thing, but when you're trying to collect feedback and information from 10,000 students or even a thousand students, it becomes a much bigger task.
Billy Boulden (22:47):
Yes.
Dominic (22:47):
So what can you do to maybe make some of that feedback stronger, better, a bit more creative?
Billy Boulden (22:52):
I mean, I think one of the questions we started asking ourselves here is what is our purpose for doing this thing that we're doing? Right? And while I would love every student to love every program that we host, I'm more interested in what a student learned or gained from being a part of my experience than whether they loved the experience in and of itself. And maybe that's a wrong approach. I don't know. But that's currently where I'm sitting of, I need you to be able to do X, Y, and Z. Can you do X, Y, and Z? Great. Did you like the way in which you were taught X, Y, and Z? No? Okay. That's feedback. And for me, I got to do this better. But that was still a very effective program because you learned how to do X, Y, and Z.
Dominic (23:27):
I feel like some of these conversations we have should be in like a leather chair. I should be by a fire. We need to like, you know, have a really some sort of—yeah, it's a really interesting conversation that I think can go in many different directions because there's so much in terms of the importance of this for the actual outcome of a student and also the implications it can have for a practice that we do in higher education. It's super, it's just important.
Can you tell us a little bit about your life outside of work? What do you do? What do you get up to? Tell us a little bit about Billy Boulden as a person.
Billy Boulden (23:58 — Life Outside Work: Athletics & Community):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I've always identified as being an athlete. It's been a huge part of my life. And so I played two sports in college and really found myself again post-college in participating in CrossFit. And so having a gym and a community to go to and be a part of people that support me, but also just a place to try to work on my own fitness and health has been really rewarding for me. So I spend most of my free time outside the gym there. Trying to finish my PhD, so when I'm out of work, I'm a student. And outside of that, spending time with family, spending time with my dog or traveling is really important to me.
Dominic (24:32):
And can you tell us, how can people sort of follow you? What are your upcoming projects that you're excited about? Is there any way folks can keep in touch and speak with you?
Billy Boulden (24:42):
Yeah, so on all social media, it's just my name, Billy Boulden. I think on Instagram, there's no space, but everywhere else is just my name. It's the easiest way to get connected with me. No major projects to share right now other than my dissertation needs to get finished. And then I'm sure I'll have a bunch of projects after that. I've got a ton of ideas, but I don't get paid for ideas, so—
Dominic (25:05):
I'm excited. I'm going to subscribe to your notifications for your dissertation so I can watch it. And last question, who would you tap to come in the lounge with me and join me next? Either somebody from the space you've met or from your team, who do you want to see out on the podcast?
Billy Boulden (25:11 — Who to Invite Next to The Lounge):
Oh my goodness, such a good question. I would tap Marlon Gibson. Marlon is an incredible colleague. He's been in the industry for, I'm gonna say as long as me. I don't wanna age Marlon that way. He's based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He's a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. He works full-time professionally for Kappa Alpha Order, as well as does some of his own consulting and speaking. But Marlon, I've never met somebody in my life who cares more for humans than Marlon. Like even when I think like I'm doing a good job caring, I'm humbled by Marlon and his care and generosity in the way in which he experiences the world and sees people for who they are.
Dominic (26:05):
Incredible. Well, I'll reach out to him. You've also given me a good lesson not to use the decade word again. I think I threw that out a few too many times. For me, it's like exciting to see how experienced folks are. But I realize now once you hit a certain age, it becomes something you want to talk about less, I think.
Billy Boulden (26:22):
I think it depends on the person, right? I think some of us are comfortable with it. I tell my students here I used to be 35 and now I'm not.
Dominic (26:30):
That's great. I'm gonna use that. Love that. Okay, well, thanks so much, Billy. It's been a pleasure to have you and yeah, looking forward to seeing you next probably at AFA. Amazing.
Billy Boulden (26:32):
Yeah, sounds good.
Transcript
In the Lounge with Billy Boulden
Billy Boulden (00:00):
Name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (00:07):
Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of "In the Lounge." On this podcast, we meet with experts from the higher education field to share ideas, learn from their experiences, talk about new trends we're seeing, and get an unseen perspective of what's going on in the space. If you have any questions for my guests today, just send them over in an email and we'll get back to you with an answer. My email is dominic@lounge.live.
Today we're in the lounge with Billy Boulden. Billy is Assistant Dean of Students for Development and Student Leadership at Iowa State and the Director of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement. He has held various leadership positions at AFA and NACA. He has won a number of awards and has been honored by various organizations throughout his work spanning nearly two decades, including Campus Administrator of the Year in 2016 by Chi Phi Fraternity and FSL Advisor of the Year by Beta Theta Pi in 2018.
He's a speaker, a volunteer, and a coach. He's one of the best people to know in the space, and it's a pleasure to be chatting with him today. Billy, welcome. Thanks for joining me.
Billy Boulden (01:21):
Yeah, thanks Dominic. I'm excited to be here.
Dominic (01:22):
Billy, you and I have talked a lot about various components of fraternity and sorority life over the past years that we've known each other. One of my favorite things about you is that you have an ability to create these perfect analogies for themes that come up in the space. And that's not to create any pressure on you for this podcast, but more for people to know that your passion and knowledge of higher education is remarkable. And you do such a good job of sort of synthesizing and delivering thoughts in a way that's understandable and eye-opening.
I don't often just start a podcast with a bunch of compliments, but I felt like I had to today with you. But look, you've had a major impact on students and peers throughout your career, myself included. Can you tell us why you got into this space?
Billy Boulden (01:52 — Journey into Higher Education by Accident):
Yeah, I think it's actually a really, really great question. I got into higher education kind of by accident. It wasn't my plan. I was a classic over-involved student. So I played two sports in college. I was in a fraternity. I was in student government. I was in the school paper as an editor. You know, I did a ton of things in college and my original plan was to go to law school after I graduated. And I just needed a break from school.
And so I was given the opportunity to work for my national fraternity as a consultant right out of college and got to travel around the country and open some new chapters and then got to work, specifically just kind of coaching some of our existing chapters through their operations. And I really learned in that experience how cool of a job that was and how people could work in higher education as a career field. I didn't even know it existed. Even though I had people that I worked with on campus as an undergrad, I had advisors, I had people that helped me out, had campus administrators, did a lot of things. It just never dawned on me that they actually got paid to be there.
Dominic (03:00):
Did you kind of know what you were getting yourself into or did it come as a surprise once you were in it?
Billy Boulden (03:06):
A little bit of both, I mean, definitely working with a fraternity was a surprise. Like I didn't really know what I was getting into. I mean, we had great training and great resources, but I didn't necessarily understand the full picture of what it was. And then as I started meeting with campus professionals through that role, that's when I think I kind of learned of like, "Oh, this is a whole job. This is a career path and this is what you can do. And this is why this is important." And then obviously I went into higher ed and started working on campuses after that and just shaped my experience differently.
Dominic (03:31):
Amazing. Fast forwarding to today, what does your day-to-day look like in these roles as an assistant dean of Iowa State, but also as an FSL director? What does that look like?
Billy Boulden (03:38 — Day-to-Day as Assistant Dean & FSL Director):
Yeah, I mean, transparently, a lot of my job is meetings, probably the part that I don't love. But I mean, there's a necessary piece to that, right? And, you know, collaborating with campus partners or, you know, setting agendas or working through crisis or risk management issues, I think is an important component of what my job is at this point in my career. But it's also the one-on-one meetings that I have with students and coaching them in their work and their efforts. And I think that's the part that has been really rewarding to me throughout my career is being able to sit with a student and help them wrestle the monster that's in front of them that they're trying to navigate and help find resources and support and strategies for them to be resilient and overcome those challenges. And hopefully helping students build that capacity that they can do that on their own beyond their experience of their time with me.
Dominic (04:30):
And do you think that's something as a skill set for you that you've been able to kind of grow and nurture? Is it something that you've always been maybe a strength of yours or is it something that again sort of comes with time?
Billy Boulden (04:42):
Transparently, I would say all the above. I think I'm incredibly talented at it. And I think I'm horrible at it. Yeah, I mean, I genuinely mean that. I mean, I think there's students that I have met with over my career who I've tried to help them and how to work with them. And I just was not the right one to make the connection to help that student. Even though my advice may have worked, it didn't work for that student. And they would have been better off meeting and connecting with somebody else. And so I think there's a power in team and also understanding of like, "Hey, I'm not resonating with this," or my approach isn't coming off with the student and who I work with. Absolutely.
Dominic (05:13):
And that can be a skill itself, identifying that maybe you're not the right fit at that time.
Billy Boulden (05:18):
Yes, absolutely. And figure out who is, right? What does that look like? Or where do I have to gain more capacity? You know, I had a staff member who worked for me years ago and she wasn't a big sports fan. But a lot of the students that she ended up meeting with were students that were diehard sports fans. They all had a team. And so she came into my office one day and said, "I'm going to pick a team."
Like, what do you mean? She's like, "I need a professional sports team in every sport." And so she did. And then she started following those teams and started learning about those teams. So then when she came in and she had somebody that was like, "Oh, I love football." And she was like, "Oh, what did you see, you know, XYZ team play this weekend?" And they're like, "No." She's like, "Well, that's my favorite team." And they didn't play well, but you know.
Dominic (05:55):
That's a great way to handle that situation, or at least finding something that you can connect with. I think it goes even outside of just connections with students or the folks that you're directly advising. That's true for your whole career, for your whole life. It's like finding—Yeah.
Billy Boulden (06:09):
I think it's just a care for people, right? And it is not that she was never not into sports. She just she wasn't a diehard fan, right? She just kind of casually liked sports and so something triggered her to say, "You know, I know I really got to pick a team. I'm gonna learn more." And I think that happens to a lot of us in our careers. We need to learn more. We need to learn more about different populations, different people, different experiences. We may never fully understand it enough, but if that gives us enough resource to be able to, you know, start a conversation with some students or engage them in a way that's different than before, I think it's really helpful.
Dominic (06:40):
In terms of like your favorite areas of focus, can you tell us a little bit about kind of what draws you most to the work you do, maybe more recently what you've been focusing on in your study or in your field?
Billy Boulden (06:52 — Focus on Leadership Development):
I mean, leadership studies has always been a guiding factor for me. I was very fortunate as an undergrad to have the opportunity to experience a really university-supported leadership studies co-curricular experience. And so I was able to earn a minor in leadership studies and also have this out-of-classroom experience that was incredibly developmental for me. And I think throughout my career, I've kind of constantly seen that come back is how can we help develop skills or abilities to lead others? And so that's a framework that I really rely on in my day-to-day work, because I'm meeting with students. That's kind of the question. I'm like, "Okay, well, if you were to present this to your fraternity or your sorority or your student organization"—I do some student organization work—"what would be their response? Are they going to buy into this?" And they're like, "Well, they'll just do it because I told them to." "Are they really going to do it?" Like, they might not, right?
How do you make those connections? How do you lead and how do you create that buy-in? And seeing and watching students grow and learn in that way. I've got a student right now that I've always thought they were a good leader since the beginning, since they took over in their role and position. I thought they were a strong leader. There's some things that I've noticed over the last four, five months and I'm like, "Man, I wish I had more time with this student because there's some things that I think could have really elevated their cause." And in some of that, they had to learn. They had an event which could have been way better, but it was still a good event. And so the student and I were kind of processing that of like, "You know, what are all these things that we could have done? Some things different that we could have moved forward differently or how we could have tied with something?" And they had really great reflection and they were able to kind of showcase this whole other vision and plan for what they would do differently. I'm like, "That's what really jazzes me up." It's kind of seeing students have this experience in which they're growing, they're learning, but even when they don't, they understand like what they need to do in the next situation to be a better leader.
Dominic (08:39):
And the sort of post-game analysis, I think is so interesting too, being able to sit with them and say, "Look, here's what happened or here's what didn't happen." It's not so much about like the front-end side of saying, "This is how being a leader can be effective," but it's so much about learning from actually doing it. And I think what's interesting is the fraternity and sorority space is so much about leadership. I think it's such a repetitive theme that we see, and it is so much about why we do what we do and why folks join fraternities and sororities, and it's something that they carry onward into their later adult life and their careers. And I think it makes a lot of sense that it's something that you resonate a lot with because, yeah, it can be such a huge impact from that point in university all the way through the rest of their life.
Billy Boulden (09:20 — The Million-Dollar Organization Analogy):
And I think that's a point that's maybe understated sometimes too. And not everyone's the same way, right? Fraternities and sorority communities are not all the same way. They don't have the same resources or the same students. Here at Iowa State, because we have larger chapters, because a lot of our chapters have housing and meal plans associated with their expenses, fraternities and sororities are unique here in that in any given year, they'll see almost a million dollars of revenue come into the organization, right, through dues. So they'll see income of about a million dollars, whether that's for housing, meal plans, dues, et cetera.
Hundreds of members, right? They'll probably have a million minus $1 in expenses for those things also, right? They get a new president every year. Let's call the president the CEO, okay? So they get a new CEO every year. And in a four-year plan, they'll have 100% turnover of members. Let's call those employees, right? So name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (10:15):
Exactly. Yeah, that's such good perspective. I think that's what I was talking about early on in my introduction to you. That is the kind of perspective that you're able to give to folks. There's another piece that you shared with me a few months ago in the same vein of, I think it was more particularly to event management, but in terms of the work that these students have to do and that we're kind of asking them to do, it is so unique. And when you put in perspective kind of what they're being asked to do, it really helps us understand and it helps leadership understand, "Okay, how can we best help them?" And I think that connection is really something you do well. I'm going to butcher this, but I think it was something along the lines of "name an event that has this"—you can probably do a better job than I can. How does it go?
Billy Boulden (11:19):
Yeah, name an event that has over 400 guests at the party. Outside of the party, take it outside of fraternity and sorority context. What do you call an event that has over 400 people as guests? And yeah, the answer to it would be a wedding. So think about somebody you know that's planned a wedding. How long have they been planning their wedding?
Dominic (11:24):
That's right. Of course I forgot the other side of it. About a year, about, at least.
Billy Boulden (11:39):
At least, right? I know people that plan their wedding for 25 years, right? Since the first time they thought about going to a wedding, they started planning what the details would be and all those types of things. So you think like on the short end, we got 25, 30, 40 years of wedding planning. On the short end, we're talking six months to a year to have a party with 400 people. Our collegians think they can pull that off on the same day, right? And manage all the risk and how the details match and things like that. And it's just not the case, right? We need time to plan out to make sure that we have our I's dotted and our T's crossed and that we're having a fun event, but also a safe one.
Dominic (12:13):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're one of the—I think your work in risk management and some of those best practices stands out. I think, you know, you travel a lot to other universities, you speak, can you tell us a little bit about what it's like speaking at other universities, what your favorite part about that is, and share a little bit about that journey and that sort of side of your life?
Billy Boulden (12:31 — Speaking & Risk Management Work):
Well, you know, I think a big thing is trying to be helpful. When I first started traveling and speaking to other schools, I think one of the things I was concerned about was I didn't want to be this guy that just comes in and cashes a check, right? Like, so I tried to be different and I tried to be something that could be a support system. And some people just want you to come in and talk, right? Okay, so we'll do that, right? But I think when I have an opportunity to go in and actually help a community to think about the culture that they're trying to create within their organization and to think about the progress they've made, the steps they're taking, and kind of what the next step is. That's when it's most rewarding for me. That's when I enjoy the experience the most. I want to be helpful. I want to be someone that gives back, and I want to be someone that inspires people to do it better than we did. My generation did a lot of things wrong, right? That's why we have a lot of rules and policies. I think about something like, you know, driving down the interstate. When did we create speed limits? Right? At some point in time, there wasn't a speed limit. You can only go as fast as the horse could run. Right? But then we started getting cars and we needed speed limits for safety and security for people. Right? And so it's a necessary rule that we learned. Same thing has happened in sorority, fraternity, and student organizations that we've learned over time. And we have some more guardrails up to help kind of keep people in line and keep them safe.
Dominic (13:42):
Yeah. And what has changed or I guess over your time at Iowa State, what are some of the things that you've seen change and related to that, what are the things that you're most proud of that maybe you had a role in changing?
Billy Boulden (13:54 — Values vs. Principles in Organizational Change):
Yeah, I mean, I think change is inevitable. And I think that that's something that we don't want to talk about enough. That things can't stay the exact same way that they have to forever. But there's components that can be. And I think it's helping people understand what is really critical to us and what needs to be there. And without becoming the analogy guy, I've got another one for you.
Dominic (14:15):
Okay, great.
Billy Boulden (14:16):
I would argue that our values change over time and our principles remain constant over time. What is the difference between values and principles?
Dominic (14:25):
I'd say values are things we like and care about and principles are things that we sort of are almost rules or things that we live our lives by. That would be my definition.
Billy Boulden (14:34):
Yeah, so I think it's pretty good. I would buy those. So I drive a truck. My truck needs gas to go. I know there's a lot of vehicles and all that kind of stuff. My truck's not an electric vehicle, right? My truck needs gas. The principle of needing gas in my truck has remained constant from the time that—this morning when I filled up gas was $2.78. Six months ago I was paying $3.35. I was out in California, I was paying $6. The value of gasoline is different. Different at different places, it's different at different times. It changes, but that principle of needing gas in the truck remains constant. And so when I think about our experiences, how can we develop things, ideas, actions, events, programs that keep our principles in alignment but shift our values? So when a chapter wants to change their philanthropy event, when they don't want to sell the food product they've been selling for years and instead they want to create a haunted house, the principle of raising money for charity remains the same. The value of selling hot dogs or corn dogs or french fries or whatever it is has diminished to a level that we're no longer interested in, and now we want to have a haunted house. Okay, well we value something different, but our principle of raising money for charity has remained the same. And we need to focus more on our principles and be less concerned about the momentary value that exists.
Dominic (15:53):
It's almost like the mission of these, our missions and our organization's missions are fairly constant. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that is perceived overall as a great thing. And then the question of how we kind of meet those and how we support those, that is the variable you're saying. And that's where we can, we may have a little room to explore or change year over year, maybe follow some trends, but so long as it's in support of the main mission.
Billy Boulden (16:20):
Yeah, and we see this, we're seeing this across the country right now with policy changes. Certain things people can talk about, certain things they can't talk about. And I'm not advocating one way or the other. That's not my positionality today. My positionality today is what is our principle? Our principles are to educate students. That's our job. Our job is to follow that principle and to educate students. And to do so in a way that is fully compliant with laws and expectations. Okay, I can totally do that. And it's less about whether do I agree or disagree with what is being valued by institutions or the government or whoever is just making those decisions, right? It's not about that. What is the principle? The principle is to be an educator. I can be an educator and I can do so fully compliant.
Dominic (17:04):
And when you sort of visit that topic and you think about, okay, staying passionate through the work over the last couple of decades nearly, in the next decade, what are some things, obviously there are some areas that really resonate with you, the leadership, delivering impact to students. What are some of those things that you get up in the morning and you're like, "This is why I do it, I'm so passionate about this"?
Billy Boulden (17:25 — What Keeps the Passion Alive):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think a big piece of that is the work, while it's the same, it's never predictable. Right. And that just resonates with who I am as a person. Right. Like I like that spontaneity. If I had a friend that called me today and said, "Hey, let's go on a trip to Texas tomorrow." Great. Let's go. Right. Like. Yeah.
Dominic (17:42):
That is true you. Yeah, and for folks that don't know, you are someone that will jump at opportunities. I feel like you're also one of the busiest people in the space. I think that's very much your mantra.
Billy Boulden (17:54):
Yeah, I think you have to be, right? What's the old Wayne—who is it? Wayne Gretzky quote, right? "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," right? I'm gonna shoot my shot, right? I didn't mean to have to do the thing, but like, put the stick in my hand, I'm gonna hit the puck, right? I'm going for it. And so I think part of that is in this work, that's what I get, right? A student comes to my office every day with something new. And while I have a task and a project and things to do, part of that support system of helping students be successful is the unknown and being equipped and prepared to help them.
Dominic (18:25):
Can you tell us something that maybe folks, either a fact or something you've come across as a trend that folks currently may not be aware of or new folks in the space haven't heard yet? Something that you think is quite an interesting change or development in the space, whether it be student leadership or fraternity and sorority life, could be generally.
Billy Boulden (18:44 — Challenging Assumptions About Student Engagement):
Yeah. You know, I don't know that I have a good answer to that question. I think that there are a lot of people right now in higher ed that have opinions about things or maybe there's a false narrative, maybe it's true, I don't know. But one of the things that we hear is that students don't like to sit in sessions for more than an hour. I would argue that students also don't like to be bored. So is it really around being there for an hour or is it that your content is boring?
Dominic (19:19):
Right. That's it. That's a great—Yeah, you can—
Billy Boulden (19:20):
Or is it both? Or is it both, right? I don't know, right? So I mean, there's people that are saying some things. I talked to a colleague that says students don't want to take any more in-person classes. They want to do everything online. Do they? Or is your in-person class not worth their time or attention in the students' mind, right? Obviously you as the instructor, like you think it's totally worth your time. So I think part of this is like trying to figure out like, we don't just say the punchline or the fact or the thing that we know to be true, but we share our whole story. So "Here's this trend that I've been, you know, had and students have reported to me that they don't like sessions where they're sitting in a classroom for more than an hour. And here's all the data that proves this." Right? "Here's some reasons why I think that they might be saying that. How am I addressing those things?" Like, I think that's what we need to be doing more of. Right? Because I would take myself in that situation. I don't like to sit and listen to somebody talk to me for an hour. I want to be active. I want to do things, right? Like you said, I'm about to go to Texas on a trip because you called and said, "Let's go," right? Like, how do we make these things interactive and engaging so that students are, they want to be a part of it? Sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you have to just listen and be the person that listens to the content. But I think we've got to think about ways that we don't just share everything we hear and know as a complete fact that we're telling the whole story about how we got, how we got to where we are, how we got there so that we can then think about what our next action step is. And I think that's a lesson that not only works for us as administrators and professionals in higher ed, but also to our student leaders, right? Just because your grades went up doesn't necessarily mean you have a better academic program. You might've just recruited smarter people to your organization. So how do you know this thing is the thing that changed it? I think that's something that we need to do more work on.
Dominic (21:05):
That's really interesting. It's about asking kind of the "why," because you can see data at face value. But if you take the kind of result and you don't understand how you got there, you can be completely misinformed. And then you can misinform the kind of next few steps you take. We talk a lot about student engagement, obviously with our universities. But I think so much of it is about, "Let's get the data. Let's get like, how many events are they doing? How much attendance is there?" And I think what's really interesting is you can—one example we give is you can basically have data on a group that came to an event that they were supposed to come to. And that looks like engagement, but equally they may not come to that event because they don't like going to events. But meanwhile, they're chatting, they're having conversation, they're collaborating online, they're hosting virtual meetings or games, whatever they do. That's a really strong community. So it's not just about the face value data, it's about the—
Billy Boulden (21:59):
Yeah, and I think sometimes too, you know, we craft questions or develop programs in a certain way where the response indicates a certain answer. Right. And I don't think people are always prepared to answer why they really did that. Right. So if you said, "Why did you come tonight?" Right. Did you come because there was free pizza? Did you come because a friend invited you? Did you come because you were really interested in the topic? It could be all the above, could be none. You might have come because your friend has actually invited you, but the reason that you actually got off the couch on campus is because there was free pizza. So those are really hard questions. It's hard to get good answers to understand what actually is the thing, because we'll never know what somebody else's motivation is.
Dominic (22:36):
Yeah, also when you try to do that with one student, that's one thing, but when you're trying to collect feedback and information from 10,000 students or even a thousand students, it becomes a much bigger task.
Billy Boulden (22:47):
Yes.
Dominic (22:47):
So what can you do to maybe make some of that feedback stronger, better, a bit more creative?
Billy Boulden (22:52):
I mean, I think one of the questions we started asking ourselves here is what is our purpose for doing this thing that we're doing? Right? And while I would love every student to love every program that we host, I'm more interested in what a student learned or gained from being a part of my experience than whether they loved the experience in and of itself. And maybe that's a wrong approach. I don't know. But that's currently where I'm sitting of, I need you to be able to do X, Y, and Z. Can you do X, Y, and Z? Great. Did you like the way in which you were taught X, Y, and Z? No? Okay. That's feedback. And for me, I got to do this better. But that was still a very effective program because you learned how to do X, Y, and Z.
Dominic (23:27):
I feel like some of these conversations we have should be in like a leather chair. I should be by a fire. We need to like, you know, have a really some sort of—yeah, it's a really interesting conversation that I think can go in many different directions because there's so much in terms of the importance of this for the actual outcome of a student and also the implications it can have for a practice that we do in higher education. It's super, it's just important.
Can you tell us a little bit about your life outside of work? What do you do? What do you get up to? Tell us a little bit about Billy Boulden as a person.
Billy Boulden (23:58 — Life Outside Work: Athletics & Community):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I've always identified as being an athlete. It's been a huge part of my life. And so I played two sports in college and really found myself again post-college in participating in CrossFit. And so having a gym and a community to go to and be a part of people that support me, but also just a place to try to work on my own fitness and health has been really rewarding for me. So I spend most of my free time outside the gym there. Trying to finish my PhD, so when I'm out of work, I'm a student. And outside of that, spending time with family, spending time with my dog or traveling is really important to me.
Dominic (24:32):
And can you tell us, how can people sort of follow you? What are your upcoming projects that you're excited about? Is there any way folks can keep in touch and speak with you?
Billy Boulden (24:42):
Yeah, so on all social media, it's just my name, Billy Boulden. I think on Instagram, there's no space, but everywhere else is just my name. It's the easiest way to get connected with me. No major projects to share right now other than my dissertation needs to get finished. And then I'm sure I'll have a bunch of projects after that. I've got a ton of ideas, but I don't get paid for ideas, so—
Dominic (25:05):
I'm excited. I'm going to subscribe to your notifications for your dissertation so I can watch it. And last question, who would you tap to come in the lounge with me and join me next? Either somebody from the space you've met or from your team, who do you want to see out on the podcast?
Billy Boulden (25:11 — Who to Invite Next to The Lounge):
Oh my goodness, such a good question. I would tap Marlon Gibson. Marlon is an incredible colleague. He's been in the industry for, I'm gonna say as long as me. I don't wanna age Marlon that way. He's based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He's a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. He works full-time professionally for Kappa Alpha Order, as well as does some of his own consulting and speaking. But Marlon, I've never met somebody in my life who cares more for humans than Marlon. Like even when I think like I'm doing a good job caring, I'm humbled by Marlon and his care and generosity in the way in which he experiences the world and sees people for who they are.
Dominic (26:05):
Incredible. Well, I'll reach out to him. You've also given me a good lesson not to use the decade word again. I think I threw that out a few too many times. For me, it's like exciting to see how experienced folks are. But I realize now once you hit a certain age, it becomes something you want to talk about less, I think.
Billy Boulden (26:22):
I think it depends on the person, right? I think some of us are comfortable with it. I tell my students here I used to be 35 and now I'm not.
Dominic (26:30):
That's great. I'm gonna use that. Love that. Okay, well, thanks so much, Billy. It's been a pleasure to have you and yeah, looking forward to seeing you next probably at AFA. Amazing.
Billy Boulden (26:32):
Yeah, sounds good.
Transcript
In the Lounge with Billy Boulden
Billy Boulden (00:00):
Name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (00:07):
Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of "In the Lounge." On this podcast, we meet with experts from the higher education field to share ideas, learn from their experiences, talk about new trends we're seeing, and get an unseen perspective of what's going on in the space. If you have any questions for my guests today, just send them over in an email and we'll get back to you with an answer. My email is dominic@lounge.live.
Today we're in the lounge with Billy Boulden. Billy is Assistant Dean of Students for Development and Student Leadership at Iowa State and the Director of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement. He has held various leadership positions at AFA and NACA. He has won a number of awards and has been honored by various organizations throughout his work spanning nearly two decades, including Campus Administrator of the Year in 2016 by Chi Phi Fraternity and FSL Advisor of the Year by Beta Theta Pi in 2018.
He's a speaker, a volunteer, and a coach. He's one of the best people to know in the space, and it's a pleasure to be chatting with him today. Billy, welcome. Thanks for joining me.
Billy Boulden (01:21):
Yeah, thanks Dominic. I'm excited to be here.
Dominic (01:22):
Billy, you and I have talked a lot about various components of fraternity and sorority life over the past years that we've known each other. One of my favorite things about you is that you have an ability to create these perfect analogies for themes that come up in the space. And that's not to create any pressure on you for this podcast, but more for people to know that your passion and knowledge of higher education is remarkable. And you do such a good job of sort of synthesizing and delivering thoughts in a way that's understandable and eye-opening.
I don't often just start a podcast with a bunch of compliments, but I felt like I had to today with you. But look, you've had a major impact on students and peers throughout your career, myself included. Can you tell us why you got into this space?
Billy Boulden (01:52 — Journey into Higher Education by Accident):
Yeah, I think it's actually a really, really great question. I got into higher education kind of by accident. It wasn't my plan. I was a classic over-involved student. So I played two sports in college. I was in a fraternity. I was in student government. I was in the school paper as an editor. You know, I did a ton of things in college and my original plan was to go to law school after I graduated. And I just needed a break from school.
And so I was given the opportunity to work for my national fraternity as a consultant right out of college and got to travel around the country and open some new chapters and then got to work, specifically just kind of coaching some of our existing chapters through their operations. And I really learned in that experience how cool of a job that was and how people could work in higher education as a career field. I didn't even know it existed. Even though I had people that I worked with on campus as an undergrad, I had advisors, I had people that helped me out, had campus administrators, did a lot of things. It just never dawned on me that they actually got paid to be there.
Dominic (03:00):
Did you kind of know what you were getting yourself into or did it come as a surprise once you were in it?
Billy Boulden (03:06):
A little bit of both, I mean, definitely working with a fraternity was a surprise. Like I didn't really know what I was getting into. I mean, we had great training and great resources, but I didn't necessarily understand the full picture of what it was. And then as I started meeting with campus professionals through that role, that's when I think I kind of learned of like, "Oh, this is a whole job. This is a career path and this is what you can do. And this is why this is important." And then obviously I went into higher ed and started working on campuses after that and just shaped my experience differently.
Dominic (03:31):
Amazing. Fast forwarding to today, what does your day-to-day look like in these roles as an assistant dean of Iowa State, but also as an FSL director? What does that look like?
Billy Boulden (03:38 — Day-to-Day as Assistant Dean & FSL Director):
Yeah, I mean, transparently, a lot of my job is meetings, probably the part that I don't love. But I mean, there's a necessary piece to that, right? And, you know, collaborating with campus partners or, you know, setting agendas or working through crisis or risk management issues, I think is an important component of what my job is at this point in my career. But it's also the one-on-one meetings that I have with students and coaching them in their work and their efforts. And I think that's the part that has been really rewarding to me throughout my career is being able to sit with a student and help them wrestle the monster that's in front of them that they're trying to navigate and help find resources and support and strategies for them to be resilient and overcome those challenges. And hopefully helping students build that capacity that they can do that on their own beyond their experience of their time with me.
Dominic (04:30):
And do you think that's something as a skill set for you that you've been able to kind of grow and nurture? Is it something that you've always been maybe a strength of yours or is it something that again sort of comes with time?
Billy Boulden (04:42):
Transparently, I would say all the above. I think I'm incredibly talented at it. And I think I'm horrible at it. Yeah, I mean, I genuinely mean that. I mean, I think there's students that I have met with over my career who I've tried to help them and how to work with them. And I just was not the right one to make the connection to help that student. Even though my advice may have worked, it didn't work for that student. And they would have been better off meeting and connecting with somebody else. And so I think there's a power in team and also understanding of like, "Hey, I'm not resonating with this," or my approach isn't coming off with the student and who I work with. Absolutely.
Dominic (05:13):
And that can be a skill itself, identifying that maybe you're not the right fit at that time.
Billy Boulden (05:18):
Yes, absolutely. And figure out who is, right? What does that look like? Or where do I have to gain more capacity? You know, I had a staff member who worked for me years ago and she wasn't a big sports fan. But a lot of the students that she ended up meeting with were students that were diehard sports fans. They all had a team. And so she came into my office one day and said, "I'm going to pick a team."
Like, what do you mean? She's like, "I need a professional sports team in every sport." And so she did. And then she started following those teams and started learning about those teams. So then when she came in and she had somebody that was like, "Oh, I love football." And she was like, "Oh, what did you see, you know, XYZ team play this weekend?" And they're like, "No." She's like, "Well, that's my favorite team." And they didn't play well, but you know.
Dominic (05:55):
That's a great way to handle that situation, or at least finding something that you can connect with. I think it goes even outside of just connections with students or the folks that you're directly advising. That's true for your whole career, for your whole life. It's like finding—Yeah.
Billy Boulden (06:09):
I think it's just a care for people, right? And it is not that she was never not into sports. She just she wasn't a diehard fan, right? She just kind of casually liked sports and so something triggered her to say, "You know, I know I really got to pick a team. I'm gonna learn more." And I think that happens to a lot of us in our careers. We need to learn more. We need to learn more about different populations, different people, different experiences. We may never fully understand it enough, but if that gives us enough resource to be able to, you know, start a conversation with some students or engage them in a way that's different than before, I think it's really helpful.
Dominic (06:40):
In terms of like your favorite areas of focus, can you tell us a little bit about kind of what draws you most to the work you do, maybe more recently what you've been focusing on in your study or in your field?
Billy Boulden (06:52 — Focus on Leadership Development):
I mean, leadership studies has always been a guiding factor for me. I was very fortunate as an undergrad to have the opportunity to experience a really university-supported leadership studies co-curricular experience. And so I was able to earn a minor in leadership studies and also have this out-of-classroom experience that was incredibly developmental for me. And I think throughout my career, I've kind of constantly seen that come back is how can we help develop skills or abilities to lead others? And so that's a framework that I really rely on in my day-to-day work, because I'm meeting with students. That's kind of the question. I'm like, "Okay, well, if you were to present this to your fraternity or your sorority or your student organization"—I do some student organization work—"what would be their response? Are they going to buy into this?" And they're like, "Well, they'll just do it because I told them to." "Are they really going to do it?" Like, they might not, right?
How do you make those connections? How do you lead and how do you create that buy-in? And seeing and watching students grow and learn in that way. I've got a student right now that I've always thought they were a good leader since the beginning, since they took over in their role and position. I thought they were a strong leader. There's some things that I've noticed over the last four, five months and I'm like, "Man, I wish I had more time with this student because there's some things that I think could have really elevated their cause." And in some of that, they had to learn. They had an event which could have been way better, but it was still a good event. And so the student and I were kind of processing that of like, "You know, what are all these things that we could have done? Some things different that we could have moved forward differently or how we could have tied with something?" And they had really great reflection and they were able to kind of showcase this whole other vision and plan for what they would do differently. I'm like, "That's what really jazzes me up." It's kind of seeing students have this experience in which they're growing, they're learning, but even when they don't, they understand like what they need to do in the next situation to be a better leader.
Dominic (08:39):
And the sort of post-game analysis, I think is so interesting too, being able to sit with them and say, "Look, here's what happened or here's what didn't happen." It's not so much about like the front-end side of saying, "This is how being a leader can be effective," but it's so much about learning from actually doing it. And I think what's interesting is the fraternity and sorority space is so much about leadership. I think it's such a repetitive theme that we see, and it is so much about why we do what we do and why folks join fraternities and sororities, and it's something that they carry onward into their later adult life and their careers. And I think it makes a lot of sense that it's something that you resonate a lot with because, yeah, it can be such a huge impact from that point in university all the way through the rest of their life.
Billy Boulden (09:20 — The Million-Dollar Organization Analogy):
And I think that's a point that's maybe understated sometimes too. And not everyone's the same way, right? Fraternities and sorority communities are not all the same way. They don't have the same resources or the same students. Here at Iowa State, because we have larger chapters, because a lot of our chapters have housing and meal plans associated with their expenses, fraternities and sororities are unique here in that in any given year, they'll see almost a million dollars of revenue come into the organization, right, through dues. So they'll see income of about a million dollars, whether that's for housing, meal plans, dues, et cetera.
Hundreds of members, right? They'll probably have a million minus $1 in expenses for those things also, right? They get a new president every year. Let's call the president the CEO, okay? So they get a new CEO every year. And in a four-year plan, they'll have 100% turnover of members. Let's call those employees, right? So name a business that has a new CEO every year, sees a million dollars in revenue, and has 100% employee turnover in four years. It doesn't exist. And so the fast-track experience that fraternities and sororities have to exhibit to have all this money come in, to have a leader in charge who's only there for a short period of time, to continue the organization to evolve year after year after year, and onboard new members, elevate them to management leadership positions, and then turn them over in a four-year period. Nothing else gets a case study like fraternities and sororities have.
Dominic (10:15):
Exactly. Yeah, that's such good perspective. I think that's what I was talking about early on in my introduction to you. That is the kind of perspective that you're able to give to folks. There's another piece that you shared with me a few months ago in the same vein of, I think it was more particularly to event management, but in terms of the work that these students have to do and that we're kind of asking them to do, it is so unique. And when you put in perspective kind of what they're being asked to do, it really helps us understand and it helps leadership understand, "Okay, how can we best help them?" And I think that connection is really something you do well. I'm going to butcher this, but I think it was something along the lines of "name an event that has this"—you can probably do a better job than I can. How does it go?
Billy Boulden (11:19):
Yeah, name an event that has over 400 guests at the party. Outside of the party, take it outside of fraternity and sorority context. What do you call an event that has over 400 people as guests? And yeah, the answer to it would be a wedding. So think about somebody you know that's planned a wedding. How long have they been planning their wedding?
Dominic (11:24):
That's right. Of course I forgot the other side of it. About a year, about, at least.
Billy Boulden (11:39):
At least, right? I know people that plan their wedding for 25 years, right? Since the first time they thought about going to a wedding, they started planning what the details would be and all those types of things. So you think like on the short end, we got 25, 30, 40 years of wedding planning. On the short end, we're talking six months to a year to have a party with 400 people. Our collegians think they can pull that off on the same day, right? And manage all the risk and how the details match and things like that. And it's just not the case, right? We need time to plan out to make sure that we have our I's dotted and our T's crossed and that we're having a fun event, but also a safe one.
Dominic (12:13):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're one of the—I think your work in risk management and some of those best practices stands out. I think, you know, you travel a lot to other universities, you speak, can you tell us a little bit about what it's like speaking at other universities, what your favorite part about that is, and share a little bit about that journey and that sort of side of your life?
Billy Boulden (12:31 — Speaking & Risk Management Work):
Well, you know, I think a big thing is trying to be helpful. When I first started traveling and speaking to other schools, I think one of the things I was concerned about was I didn't want to be this guy that just comes in and cashes a check, right? Like, so I tried to be different and I tried to be something that could be a support system. And some people just want you to come in and talk, right? Okay, so we'll do that, right? But I think when I have an opportunity to go in and actually help a community to think about the culture that they're trying to create within their organization and to think about the progress they've made, the steps they're taking, and kind of what the next step is. That's when it's most rewarding for me. That's when I enjoy the experience the most. I want to be helpful. I want to be someone that gives back, and I want to be someone that inspires people to do it better than we did. My generation did a lot of things wrong, right? That's why we have a lot of rules and policies. I think about something like, you know, driving down the interstate. When did we create speed limits? Right? At some point in time, there wasn't a speed limit. You can only go as fast as the horse could run. Right? But then we started getting cars and we needed speed limits for safety and security for people. Right? And so it's a necessary rule that we learned. Same thing has happened in sorority, fraternity, and student organizations that we've learned over time. And we have some more guardrails up to help kind of keep people in line and keep them safe.
Dominic (13:42):
Yeah. And what has changed or I guess over your time at Iowa State, what are some of the things that you've seen change and related to that, what are the things that you're most proud of that maybe you had a role in changing?
Billy Boulden (13:54 — Values vs. Principles in Organizational Change):
Yeah, I mean, I think change is inevitable. And I think that that's something that we don't want to talk about enough. That things can't stay the exact same way that they have to forever. But there's components that can be. And I think it's helping people understand what is really critical to us and what needs to be there. And without becoming the analogy guy, I've got another one for you.
Dominic (14:15):
Okay, great.
Billy Boulden (14:16):
I would argue that our values change over time and our principles remain constant over time. What is the difference between values and principles?
Dominic (14:25):
I'd say values are things we like and care about and principles are things that we sort of are almost rules or things that we live our lives by. That would be my definition.
Billy Boulden (14:34):
Yeah, so I think it's pretty good. I would buy those. So I drive a truck. My truck needs gas to go. I know there's a lot of vehicles and all that kind of stuff. My truck's not an electric vehicle, right? My truck needs gas. The principle of needing gas in my truck has remained constant from the time that—this morning when I filled up gas was $2.78. Six months ago I was paying $3.35. I was out in California, I was paying $6. The value of gasoline is different. Different at different places, it's different at different times. It changes, but that principle of needing gas in the truck remains constant. And so when I think about our experiences, how can we develop things, ideas, actions, events, programs that keep our principles in alignment but shift our values? So when a chapter wants to change their philanthropy event, when they don't want to sell the food product they've been selling for years and instead they want to create a haunted house, the principle of raising money for charity remains the same. The value of selling hot dogs or corn dogs or french fries or whatever it is has diminished to a level that we're no longer interested in, and now we want to have a haunted house. Okay, well we value something different, but our principle of raising money for charity has remained the same. And we need to focus more on our principles and be less concerned about the momentary value that exists.
Dominic (15:53):
It's almost like the mission of these, our missions and our organization's missions are fairly constant. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that is perceived overall as a great thing. And then the question of how we kind of meet those and how we support those, that is the variable you're saying. And that's where we can, we may have a little room to explore or change year over year, maybe follow some trends, but so long as it's in support of the main mission.
Billy Boulden (16:20):
Yeah, and we see this, we're seeing this across the country right now with policy changes. Certain things people can talk about, certain things they can't talk about. And I'm not advocating one way or the other. That's not my positionality today. My positionality today is what is our principle? Our principles are to educate students. That's our job. Our job is to follow that principle and to educate students. And to do so in a way that is fully compliant with laws and expectations. Okay, I can totally do that. And it's less about whether do I agree or disagree with what is being valued by institutions or the government or whoever is just making those decisions, right? It's not about that. What is the principle? The principle is to be an educator. I can be an educator and I can do so fully compliant.
Dominic (17:04):
And when you sort of visit that topic and you think about, okay, staying passionate through the work over the last couple of decades nearly, in the next decade, what are some things, obviously there are some areas that really resonate with you, the leadership, delivering impact to students. What are some of those things that you get up in the morning and you're like, "This is why I do it, I'm so passionate about this"?
Billy Boulden (17:25 — What Keeps the Passion Alive):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think a big piece of that is the work, while it's the same, it's never predictable. Right. And that just resonates with who I am as a person. Right. Like I like that spontaneity. If I had a friend that called me today and said, "Hey, let's go on a trip to Texas tomorrow." Great. Let's go. Right. Like. Yeah.
Dominic (17:42):
That is true you. Yeah, and for folks that don't know, you are someone that will jump at opportunities. I feel like you're also one of the busiest people in the space. I think that's very much your mantra.
Billy Boulden (17:54):
Yeah, I think you have to be, right? What's the old Wayne—who is it? Wayne Gretzky quote, right? "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," right? I'm gonna shoot my shot, right? I didn't mean to have to do the thing, but like, put the stick in my hand, I'm gonna hit the puck, right? I'm going for it. And so I think part of that is in this work, that's what I get, right? A student comes to my office every day with something new. And while I have a task and a project and things to do, part of that support system of helping students be successful is the unknown and being equipped and prepared to help them.
Dominic (18:25):
Can you tell us something that maybe folks, either a fact or something you've come across as a trend that folks currently may not be aware of or new folks in the space haven't heard yet? Something that you think is quite an interesting change or development in the space, whether it be student leadership or fraternity and sorority life, could be generally.
Billy Boulden (18:44 — Challenging Assumptions About Student Engagement):
Yeah. You know, I don't know that I have a good answer to that question. I think that there are a lot of people right now in higher ed that have opinions about things or maybe there's a false narrative, maybe it's true, I don't know. But one of the things that we hear is that students don't like to sit in sessions for more than an hour. I would argue that students also don't like to be bored. So is it really around being there for an hour or is it that your content is boring?
Dominic (19:19):
Right. That's it. That's a great—Yeah, you can—
Billy Boulden (19:20):
Or is it both? Or is it both, right? I don't know, right? So I mean, there's people that are saying some things. I talked to a colleague that says students don't want to take any more in-person classes. They want to do everything online. Do they? Or is your in-person class not worth their time or attention in the students' mind, right? Obviously you as the instructor, like you think it's totally worth your time. So I think part of this is like trying to figure out like, we don't just say the punchline or the fact or the thing that we know to be true, but we share our whole story. So "Here's this trend that I've been, you know, had and students have reported to me that they don't like sessions where they're sitting in a classroom for more than an hour. And here's all the data that proves this." Right? "Here's some reasons why I think that they might be saying that. How am I addressing those things?" Like, I think that's what we need to be doing more of. Right? Because I would take myself in that situation. I don't like to sit and listen to somebody talk to me for an hour. I want to be active. I want to do things, right? Like you said, I'm about to go to Texas on a trip because you called and said, "Let's go," right? Like, how do we make these things interactive and engaging so that students are, they want to be a part of it? Sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you have to just listen and be the person that listens to the content. But I think we've got to think about ways that we don't just share everything we hear and know as a complete fact that we're telling the whole story about how we got, how we got to where we are, how we got there so that we can then think about what our next action step is. And I think that's a lesson that not only works for us as administrators and professionals in higher ed, but also to our student leaders, right? Just because your grades went up doesn't necessarily mean you have a better academic program. You might've just recruited smarter people to your organization. So how do you know this thing is the thing that changed it? I think that's something that we need to do more work on.
Dominic (21:05):
That's really interesting. It's about asking kind of the "why," because you can see data at face value. But if you take the kind of result and you don't understand how you got there, you can be completely misinformed. And then you can misinform the kind of next few steps you take. We talk a lot about student engagement, obviously with our universities. But I think so much of it is about, "Let's get the data. Let's get like, how many events are they doing? How much attendance is there?" And I think what's really interesting is you can—one example we give is you can basically have data on a group that came to an event that they were supposed to come to. And that looks like engagement, but equally they may not come to that event because they don't like going to events. But meanwhile, they're chatting, they're having conversation, they're collaborating online, they're hosting virtual meetings or games, whatever they do. That's a really strong community. So it's not just about the face value data, it's about the—
Billy Boulden (21:59):
Yeah, and I think sometimes too, you know, we craft questions or develop programs in a certain way where the response indicates a certain answer. Right. And I don't think people are always prepared to answer why they really did that. Right. So if you said, "Why did you come tonight?" Right. Did you come because there was free pizza? Did you come because a friend invited you? Did you come because you were really interested in the topic? It could be all the above, could be none. You might have come because your friend has actually invited you, but the reason that you actually got off the couch on campus is because there was free pizza. So those are really hard questions. It's hard to get good answers to understand what actually is the thing, because we'll never know what somebody else's motivation is.
Dominic (22:36):
Yeah, also when you try to do that with one student, that's one thing, but when you're trying to collect feedback and information from 10,000 students or even a thousand students, it becomes a much bigger task.
Billy Boulden (22:47):
Yes.
Dominic (22:47):
So what can you do to maybe make some of that feedback stronger, better, a bit more creative?
Billy Boulden (22:52):
I mean, I think one of the questions we started asking ourselves here is what is our purpose for doing this thing that we're doing? Right? And while I would love every student to love every program that we host, I'm more interested in what a student learned or gained from being a part of my experience than whether they loved the experience in and of itself. And maybe that's a wrong approach. I don't know. But that's currently where I'm sitting of, I need you to be able to do X, Y, and Z. Can you do X, Y, and Z? Great. Did you like the way in which you were taught X, Y, and Z? No? Okay. That's feedback. And for me, I got to do this better. But that was still a very effective program because you learned how to do X, Y, and Z.
Dominic (23:27):
I feel like some of these conversations we have should be in like a leather chair. I should be by a fire. We need to like, you know, have a really some sort of—yeah, it's a really interesting conversation that I think can go in many different directions because there's so much in terms of the importance of this for the actual outcome of a student and also the implications it can have for a practice that we do in higher education. It's super, it's just important.
Can you tell us a little bit about your life outside of work? What do you do? What do you get up to? Tell us a little bit about Billy Boulden as a person.
Billy Boulden (23:58 — Life Outside Work: Athletics & Community):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I've always identified as being an athlete. It's been a huge part of my life. And so I played two sports in college and really found myself again post-college in participating in CrossFit. And so having a gym and a community to go to and be a part of people that support me, but also just a place to try to work on my own fitness and health has been really rewarding for me. So I spend most of my free time outside the gym there. Trying to finish my PhD, so when I'm out of work, I'm a student. And outside of that, spending time with family, spending time with my dog or traveling is really important to me.
Dominic (24:32):
And can you tell us, how can people sort of follow you? What are your upcoming projects that you're excited about? Is there any way folks can keep in touch and speak with you?
Billy Boulden (24:42):
Yeah, so on all social media, it's just my name, Billy Boulden. I think on Instagram, there's no space, but everywhere else is just my name. It's the easiest way to get connected with me. No major projects to share right now other than my dissertation needs to get finished. And then I'm sure I'll have a bunch of projects after that. I've got a ton of ideas, but I don't get paid for ideas, so—
Dominic (25:05):
I'm excited. I'm going to subscribe to your notifications for your dissertation so I can watch it. And last question, who would you tap to come in the lounge with me and join me next? Either somebody from the space you've met or from your team, who do you want to see out on the podcast?
Billy Boulden (25:11 — Who to Invite Next to The Lounge):
Oh my goodness, such a good question. I would tap Marlon Gibson. Marlon is an incredible colleague. He's been in the industry for, I'm gonna say as long as me. I don't wanna age Marlon that way. He's based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He's a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. He works full-time professionally for Kappa Alpha Order, as well as does some of his own consulting and speaking. But Marlon, I've never met somebody in my life who cares more for humans than Marlon. Like even when I think like I'm doing a good job caring, I'm humbled by Marlon and his care and generosity in the way in which he experiences the world and sees people for who they are.
Dominic (26:05):
Incredible. Well, I'll reach out to him. You've also given me a good lesson not to use the decade word again. I think I threw that out a few too many times. For me, it's like exciting to see how experienced folks are. But I realize now once you hit a certain age, it becomes something you want to talk about less, I think.
Billy Boulden (26:22):
I think it depends on the person, right? I think some of us are comfortable with it. I tell my students here I used to be 35 and now I'm not.
Dominic (26:30):
That's great. I'm gonna use that. Love that. Okay, well, thanks so much, Billy. It's been a pleasure to have you and yeah, looking forward to seeing you next probably at AFA. Amazing.
Billy Boulden (26:32):
Yeah, sounds good.
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