SA Voices From the Field
Enhancing Career Pathways & Well-Being: Insights from NASPA Strategies Conference
In the latest episode of Student Affairs Voices from the Field podcast, the conversation centers around one of NASPA's most dynamic offerings: the NASPA Strategies Conference . Host Dr. Jill Creighton is joined by Dr. Emma Spalding , Senior Director of Wellbeing Initiatives and Statewide Coalition Projects, and Whitney Platzer-O'Regan , Senior Director of Prevention and Safety Initiatives. Together, they explore not just the logistics and evolution of the Strategies Conference, but also the importance of holistic professional development in student affairs. A Conference with Broad Appeal and Deep Impact The NASPA Strategies Conference is unique in its ability to bring together five major content areas—Alcohol, Other Drug, and Violence Prevention; Mental Health; Peer Education; Sexual Violence Prevention and Response; and Wellbeing and Health Promotion Leadership—under one roof. This multi-conference environment means that professionals can tailor their experience, stepping between tracks and broadening their expertise far beyond their home specialties. Both Dr. Emma Spalding and Whitney Platzer-O'Regan highlighted the power of breaking down traditional silos and building inter-campus connections, a theme that runs throughout the episode. The presence of undergraduate peer educators is particularly valuable; their on-the-ground perspective not only energizes the conference but also ensures its relevance for today's rapidly shifting campus realities. Practical Tips and Professional Development For newcomers, the advice is clear: take advantage of NASPA's dedicated first-time attendee sessions and make strategic use of the conference app to maximize your experience. The episode also delves into creative funding advice and action-planning for those hoping to bring students to the conference, emphasizing how this investment can have ripple effects campus-wide. When the conversation turns to career pathways, Whitney Platzer-O'Regan and Dr. Emma Spalding remind supervisors and VPSAs that fostering professional growth—and prioritizing well-being—go hand in hand. Simple actions like encouraging PTO use and seeking out personal, not just role-related, professional development opportunities can significantly impact staff retention and satisfaction. Why Listen? This episode is a must for anyone considering attending NASPA Strategies or just wanting to recharge their professional batteries with actionable ideas. Whether you're a seasoned administrator or an emerging professional, the insight and encouragement offered by Dr. Jill Creighton , Dr. Emma Spalding , and Whitney Platzer-O'Regan will help you navigate both conference season and your broader career journey. Tune in for an energizing, informative discussion on transforming your professional development and supporting the well-being of everyone in your student affairs community. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:01]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts. Brought to you by NASPA, we curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed professionals wherever you happen to be. This is season 15, Enhancing the Career Pathways and Well-Being of Student Affairs Professionals. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton, she/her/hers, your SA Voices from the Field host. Welcome back to another episode of SA Voices from the Field. Today we're featuring 2 NASPA staffers who are going to be talking to us all about the NASPA Strategies Conference. Our first guest is Emmis Balding, who serves as the Senior Director of Wellbeing Initiatives and Statewide Coalition Projects at NASPA. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:45]: She has been with NASPA for 7 years, and in her role, she oversees the Colorado Coalition of Campus Alcohol and Drug Educators, also known as CADE, and the Healthy Colleges Montana, or HCM. In addition, she works in the Inter-Association Wellbeing Collaborative, or IWC, representing NASPA along 20 other higher education associations. She also serves on the core team for planning the NASPA Strategies Conferences, and born and raised in Colorado, she still calls Denver home with her partner and pup. Our second guest is Whitney Platzer-O'Regan, Ed.D. Dr. Platzer-O'Regan serves as the Senior Director of Prevention and Safety Initiatives at NASPA. Whitney received her doctorate in educational leadership and policy from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, where her research focused on student sense of belonging and engagement through a public health lens. She has significant experience working to reduce high-risk substance misuse on college campuses with functional area experience in student affairs, policy, student conduct, crisis response, peer education, and health promotion. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:44]: Welcome to our first-time guests on the pod, Whitney and Emma. Whitney, so lovely to meet you. Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:01:50]: Hi, thank you so much for having me. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:51]: And Emma, so glad to see you as well. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:01:53]: Yes, excited to be here with you today. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:56]: Whitney and Emma are 2 of our NASPA staffers, and we love having our NASPA staffers here on the pod. They're here today to talk specifically about the Strategies Conference that's coming up. And NASPA Strategies is such a longstanding staple of the NASPA community. I feel like it's an important gathering point for specialists in our field in particular areas, and it's just a very accessible conference for those who want to enter NASPA but are a little bit like, I don't want to be with 5,000, 7,000, 10,000 of my closest friends at Annual. So we'll get into all of that, but we love to start with getting to know our guests. Emma, so glad to have you in the conversation today. Welcome. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:02:32]: Sure. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:33]: And I'd love to know from you, how did you get to your current seat at NASPA? And I specifically want to hear a little bit more about your work with Cade, just as a former peer educator and a former health promotion person in Colorado. It was so lovely to see that on your bio. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:02:47]: Yeah, wonderful. Similar to Whitney, I've had a winding path to get where I am, but it started in undergrad, as many of us do, of having a wonderful experience with some great student affairs professionals on campus and planting the seed that I maybe wanted to go into this field. I took a few years off after undergrad before I ended up going to get my master's in higher education at the University of Denver. And while I was there, a graduate assistant position opened up. The Bacchus Initiatives of NASPA— previously the Bacchus Initiatives was a standalone nonprofit that merged with NASPA in 2014. And one of the signature projects that we worked on was CAEDAR, the Coalition of Colorado Alcohol and Drug Educators. And so for the 2 years I was getting my degree, I I started with NASPA full-time and have been working here since then. So just over 7 years. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:04:02]: And alongside the CADE Coalition, I was able to work with our Healthy Colleges Montana, which is a coalition in the state of Montana that does similar work around health and wellbeing, but a focus and a foundation in commercial tobacco prevention. So I've definitely found my niche within higher education in this health and wellbeing space. Throughout my career at NASPA, I've had lots of opportunities for different roles and expansions, which is how I'm in the role I am today. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:31]: I love that you referenced the Bacchus Network. Just for a complete throwback, I earned my peer health educator certification as an undergrad when it was called Bacchus and Gamma. So it's gone through many, many iterations over the years, but with the same core. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:04:43]: Yes, definitely. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:44]: Now, Emma, your current title is the Senior Director of Wellbeing Initiatives and Stateside Coalition Projects at NASPA. That's a lot of words. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:04:52]: You've described some of the portfolio that you're leading right now, but what Alongside the 2 statewide coalitions in Colorado and Montana that I mentioned, I help with our national and international wellbeing work. And so one of the keystones of this, besides the NASPA Strategies Conferences, which we'll talk about, is the Inter-Association Wellbeing Collaborative, which is a conglomerate of over 20 higher education associations that serve different parts of higher education coming together with the shared goal of moving forward wellbeing on campus and Specifically in a systems and settings approach. So really thinking about how we change the campus environment, not just for students, but also for professionals, the staff and faculty on campus. And so it's a big group project. So it's been a lot of herding folks, but I think that it's really cool to have NASPA be part of the model of bringing together associations so that campuses can see that they can break down silos and work across campus as well, because everyone has a role in impacting the wellbeing of the campus environment. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:58]: And that's a really powerful area to do coalition building around because our students struggle with a similar wellness set of items on each campus. And there are so many different ways to approach wellness from a public health strategy perspective in the university setting. It's such a great initiative that you're working on. Emma, I'm wondering when a member might work with you directly. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:06:18]: If any members are in Colorado and Montana and work in a health and wellbeing space, happy to have them be a part of the coalitions. It's a bummer we don't have coalitions in all 50 states managed by NASPA. Otherwise, I would work with folks that way. But the other opportunity is with the Wellness and Health Promotion Knowledge Community. So I get to liaison and work with the wonderful folks that are volunteer leaders for that knowledge community. And so currently our co-chairs are Samantha Smith out of Indiana University Bloomington and Amanda Waters out of University of Massachusetts Amherst. And so alongside them is a team of other folks, and that is a way that I get to connect with NASPA members most closely outside of our event at Strategies. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:02]: And Whitney, we're so glad to have you here on the pod. We're gonna ask you the same question. How did you get to your current seat at NASPA? Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:07:09]: It was a long and winding road. Was a transfer student to an out-of-state institution, and I got my degree. I got my BFA in graphic design. I really wanted to tour the world with bands and create t-shirts and merchandise and do all of that. But lucky or unlucky enough, I graduated in 2008, which wasn't the greatest opportunity in the job market. And so I was lucky enough to get a job at Duke University in their university libraries. But what I realized was that it was way too quiet for me. I wanted to be back in student affairs. Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:07:39]: I had found a home in my undergraduate experience as part of the programming board. And so I wanted to go back and do that. Through an arduous search process, I found a master's program that accepted me into higher ed and gave me a really great assistantship where I worked with amazing people in the Dean of Students Office. And it exposed me to a world, to the world of peer education and alcohol and drug prevention. And so professionally, I was able to really find development and intrigue and work that kept me on my toes through that topical area. And I was able to attend NASPA Strategies every conference season. That became my annual conference. And so I got to know people like Emma through that. Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:08:20]: I got to know people like David Arnold. And so as I thought about what that next step was after I got my doctorate, an opportunity popped up at NASPA to work in safety and prevention broadly. And so it really was the great next step for me to help institutions think about their prevention work, making sure it's evidence-based, and really talk to them about the power of peer education. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:08:41]: And Whitney, your full title is the Senior Director of Prevention and Safety Initiatives at NASPA. What does that mean broadly? Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:08:48]: My portfolio encompasses a couple things. Uh, any kind of AOD, alcohol and other drug prevention work, right? Making sure that people who are doing work in that functional area specifically are implementing evidence-based work, whether that is figuring out how to stop, start, or continue the work they're doing, right? Evaluate those pieces. My portfolio also encompasses the peer education program. Uh, we have a really strong leadership development program for peer educators called our Certified Peer Educator Program. It has a train-the-trainer component and subject matter trainings for undergraduate students around cannabis, mental health and wellbeing, and prescription drug misuse. And the portfolio that I oversee looks at the entire professional pathway, whether you're an undergraduate student, a new professional, mid-level, or even VPs who are looking to really solidify their alcohol and drug prevention work. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:09:42]: Now, the two of you come together to form a super team that is leading the work of NASPA Strategies. And this year, I understand Strategies is going to have some new flair to it. So I'm hoping we can start with what is the Strategies Conference for our members who may not be familiar? Dr. Emma Spalding [00:09:56]: Yeah, I can start us off. The NASFA Strategies Conference brings together 5 different conferences in one. And so folks have the opportunity to attend sessions in a variety of health, safety, and wellbeing areas. And so the 5 conferences that we host as part of this event are the Alcohol, Other Drug, and Violence Prevention Conference, the Mental Health Conference, the Peer Education Conference, the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Conference, and the Wellbeing and Health Promotion Leadership Conference. And so by offering all 5 conferences as one event, we're able to have folks attend sessions that relate to probably one of the many hats that they wear on campus. And we know that folks are not working solely, often not working solely in one of these areas, but can get the professional development they need across all these content areas. Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:10:45]: And I'll just chime in that 2 years ago we brought what was formerly known as General Assembly under the conference's umbrella and renamed it the Peer Education Conference. And that's a really great opportunity for undergraduate students. We had almost 400 registered for the conference last year, and it's a really wonderful opportunity not only for students to come and learn from their peers, to present sessions for their peers, but to attend sessions from all of the other tracks. So it really is that next step opportunity for undergraduate student leaders to gain some expertise in topical areas, to connect professionally with peers and possible mentors from across the country, and really feel valued in their role as peer educators on campus. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:29]: I'm gonna emphasize something you both have mentioned, which is there are 5 conferences happening simultaneously, but you're not locked into one of the tracks. You can say, I wanna pick a session on peer education now, but the next session might be on mental health. I can switch to a sexual violence prevention session. So as mentioned, you might be someone who's focused on health promotion more broadly, or prevention work or healthy campus work more broadly, and really benefit from this particular environment because you're also connecting with professionals who may have those broad portfolio elements like you have. Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:11:59]: Yeah, and I really think that if I think about topical areas that are often siloed on their campus, the Strategies Conference is a really great opportunity to build connections. We know Gallup says that to feel valued and healthy at work, you need to have a work bestie. And so being able to find to that person, make that connection. That is one of the goals at Strategies. And whether that's someone at your own institution who works at a different functional area or someone who works in your same functional area at a different institution, that is one of the really value adds to attending Strategies. I often think about the compliance person or the sexual violence prevention person who is just doing very specific work, and then they come to Strategies and they understand the intersection of alcohol use and sexual violence prevention. And so then they attend sessions around alcohol prevention. They're thinking about starting a peer education program, so they go to some peer education sessions, they talk to students around those topic areas, they talk to advisors, and it's a really great opportunity to spread your wings and figure out how to grow in your positions. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:13:01]: I think additionally, it's an opportunity for folks to bring a whole team on the campus together to that event. So everything from the undergraduate student opportunities that Whitney talked about with the peer education conference to sessions that are focused on more senior leaders that are maybe directing strategy on their campus rather than implementing programs. And so each of the sessions throughout the event is going to indicate what topical area it is for, but also what level in your career that this is focused on so that there's an opportunity for everyone within a campus team to get some professional development and then hopefully come together as a team on campus with lots of ideas to take And this coming year, it's January 2027 in Austin, Texas. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:13:46]: The early bird registration deadline is coming very, very soon. So if you're interested in that early bird rate, we recommend that you get on that very quickly. The call for proposals has just closed, and so your reviewing process is underway. One of my favorite things about Strategies is if you get accepted, you also get a registration discount. So maybe not for this year's listeners, but for next year's listeners, maybe a little bit of a bump to head you in that direction. But thinking about what this conference can bring, if I'm new to this Strategies Conference, how should I approach my experience? Whitney Platzer-O'Regan [00:14:17]: I would say start off with the first-time attendee session. We have really great colleagues at NASPA who host a first-time attendee session. They're staff from our membership team. They are going to share with you kind of how to navigate the conference specifically, as well as share with you the benefits of becoming a NASPA member and what a NASPA membership can do with you. I think that is often the first place that we recommend. It's kind of right at the top of the conference, and so it's a really great starting point, especially if you are there by yourself, you're an office of one, and you've shown up as the only person from your institution. They typically do some networking, grab your coffee in the morning, and get started with that first-time attendee session is a really great opportunity. Dr. Emma Spalding [00:14:58]: Yeah. And then using the conference app, and there's a lot of offerings throughout the event, not as much as our annual conference, but it's NASPA's second or third large event. So making sure to look through all the offerings and get a sense of what sessions that you're interested in and looking at the diff
