Hi! I’m Natina. I manage communications (like this blog) and diversity + inclusion work for the Engineering Team. I hope this blog post finds you doing, feeling, and being well. When I onboarded in April this year, it was with the expectation that after this “coronavirus thing” passed, I would be working from the office. (Oh, how naive we once were, right?). Everyday I logged on to work from the couch (the porch, the kitchen, the car) checking for that “return to the office” notification.

Ever felt pressured to say something [while interviewing for a job], because you wanted everyone to have a positive experience with you?

Old Dominion University (ODU) is a thriving public research institution located in the heart of Hampton Roads in Norfolk, Virginia. The urban campus encompasses a highly diverse population enrolling nearly 24,000 students and approximately 5,000 live on campus. Housing & Residence Life recently joined the Division of Student Engagement and Enrollment Services, a new division formed to enhance student engagement, learning, and success. ODU is focused on reconnecting the living and learning experience and has doubled its housing capacity in the past five years. Housing and Residence Life is a comprehensive auxiliary enterprise composed of 9 residence halls, and three apartment complexes.

I ran a half marathon in 2011, I think. I mean, I have a medal to prove it, but no picture. No medal, no staged photo at the finish line, no nothing. Just a memory. A dream I dreamed – but it feels like it’s gone from me. So I did what I always do in moments like these. I wrote a letter. A manifesto if you will about 13.1 medal-less miles.

As much as we would love for our residents to not launder their personal business online, or use it to facilitate passive aggressive arguments - hope alone will not change anything. We must be fearless in our approach to social media, proactive in our education of it with students, and decisive in how we address and mediate online behaviors in our residential communities and at our institutions.

Engaging college men in meaningful interactions to impact and enhance their collegiate experiences is a challenge to say the least! This challenge is also an opportunity for campus professionals to think outside the traditional programming "box" as we consider our outreach efforts.

Then, something terribly rude happened. My free movie that I did not pay for at all was interrupted by one of those flight attendant persons. I mean damn! It was just getting good. The woman on the other end of the announcement system asked a single question, along with a request. "Is there a doctor on the flight? If so, please meet us in the back of the airplane." Whoa. What? I mean, is there? I took some Physiological Science classes at UCLA. Does that count? I mean, in a pinch, I can name all the bones, muscles, parts of the brain, and random facts about the design of our cells. That good enough?

A friend inquired of selected women living single for their wisdom on a matter. On a matter in which they have the intellectual rights and insanity. She was trying to figure just why a single woman chooses (my interpretation, not her word) against active dating and other forms of the proverbial putting one’s self out there. Why would single woman do all the things to, well, stay single. One answer is obvious: She wants to be single.

If I had known that Superbowl LI (51) was going to be the last football game I watched, I would have spent the day watching that and replaying the Cowboys win over the 40-whiners at Levi Stadium because I was in the stands that day, in the sea of blue fans making waves over the red and gold. Because, America’s Team. I would have liked to have seen that game in HD. I would have also really liked to have seen Colin Kapernick kneel in HD too. Because poetic justice is more than just a movie.