Welcome to the Director Download, powered by Campus Rec Magazine.
It’s time to go behind the curtain of the director role and have honest discussions with leaders in the campus recreation industry.
In this episode, host Grady Sheffield, the director of Campus Recreation at Towson University and the senior advisor to Campus Rec Magazine, gives you the listener real and authentic conversation between himself and special guest Chris Arvin, the executive director of Indiana University (IU).
Arvin shares how he first came to IU and the special day he spent on campus. After grad school, he found himself working with folks in cardiac and pulmonary rehab at a small regional hospital. Over time and through other roles, he came to realize he loved working with students. A job at IU came open in campus rec and Arvin applied. The rest, as they say, is history.
Arvin and Sheffield dive into Arvin’s time at IU and serving as the executive director. They look at the current facilities and staffing set-up, to sending all staff through the NIRSA for Recreation and Wellbeing course. Arvin also shares how he’s thriving in his role today and what he wants people to say about him when his role at IU is all said and done.
Enjoy the conversation that follows!
Show Notes from the Conversation with Chris Arvin
- Why the day Arvin visited IU was so special at 2:28.
- He describes his undergrad experience in rec at IU. Listen to it at 3:30.
- Find out what he did after graduation at 6:06.
- Growing in additional projects at 8:48.
- How Arvin took an abnormal approach to the executive director role at 13:52.
- His emotions and feelings stepping into the IU executive director interim role at 16:29.
- The challenges Arvin had to face in the role at 20:02.
- How can you do the work better? Arvin shares the secret at 21:57.
- Learning where he needed to trust himself at 24:15.
- Arvin shares at 26:48 how he’s thriving in his role today.
- What do the IU facilities and staff look like today? Find out at 29:30.
- How Arvin and the IU leadership decided to get the NIRSA for Recreation and Wellbeing course at 32:39.
- Arvin shares on some very nerdy info — i.e. predicting the future efficacy of shared service models — at 36:47.
- How long is Arvin going to do this for? He reveals the answer at 39:44.
- Listen at 42:46 to what he wants people to say about him when it’s all said and done.
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