StrengthsQuest by Steven Yeagley, Hall Director, Wall & Grand Apartments

When I was thinking about what I wanted in my first professional position, I thought a lot about the type of people with whom I wanted to work. I wanted to be part of team that valued each individual and had a variety of skills, which I found at SIUC. University Housing takes a strengths-based approach to the work that we do with one another and campus and regional colleagues. An example of this can be found in StrengthsQuest, a self-assessment exercise and book that identifies your top five strengths and provides information on how to best utilize your natural skills. For us, it has helped to develop a working understanding of how we work best with each other. In Residence Life, 31 of the 34 strengths are represented. Due to this diversity in skills, we perform well at finding creative solutions to issues we’re facing. By utilizing our collective strengths, we are allowed the opportunity to work with skills where we excel, reduce stress and improve our results.

Over the past few years, StrengthsQuest has become more popular and I’m glad we’ve been utilizing it for the past four years, because each year we find more intentional ways of using it.