History of FLSA

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History of FLSA by Peter Brooks, FLSA Creator FLSA was started very informally a couple of days before the 2004 Oshkosh Placement Exchange. I wanted to have a group where we could help out our undergraduates who were first time delegates going through OPE. I recalled back in the day when my advisor, Jen Cecich, help prepare me for OPE and I wanted others to be able feel confident about the Student Affairs job searching process. That night myself, Ryan Bronkema, and Jim Droste did close to a three hour Q&A with about 7 undergraduates in the Gruenhagen Conference Center. After the conference I realized that we needed something more year round, where we could help mentor our candidates. In the Fall of 2004, I started the FLSA ‘Class’ which mostly focused on Job Searching but had some elements of the current class structure (the student affairs panel; the best practices session). That year, close to 10 students participated. In the Fall of 2005, we had one student who was not yet job searching but who had also attended all the previous sessions. So I ‘split’ FLSA into two tracks: Exploration for those who were interested in student affairs and wanted more educational type information and Searching for those who were going to be job/grad school searching. Today FLSA is still going strong at UW Oshkosh and several other schools (please visit the Chapters page to see more information). Story of the FLSA Logo by Peter Brooks, FLSA Creator The goal of FLSA is for all of us to help support and educate those younger leaders who are interested in the profession. There currently are little to none undergraduate classes for students to learn this info. Since job searching philosophy is all about fit both for the employer and the candidate, we need to help students learn about themselves and the schools they would apply to. The actual story is as follows: James Bender, in his book How to Talk Well (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1994) relates the story of a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. "How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked. "Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn." In my eyes, the students we have are already good, now our next step is to mentor them to become better. Thus, 'grow better corn' and the corn logo.

Have questions? Please contact:

Peter Brooks, FLSA Creator/Administrator flsa@kickbuttproductions.com flsa_home@yahoo.com aim: FLSAChair

all documents, the FLSA Logo, and resources are Copyright 2004-2010 Peter Brooks in conjunction with UW Oshkosh Dept. of Res Life