Leadership

Developing the Leadership competency has come along with my job description as a Resident Director and as the Graduate Assistant for the College of Engineering. Within Engineering, I have been able to work with the student leaders of the college and facilitate trainings for the Dean’s Team Ambassadors who complete high school outreach. I have also had the opportunity assist in the facilitation of summer training for the Residence Life student staff.
Within Residence Life staff training, I have done a number of presentations, but the most effective and applicable to this competency has been a presentation called, “#fishstatus.” This presentation covers what it means to be a role model and a student leader on campus, and how being a Resident Assistant can influence residents within their respective building, and throughout the campus. This activity was able to help me develop this competency because I was able to reflect back on my own experiences as a role model and how those experiences translated into my position as a student leader on campus. Furthermore, I was able to utilize prior knowledge regarding “The Fish Bowl Theory,” which uses a metaphor to describe how leaders are viewed in society, how closely the actions of leaders are examined, and the effects of one’s actions while in a leadership role (Putnam, 2013). This presentation reviews how ethics plays a part in the role of a student leader, specifically in the Resident Assistant role.

This presentation gave me the opportunity to showcase my own understanding of leadership and the integration of making ethical decisions as a person who can potentially influence the actions of others. NASPA and ACPA indicate that understanding and demonstrating “congruence between one’s identity as a leader and one’s professional actions” (2015, p. 29) as a component of developing within this competency. This presentation was focused on allowing the RAs to reflect on the decisions that they have made, how they may have been viewed by those who might look up to them, and how they interact with their professional identity, or their role as a student leader. This was also something on which I was able to reflect.

Another main outcome of this presentation was to emphasize how much being in these positions on campus, consequently result in their becoming role models for those around them. In many instances, students forget about the impact that they can have on others, so taking everyday tasks and highlighting the emphasis on positive or negative influence that it can have served as another reflective component of the presentation. For relatability purposes, I used examples from social media and pop culture. By asking each of the students which things they remembered from pop culture in social media, they began to make the connections between one person’s actions and consequent perception of this person after the action had occured. As ACPA and NASPA describe the leadership competency as being able to create an environment in which others can see themselves as making “meaningful contributions to their communities” and being engaged community members(2015, p. 28). This presentation presented an argument for the student staff to be conscious of their contribution to their building communities and the campus community, as a whole.

Another example of being in a position to ensure that students are aware of the contributions that they can make to their communities has been my experience working with the Dean’s Team’s Ambassadors. These students in the College of Engineering have the opportunity to go back to their high schools, connect with a former teacher, and speak to various STEM classes about their experience as a college student, and as an Engineering student. These students also go through a short training to discuss their presentations, what to include, and how to facilitate discussions regarding engineering. The training highlights the impact of various statements made about engineering, women’s perceptions of engineering, and methods to navigate some of the stereotypes regarding engineers and the field of engineering (Committee on Public Understanding of Engineering Messages, 2008).

The importance of this training is to highlight the impact that these students, as Ambassadors, can have on their own community in their hometown. In addition to this, emphasizing the aspect of recruitment techniques used in this initiative and the impact that they will leave on the college by directly being involved with recruitment practices. As the facilitator of these meetings and trainings, it is important that students understand their role in a larger picture and feel encouraged to do positive things within their group of peers by doing a servies to their high schools, and contributing to their current community at Ohio Northern.

I was also able to develop in this competency on my own. In order to feel confident enough to encourage other student leaders to make the right decisions on campus, and to see the impact that they could have on others around them, I had to be able to do this myself. In doing so, I have found the value in mentoring these student leaders on campus, as professional, to ensure that both myself and the students understand the importance of leadership and its affects. Further developing my own definition of leadership, I have been able to see the impacts of my own actions on the students with whom I work and have had the opportunity to influence many of them in positive ways. In addition to this, I have realized how my position can be utilized as a catalyst to make change within the department, much like the change I had the opportunity to implement with the Dean’s Team Ambassadors.

Student Learning & Development

The Student Learning and Development competency (SLD) is described as having the ability to “apply theory to improve and inform student affairs teaching practice” (ACPA & NASAP, 2015, p. 14). I have had the opportunity to integrate various theories into my current positions in order to improve my own practice and specific programs that I oversee. Most recently within the College of Engineering, I was able to implement a training for the peer mentors who I supervise and advise during the fall semester. After the first year in my position, I realized that the peer mentors could benefit from a formal training, including a foundational understanding of student development theory, in order to better serve the first-year students with whom they would be paired.

I was able to develop various outcomes for the Peer Mentor training based on the previous feedback received from past mentors and mentees. After taking this feedback, I decided to implement sessions on topics requested by some of the mentors, and also some topics that I felt would address the needs of the program and the students who chose to be involved. Topics ranged from a general understanding of mentorship within an academic setting to understanding diversity and difference in a leadership position. Discussing diversity would be a challenge, based on my previous experiences, but more so at an institution that lacks diversity in many different ways (i.e. racial, socio-economic status, religious affiliation) across campus and in the College of Engineering, which serves students who are entering a field that is dominated by White males. I felt it best to first address what they felt comfortable sharing after watching a short video entitled, “Being 12: ‘People Think I’m Supposed to Talk Ghetto, Whatever That Is’” (WNYC New York Public Radio, 2015). This was a true challenge in meeting students where they are. After asking students to share their thoughts and getting no response, I found that asking them to write their thoughts made them feel more comfortable. They were able to pass their papers to someone different and have someone else read what their reactions aloud to the rest of the class. By doing this, I was able elicit some discussion around their reactions and the importance of being an advocate for those who may be experiencing similar treatment to what was demonstrated in the video, or those from underrepresented populations. Furthermore, we were able to discuss how this might apply to their positions as peer mentors, and student leaders on campus. It was a great experience for me to be able to apply the challenge and support theory within student affairs. My ability to challenge students to discuss this topic, considering the context, was received positively because of my ability to recognize their comfort, or discomfort, around discussing diversity and inclusion. In addition to this, being able to support them in developing new ideas of how they can be advocates within their positions was an outcome of my own that I was able to achieve.

Another session that I chose to include in this training was session titled, “This Thing Called Theory: Schlossberg’s Transition Theory.” Surprisingly, after sending out a schedule of the sessions, many of the mentors mentioned being excited to learn about this theory in thier pre-assessment. Facilitating this session was a more explicit example of applying theory to practice. Keeping in mind the previous methods of challenge and support, I designed this session to work around the mindset of engineering students and my understanding of how they choose to process information and their learning styles. While I was unable to incorporate numbers or formulas, giving and overview of the theory and a few case study examples worked as a teaching method. I began by asking them to draw from their own experiences and what they had gone through as first year students, and then to discuss the case study examples in order to come up with appropriate ways to assist first-year students who may be in this situation. I found that completing an interactive activity made the idea of theory more appealing, and also gave them a way to understand my interests and studies in the process. After completing the activity, they were able to understand students and their experiences with transitions, and were also able to discuss how they, as mentors, can process their own transitional experiences with this information.

Being mindful of my audience full of engineering students who were not interested in student development theory, I found that I not only had to integrate theory in a method that would be effective, but also interesting. My development in this competency stems from my ability to translate theory to a different audience in a way that would prove the application useful (ACPA & NASPA, 2015). Thus, the theory that I chose to introduce to students was relative to my audience and their positions as peer mentors. It also had to be a theory that was relatively easy understand. I chose Schlossberg’s theory because I felt that it had enough content for me to apply it to the mentoring program, but not an excessive amount of information that would take away from the audience’s interest. I was able to develop my own competence and confidence in applying theory to practice whether it be referencing the challenge and support mindset of a student affairs professional, or explicitly discussing theories as it relates to a program or initiative.

Social Justice & Inclusion

In CSP 6035: Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs, we were asked to design, implement, and assess a program around any topic of multicultural competence. For my assignment, I chose to focus on something that I was interested in learning more about within my position. As the Graduate Assistant for the College of Engineering, I was one of few people of color in the building and represented only one third of the women of color on staff (the other two women were Asian). Because of this, I decided that I wanted to research and educate students, staff, and faculty, about the lack of diversity within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, and how we, as members of the STEM community, could serve as advocates to ensure that underrepresented populations have the opportunity to be successful in these fields.

I worked with a classmate to research this topic, and to later facilitate a workshop called, “The Missing Variable of STEM: Understanding Underrepresented Groups and How to Help Them Succeed.” The workshop focused on the idea of power and privilege as it related to the STEM field, as well as some of the challenges that underrepresented groups face with entering into the field and getting promoted within the field. More specifically, we focused on women and people of color, what messages were sent to these populations about success in the field, and how those messages contributed to the lack of diversity. This presentation was imperative to my development in this competency because I was able to facilitate discussions about the privilege of the students in the room, and the importance of being conscious of the role that privilege and power play in the lives of underrepresented groups and their ability to be successful in the STEM field. In addition to that, the important part of the workshop was to highlight ways in which students, staff, and faculty are able to “advocate for the development of a more inclusive and socially conscious department, institution, and profession” (ACPA & NASPA, 2015, p. 31).This was done at the end of the presentation where students were given the opportunity to discuss their definition of advocacy and their role as advocates in this profession, as it relates to privilege and power.
Another artifact for this competency that contributed to my development was a presentation on the Deaf culture for an elective class, Counseling for the Culturally Diverse. This was a group project that I was able to work on with others in my cohort. This was a great experience in my development and understanding of Social Justice and Inclusion. At the beginning of this project, I had no knowledge of the Deaf culture. By participating in this group, I was able to research different aspects of the culture and the community, learn from the research done by other groupmates (including an interview with someone in the deaf community), and present this knowledge to other classmates. This presentation was an opportunity for my classmates and I discuss the different resources available for those who identify with the Deaf culture, what it means to know the difference between the deaf community and the Deaf culture, and how we can be inclusive of these individuals within our own practice. ACPA & NASPA (2015) highlight the ability to facilitate discussions regarding various issues of inclusion and oppression within our own practice. After doing this presentation, I was more aware of some of the challenges that this community faces and was able to facilitate discussion regarding how we, as student affairs professionals, have the ability to advocate for students who may identify as Deaf.

The last activity for this competency that has been a part of my development has been another presentation. However, this was a professional development session that I attended at an ACPA conference session entitled, “Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say” by Dr. Maura Cullen. The presentation was a great foundation for introducing multicultural competence, and Dr. Cullen presented many great concepts and principles around diversity competence that were easy to understand. Because I enjoyed this presentation so much, I brought it back to ONU’s campus. I was asked to present for different groups on topics around diversity and multicultural competence, and felt that adapting Dr. Cullen’s concepts would be extremely helpful in reaching my audience at ONU. Many students were unaware of the impact of words and the concept of intent versus impact, so this was the topic that I presented on, using some of Dr. Cullen’s principles. The presentation was a great way to introduce students, who have had minimal experience working with those who identify differently, to concepts of diversity competence, starting with some common things that people say that can leave a negative impact. I enjoyed being able to introduce different students to different concepts to keep in mind and different phrases that can be hurtful, but I also enjoyed being able to utilize a presentation that resonated with me, adapt it to a very different audience, and be able to articulate some foundational concepts of social justice and inclusion.

My competence in the area of Social Justice and Inclusion developed from my extensive research on the topics of these presentations, and my ability to demonstrate the awareness, knowledge, and skills that I had developed in order to educate others within the college. I was able to work on my confidence in disseminating information in order to bring awareness to some of the issues around oppression, power, privilege, and inclusion regarding different populations. I recognize my position as a student affairs professional, and the power that I have to serve as an advocate for students from underrepresented groups, and to encourage students from more privileged groups to advocate for those students as well.