Taylor Eljaua Orientation Week 7

Activities

·      Inventory of more orientation supplies

·      Finished shredding

·      Worked out with Kelly and Kylie

·      Put together thank you gifts for Orientation presenters

Experience

As my hours are coming to a close, my practicum experience is winding down. It was a very relaxed week last week. Between now and my last post blog post I have not really done too much more. I have continued to shred unnecessary documents from Orientation season, continued to take inventory and organized the office in general.  However something new that I did this week was take in a lunch break work out with Kelly and Kylie. As I was working in in Kylie’s office on Friday morning, Kelly came in and said “do you want to go to a barre class at lunch with Kylie and I today?” At first I was hesitant, should I go? I thought to myself. It felt like I was not gaining direct practicum experience. I also felt guilty because I was already skipping training to be at practicum and I worried that this was not a good use or an abuse of my time out of training. Ultimately I decided to go. The more I thought about it the more I realized, yes, it is a good use of my time.  As odd as it felt to use my lunch break as personal time to work out, I realized it was a part of the practicum experience. I was experiencing the culture of the office. Being able to go work our shows that the department values their employs personal wellness. It shows that Kylie the director of the department is able to model good personal wellness for her employs by participating in activities with her employs. If anyone was curious, the barre class was hard, but good! It boosted my mood for the rest of the day. I felt more inclined to limit the junk I was eating even if I “didn’t have time to eat” as I have caught myself saying time and time again.

Theory to Practice

            Being raised in the student affairs sense your res life, I've not truly developed a good work life balance. "Fake it till you make it" is the phrase I lived all of my undergrad life by a student Affairs professionals and for more specifically a Reslifer I preach this idea of personal wellness and work life balance. I expect my Resident Advisors to have it, I teach my residence to have it, so how come I do not have it? It could be because I'm just faking. I am appearing to have good personal wellness but I might not always be there. They're just too many things to get done too many relationships to forge and not enough hours in the day. Sometimes it just becomes too difficult to meet the basic needs. Under my business needs. Physical wellness. Reflecting on Maslow's hierarchy of needs unless you have the basic needs of sustaining life, eating well and exercising maintaining a healthy body, you cannot be an asset to yourself or to others around you. This theory brings to light how sometimes faking might not always mean that you'll make it something has to give unless you maintain yourself. Working with orientation this last summer and noticed that Kelly and Kylie both take time for personal wellness. I think this has a positive influence on the culture of the office. Both hardly ever seen overstressed they always seem very organized and they don't lack focus. They may be tired from time to time as the work it's rough but overall they are happy with their jobs and happy with your lives.

Text to practice

This weeks reading in chapter 8 asks us to look toward our paths in student affairs. I think reflecting on orientation and residence life I can easily say that while we do so much and residence life and we want to do good we run ourselves into the ground. This experience in orientation has made me realize that if I continue to have a career that requires me to be on for 24 hours a day 7 days a week, I will run my self ragged and never learn to take time for myself. I think as I look toward the job search process I will take into consideration the flexibility of the job and what the department values in terms of personal wellness.

New Maroon Camp Week 7 Blog Post- Brad Ward

Activities:

• Developed constitution so that New Maroon Camp can officially become a student organization
• Develop sign layout for campus so that parents will know where to register their kids for camp
• Finalized calls to campers so that we will know our final numbers for attendance
• Discussed ways to use the Student Activity Fee to further develop programs for NMC
• Organized NMC's OrgSync profile so that they can finalize becoming a student organization
• Designed signs for camp
• Discussed an action plan for camp and talked about individual roles of head staff
• Reviewed finalized email for campers and packing list
• Toured Fresh Food Company to make sure that registration set up will go smoothly for everyone
  
  

Reflection on Practice

As this summer comes to a close, I still have a little bit of time left with New Maroon Camp. I am excited to have the opportunity to go to camp and finally see what all the hard work has led to! I was able to accomplish so much this week and it felt great to really take a huge step forward with everything that we have been planning. What I think that I am most proud of is that New Maroon Camp will be becoming a student organization. This will help them do so much more work for students who attended camp during the summer and also have camps for new students during the summer.

I also want to talk about how great Andrew and Avent have been as supervisors all summer. They have always helped with the students and have been very supportive of my work and ideas. They have made my experience so much fun with their constant enthusiasm and advice. Even though that they do a lot of things in the background, you can definitely feel their presence on this camp. They have worked so hard to make sure that this camp is the best experience for not only the incoming students, but the student counselors as well.

Now I have to brag on the student workers who have been so great this summer. Pepper and Jack have put in a solid 20 hours a week to make sure that this camp is extremely successful. I am so proud of how much that they have grown as leaders and this will be something that they can really speak about to future employers.

I have had the best experience this summer and have learned so much. I hope to learn so much more from being able to go to camp so that I will be able to hopefully build a camp of my own some day. I am excited to hopefully continue to work with Andrew and Avent through this next year because I want to continue on with NMC and its wonderful students when they become a new student organization. This experience has shown me the value of camps and having a completely student planned organization. All of these students have done so much work and it really shows you the value of giving students hard but attainable goals! See you all after camp!!!

Application to Reading

Chapter 8 talks about pathways to success in student affairs and maturing as a professional! It talks about being able to choose a career path and that is something that I have often struggled with in the past. I have now learned that it is all about fit and where you feel the most comfortable. I have learned a lot of my true passions this summer and they are working with students with disabilities, planning and organizing events to help others, and camps! I love bringing everyone together in a camp atmosphere. Chapter 8 also talked about career maturity and with that I have learned that I do not need to take things way too fast. I need to let the process happen and allow myself to fail and learn from those failures. I am only 23 years old and I learn something new everyday. You do not become a VPSA over night and it will take a lot of experience and tough lessons to get there! I think I have matured a lot this summer from learning and allowing myself to learn all that I can! It has definitely payed off for me.

Application to Theory

Since I helped develop and help with the constitution this week, I wanted to of course bring up the ACPA/NASPA Professional Competencies for Leadership and Personal Foundations. These foundations are an integral part of developing a constitution that will last for years to come in order to have a successful student organization. A great constitution is also rooted in leadership because that is what New Maroon Camp thrives off of. Responsibilities and beliefs of the group are an important part to take into consideration when starting a student organization because you need these values and leadership to keep everything going smoothly. I think that all of the competencies listed below these two categories are important in developing New Maroon Camp and I have used these all summer to help the students and staff develop camp for the future!

References

ACPA & NASPA. (2010). Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Practitioners

Amey, M. J., & Reesor, L. M. (2009). Beginning your journey: A guide for new professionals in student affairs. Washington, D.C.: NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

Center for Student Activities: Stephane Tchang (Week 7)

Activities:

• Create marketing materials for potential Dawg Daze marketing strategies
• Attend and assist with the College Ready program, Are You Smarter Than Faculty Trivia Night 
• Provide an overview of the different formulated marketing strategies to promote Dawg Daze

Experience:

This past week was my last week in the Center for Student Activities. Throughout the week, I worked on creating a few marketing pieces that my supervisors in the Center for Student Activities could utilize to promote the Dawg Daze events taking place a couple weeks from today. Then, I also helped with the College Ready program as a score keeper and no phone usage policy enforcer. 

With the marketing pieces, I wanted to make sure my practicum supervisors would be able to see something tangible and realistic that their office could take and implement, as well as have a template for any future initiatives related to marketing. While working on the marketing materials, I came to realize that marketing overall in student affairs is always being reshaped and reimagined. A question I found myself answering was how was I going to reach out to students who are growing in a highly digital and technological world. In response to that, I came to the conclusion that nothing beats making students feel welcomed and at home. As such, my recommendation to my supervisors was to create a marketing strategy in which the overall message was to welcome the students to their new home at Mississippi State. This resulted in the creation of a welcome letter and post card, along with a set calendar of the events and a few pages of the listed events that occurred each day throughout Dawg Daze. 

With the College Ready event, I was able to get a glimpse into what hosting an activity as a student activities professional looked like. A lot of work is necessary in communicating with different parties to ensure everyone is on the same page about how the program will happen, as well as continually communicating with the dining services workers to ensure the venue of the event flowed smoothly. Being in residence life and advising student leaders, I was accustomed to student leaders planning and implementing everything. However, as I soon realized by helping with the College Ready event, sometimes the student activities professionals will be the ones planning and implementing the activity themselves. 

Theory Application:

Given everything I worked on throughout this past week, I came to the realization that King and Kitchener's Reflective Judgment Model was apparent. In stage 5, King and Kitchener describe knowledge as "contextual and subjective," with the rationale being derived from interpreting evidence (Guthrie & Love, 1999). When I was deciding on the best marketing strategies and operated on the premise that many students entering college come from a highly technological generation, I assumed the knowledge I had was contextual in the manner that technology is apparent in my own every day life, and as such, it meant students entering college are also immersed in a heavy, technological environment. As such, I interpreted that to mean that students would better receive marketing strategies that were more personalized and home-like because it is a rarity to receive something that isn't in an electronic format.

Reading Application:

This past week, I read chapter 7 of Beginning Your Journey: A Guide for New Professionals in Student Affairs, in which the author talked about the necessity to balance your personal and professional lives (Amey & Reesor, 2009). Although I am glad the author tried to cover an issue many student affairs professionals struggle with, I found the chapter to still be disheartening because in reality, there are many expectations placed on us as student affairs professionals. I've yet to be a full-time student affairs professional, but I am currently overwhelmed by the responsibilities and expectations set forth by my academics and graduate assistantship. With my time and energy being devoted to ensure I am fulfilling both my job and academic responsibilities, I am often left feeling depleted of energy, burned out, and ready to call it quits. I barely have any time to recuperate and invest in my own personal well-being. However, I often find myself telling myself that I am almost there. Others have made it before me, so why can't I? As I push myself, I am hoping that there will be a brighter light at the end of the tunnel. With this semester in particular, juggling my practicum, graduate assistantship, and academic course work has proved to be extremely strenuous. I want to ensure the quality of the work I put forth reflects the best I can provide, but sometimes, I know I sacrifice my own personal well-being to make sure I at least meet the minimum expectations set forth by my academics and assistantship. The book also discusses the importance of finding and establishing support systems. Luckily for me, I've been able to find support through my student affairs cohort. Many, if not most, of us struggle with this exact same issue, and so we are able to truly understand each other and offer as much support for each other as possible. However, outside of this avenue, I am truly lacking any real established support. In turn, I hope that when I graduate from this program, I become a student affairs professional who will assist and intentionally foster a supportive relationship with students who are pursuing their pathway into student affairs.

References:

Amey, M., & Reesor, L. (2009). Beginning your journey: A guide for new professionals in student affairs (3rd Ed.). Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

Guthrie, V. L. & Love, P. G. (1999). King and Kitchener's reflective judgment model, New Direction for Student Services, 88, 41 - 51. 

Nazim Chaker - Week 7 (Stark Recreation Center, MUW

Activities

·         Reflection

 Reflection on Practice

Last week I finished my hours at Mississippi University for Women. I went ahead and did a lot of my practicum time earlier because of my other duties and a Residence Director. I knew the process of driving back and forth to Columbus every day might become a little challenging. I also wanted to devote my focus to my practicum because I wanted to get a lot out of my experience there. I knew having to devote my time to RA training and my practicum might bleed into one another.

I can say that I did gain a lot of experience while working at MUW. Even though I have not worked there in the past week I have done some reflecting on my experience overall. It is very similar to my last blog post. I reflected on my connections and knowledge I have gained while working my practicum. Like I previously said about chapter six. I really started to think about that for my future. I still keep in contact with the department and they let me know what is going on at the W. I am glad to have a resource that understands what I want for a career. It has made me feel more confident about continuing in this path of student affairs. 

Jasmine Jennings-Week 7-Office of the Registrar

Activities:

I completed practicum on Monday, July 19 and one of my practicum supervisors took me out to lunch on Friday, July 16.

Reflection on Practice:

I think the time that was spent working at the Registrar's office was a unique opportunity.  My practicum supervisor enlightened me on the differences between Student Affairs and Academic Affairs. I also realized how my blog posts did not fit exactly into Student Affairs theories like the experiences that I've read from my cohort. I have a whole new perspective on how Academic Affairs and Student Affairs need to work together because both houses are fighting to complete the same goals. 

By working in the Office of the Registrar, I learned the following aspects (but not limited to):

• Maintaining academic records 
• Collaborate on enrollment policies with Admissions and Housing
• Coordinating class schedules but also approving curriculum changes and upholding curriculum requirements in conjunction with the deans of colleges
• Creating and facilitating graduation (which is a huge task to do for such a small office)
• Athletic compliance while using a checks and balances system that is a standard created by the NCAA
• All things dealing with transcripts 
• All things articulation 
• All things academic calendars 
• Couldn't forget about FERPA and the office's responsibility to student privacy
• Upholding the importance of being apart of the Mississippi culture

Overall, I enjoyed working in the administrative environment. Like I told my practicum supervisor, I wanted an experience that was not full of fluff and I definitely did not have fluff! I realized though that while I do appreciate an environment that is more administrative heavy, I enjoy the variety that Student Affairs brings to a career because I have yet to sit in an office all day and do administrative things as an RD. With Student Affairs, I actually look forward to the random programs or awkward developmental conversations because the most random things can be a challenge. Whereas redundancy (which I could see happening while working in the Registrar's office) will make a career less interesting for me.

Reflection of Theory and Textbook:

The purpose of me working at the Registrar's office was to gain a different perspective of what it would be like to work in Academic Affairs. The Registrar's office is such an essential piece to a student's development here that it is hard to realize that we do not talk about other important offices that affect student success within Student Affairs. While Student Affairs and Academic Affairs professionals both strive to educate students, the methods in which they attempt to educate students are different. But these two offices need to work together because both houses provide a unique experience that collectively help a student graduate from college. Taking it back to chapter five, Amey and Reesor (2009) reflect on the divide of academic and student affairs. Academic disciplines are connected with their fields and will serve their students accordingly while Student Affairs professionals will reference Academic resources but will serve students in the SA realm. From the Student Learning Imperative: Implications for Student Affairs, the purpose of the document talks about how higher education traditionally has organized itself into academic affairs and student affairs (Calhoun, 1996).  Even though institutions separate itself this way, "this dichotomy has little relevance to post-college life, where the quality of one's job performance, family life, and community activities are all highly dependent on cognitive and affective skills" (Calhoun, 1996, p. 189). Reading this quote makes me realize that this divide is not important. It is important in sense that each house has a different approach to reaching students, but at the end of the day students will not remember the competition between houses in student success. Both AA and SA work hard at making sure their students are served, but it is even more important that the houses work together because the ultimate goal is to fulfill the needs of the institution, fulfill the needs of the students, and to affect the ever evolving culture that needs ever-changing graduates.

References: 

Amey, M., & Reesor, L. (2009). Beginning your journey: A guide for new professionals in student affairs (3rd Ed.). Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

Calhoun, J. C. (1996). The student learning imperative: Implications for student affairs. Journal of College Student Development, 37(2), 188-122.

Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life - Jessi Dillingham - Blog Post 4/Week 7

Activities

• Met with site supervisor to discuss final assignments
• Presented research on bystander intervention training
• Met with Panhellenic Council students to plan how I will be involved in the future
•  Reflected on experience in office and wrote down applicable lessons for the future

Practice: Reflective Insights

My practicum experience has ended, for the most part, so I have already addressed most of my reflective insights in previous blog posts.  I will try my best not to be repetitive in this post, but no promises!

1.  I took this practicum because I wanted to better understand the inner workings of Fraternity and Sorority Life.  I also wanted to use this practicum experience to help me determine whether I would like to work in Fraternity and Sorority Life in the future.  I have learned many valuable lessons through Fraternity and Sorority Life.  For example, I have seen the ways in which people who work in this functional area have incredible opportunities to impact student leaders’ lives, the opportunities for leadership Fraternity and Sorority Life provide, and the fun these professionals have in their positions.  I have also begun to better understand myself as a professional.  Although this has been an incredibly positive experience, I do not feel that I as a professional will work in Fraternity and Sorority Life in the future.  I believe that certain individuals have the talent of working with fraternities and sororities, which involves late hours, programming efforts, organizational abilities, ability to adjudicate cases that might involve organizations or members the professional is close to, and other responsibilities.  While I possess many of these abilities, I do not think that my abilities will be best suited to working in Fraternity and Sorority Life.  My work in the office this summer have assisted me in better understanding where I might fit in student affairs in future positions.
2. The other realization on which I have been reflecting is how much time it takes to work with student groups.  Not only do professionals in student activities and Fraternity and Sorority Life hold 9-5 jobs; they also are expected to be involved in students’ activities after typical business hours.  This type of functional area, while rewarding, is incredibly demanding.  As I reflect on the past summer, I believe I now have a better understanding of the time commitment required of someone In this type of functional area.  Having this understanding will help me as I try to decide how I want to be involved in student affairs in the future.

Practice: Application of Course Readings

I feel like the textbook chapter that is most relevant to my reflections this year is Chapter 3.  This chapter addresses developing a professional ethic.  I do not want to repeat myself, so I will elaborate more on this in the next section, and I have also elaborated on this in the previous section.  The only extra thing I will say is that my practicum has shown me how important it is to have professional ethic and purpose. 

Theory: Reflective Insights & Application of Course Readings

For this last blog post, I’ll continue my trend of using the ACPA and NASPA professional competencies (ACPA & NASPA, 2010), specifically focusing on the personal foundations professional competencies.  I feel like I am finally beginning to understand more about my personal foundations and professional ethic.  I’m sure I’ll continue to develop my personal foundations and ethic throughout the rest of my life, but it is good to at least feel like I am starting to understand my life’s purpose.  For me, this summer has been a good time for me to reevaluate my life and my goals, so as I look over the personal foundations professional competencies, I feel like I have begun to develop these competencies especially.  My practicum helped me do this by exposing me to an area of student affairs that I had not previously experienced.  By putting myself in a totally new situation, I was able to learn many lessons about myself personally and professionally.

As I think about my experience this summer, I see how it relates to the concept of institutional and functional area fit.  I want to be intentional with my future positions regarding both the institution at which I work and the position I fill.  It is important to be passionate about the work I will do, and I feel that I am more passionate about other areas in student affairs than I am about Fraternity and Sorority Life.  Although that is not directly relevant to the concept of institutional fit, I do think that the two are similar.  I am interested in finding both an institution and an office within that institution that I feel have a mission to which I can relate.  After having heard so much about finding one’s fit in student affairs, it is nice to finally have a better understanding of what that means.

References

ACPA & NASPA (2010). Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Practitioners. Retrieved from: https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/Professional_Competencies.pdf.

Amey, M., & Reesor, L. (2009). Beginning your journey: A guide for new professionals in student affairs (3rd Ed.). Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

Matthew Smith - Week 7 - Student Honor Code Office

Activities:

·         Completed draft of education module and questions

·         Met with various offices around campus to confirm information in education module

·         Made corrections/changes to the module after meeting with the various offices around campus.

·         Sat in on and observed Student Honor Code violation hearings

Reflection on Practice: 

These past couple of weeks have been quite intense for me in my practicum. After finishing up the education module, Blaire Wilson (the coordinator for the Student Honor Code office) and I went to multiple offices throughout campus to verify the information in the module pertaining to their office, as well as to receive any feedback from them. These offices included (but are not limited to: Longest Student Health Center, Student Counseling Services, the Writing Center, and the Learning Center. In each of the cases, everyone was quite satisfied with the work we had done representing them to the students in this module. They all had some comments regarding their specific section in order to clarify some small details or such. It was so rewarding to get the positive feedback from all of them after working diligently to get the module up to this point.

 

In addition to my work on the module, I had the opportunity to sit in on some Student Honor Code conduct hearings. They typically do not have many cases over the summer (due to the much smaller number of students on campus during that time), but the office let me know when these cases came up and allowed me to observe the hearings. It was quite eye-opening to me to watch how the office heard the cases, balanced the testimonies of those involved (students, faculty, and/or staff depending on the case), and examined everything in the context of the Student Honor Code in order to determine what is the fairest decision for the student given their specific circumstances. It also was quite emotional being there. I could feel and see the raw emotions expressed by the students (and at times by the faculty) during the cases. It really drove home to me the point that even with though we focus on policies and practices and such, at the end of the day there are people directly (and sometimes drastically) impacted by our actions as student affairs practitioners. What might be “another day at the office” for us could be a critical moment in the life of a student. Keeping their perspective in mind is something I hope to constantly strive for given my experiences these past few weeks.

Reflection on Theory:

Given the opportunity to sit in and observe some Student Honor Code conduct cases recently, I opted to focus my attention on the theory (or theories) that are applicable there. I considered several different theories, ranging from the ACPA & NASPA Professional Competency Areas, to Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development, to Chickering & Reissner’s Theory of Identity Development. After much thought, the prevailing theory which comes to my mind is the “Student Learning & Development” subsection of the ACPA & NASPA Professional Competency Areas (2010). Specifically, this section states we as professional should “design programs and service to promote student learning and development” (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p 26). Being able to see how the module I’ve been working on will tie in with cases similar to the ones I observed really drove home the importance of designing

Additionally, this fits in well with the material discussed in chapter 11 of Amey & Reesor’s Beginning Your Journey (2009), specifically the “Maintain Perspective” subsection of the chapter (p 208-209). Seeing the whole spectrum of work done by the Student Honor Code Office really helped me keep a balanced perspective as I have worked here throughout the practicum. That vision has been crystalized and clarified as I have learned and explored, and I certainly feel like I would enjoy working in an office like this in the future should the opportunity present itself.

References:

ACPA & NASPA. (2010). Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Practitioners

Amey, M. J., & Reesor, L. M. (2009). Beginning your journey: A guide for new professional in student affairs. Washington, D.C.: NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education