Week 5: Moak- Multicultural Student Affairs @ SMU

Activities:
-Office/SMU orientation
-Academic Advising and Registration Orientation (AARO)
-Diversity workshop with Residence Life and Student Housing (RLSH) professional staff
     ~Staff-wide Development of case study
-KIPP outreach
-Learner Outcomes research and presentation
-Framework for Office Assessment plan
-Weekly Supervision Meeting
-Weekly Staff Meeting

Reflection:
     This week has been a non-stop, whirlwind adventure. As I mentioned in class, I was working the Multicultural Student Affairs table at the AARO Resource Fair on my first day, and during the second session of the week, I worked the table by myself. It was a great experience that allowed me to showcase what I had learned about the office during the week. During orientation, the office also hosted lunch for minority/students of color who wanted to join us. It was a great opportunity for students to orient themselves with the office, connect names to faces, and meet other students who they would be going to school with. Last Thursday during AARO, my supervisor was asked to moderate a Q&A session where freshmen could ask AARO leaders anything they wanted about SMU. He thought it would a good idea for me to attend to learn more about the university from the student perspective. One thing I picked up on was that for many students, SMU was not their first choice, and I the next thing I knew I was thinking "What can we do to make SMU a first choice? How can we get students excited about this place?" I was amazed that I had only been on campus for 4 days, and I was already thinking long-term, even though I knew I would be leaving at the end of the month.
     I really enjoyed working on the Diversity Workshop for RLSH. It was interesting to see the staff make-up and how they reacted to the situations we presented. I got to conduct the icebreaker that kind of set the tone for the workshop. It's called "Iceberg." Those participating are asked to detail what they know about this facilitator based on observation. All that information is placed on the iceberg above the waterline. Below the waterline includes facts about the facilitator that cannot be discerned based on observation. The point of the exercise was to show how we take our observations and use them to inform assumption about things we can't see. It was great timing that this workshop happened while I was in the office because this activity works best when the facilitator is relatively unknown by the participants. For this workshop, we also wrote a case study dealing with micro-aggression in the workplace. I've used case studies before, but I had never been a part of writing one before. Going through the process was interesting because we got to decide how many issues we wanted to tackle, what issues specifically, as well as how much shock to put in each incident.
     One of the things I have learned in my week at SMU is that I'm becoming more and more confident in the type of university in which I would like to work. I like working at small, private institutions. To me, the entire division feels more close-knit, and different offices within the division constantly rely on each other in efforts to support students. I also need to be in an urban area. This aspect doesn't have so much to do with the institution itself so much as what an urban area has to offer as compared to a more rural area.

This week, I'm working on an assessment presentation for the next staff meeting, and I will also begin helping my supervisor pair up mentors and mentees for the CONNECT peer mentoring program.