Nelda Bailey- Texas A&M University's Student Conduct Services: Week Three

Hello Everyone,

I must admit that the month of June has flown. I have been so focused on my Summer I courses that I have not had the proper moment to actually rejoice in my excitement for this upcoming journey. With the chaos of June’s schedule ending this week, I will finally have the opportunity to focus solely on my practicum experience. As stated earlier, my director has allotted me autonomy in the lessons I learn and the areas I focus on. I look forward to using the remainder of this week to prioritize where I want to begin my practicum experience. Ultimately, I want to learn as much as possible, so I am not that concerned with where the journey ends if it ends. I am also eager to gain more insight about several departments at TAMU. I look forward to exploring myself as a professional and as a graduate student. The purpose of this practicum is to gain professional skills and to build my confidence as a Student Affairs practitioner, and I plan to fully exploit this purpose for my benefit. Likewise, I plan to use this opportunity to see if Student Conduct is a place for me as well as gain insight into other departments that might be interesting for me as a practitioner.

I am somewhat sad that I will not be spending my mother’s birthday with her, but I am also excited that I will use that day to acquaint myself with Texas A&M University’s campus. I cannot wait until July 8^th comes, so that I can fully begin my experience. I’ll keep you posted!

Laura Dunn: College Ready- Week Three

This week marks that last week leading up to the start of the College Ready program, where my entire practicum will take place in the month of July.  The last of the orientation sessions ended this past week which also wraps up the presentations by College Ready.  All students that will take part in the program are already registered and final details are being put together.  I am anxious to get to work!  We've got most everything planned here on out and we're wrapping up small details.  Though I'm not officially working with them yet, I'm still trying to be involved with planning to keep myself in the loop.  One area that I've been asked to help with are the ice breaker games and the tours for the incoming students.  A list of ice breakers was put together and split up among several people.  Also, I have recruited several students to help give tours of campus to the new students.  This will take place on Monday, July 7th.  The Students will move in on the 6th and I'll be working hard from there!  Now that orientation is over and my schedule at my full time job has gotten less hectic I will be able to amount large amounts of time to College Ready and I'll be diving in head first come Sunday.  I am very excited to work with my wonderful supervisor, as well as the graduate student for College Ready, and other areas of campus that will be helping.  It's very important that College Ready is supported by other offices at the university as well.  Without this help they would not be near as successful. 

I look forward to reporting back to you guys in the next few weeks about the REAL work I will be doing!  I CAN NOT WAIT!! 

Bryan Kelley: Cullis Wade Depot and Welcome Center - Week Three

It was certainly nice to have a full week in the office last week. With traveling for weddings and other events, I had to miss Friday from the week before. With that all being said, it was certainly a good and busy week. One of the largest moments I took away from this week was just observing what an office environment looks like. As I have grown up, I have had the pleasure of working in a variety of different office environments. Interestingly enough, all of them have been completely different experiences from one another. Despite the offices and their environments being different from one another, there have been some themes that have remained seemingly constant throughout the whole process. 

One of these themes that I enjoy a whole lot is what I call office talk. It has been really interesting to observe the seemingly natural flow of what an entire day in the office looks like. Everyone gets into the office first thing in the morning and chats about how their evening was for about 15 minutes before everyone heads to their desks to start the day in earnest. Over the course of the morning, its always fun for me to watch as various members of the office get up and meander around for a moment because they competed a task and need a short walk before getting to the next task, they are working on a project and need to ask another person's opinion on it, or they just thought about something and wanted to bring the conversation up with the other person before they forget. These office talks offer a nice and concise respite to the monotony of responding to emails, writing training manuals, and the general day to day fatigue of sitting at a desk most days. 

Other than the moment I mentioned above, I also thought about the pride that we as student affairs professionals experience as we become ingrained in the culture and being of an institution. This past Friday, I had the opportunity to lead a campus wide tour with a group of fourth through eight graders. The tour was comprehensive and included athletic facilities and the MAFES Store for some good ole Mississippi State ice cream at the end of it all. As I was giving the tour, I could not help but experience a wonderful pride that welled up in my belly as the students were awed by the campus and everything we have to offer. Despite having only been here for just under a year, I have seemingly as much pride for MSU as I had for UNG. Of course there were more wonderful practical experiences had over the course of the week, but the most notable moments I had are the ones above. 

Alexandra Kytan: JSU Office of Student Life Week 3

Activities

·         Sexual Misconduct/Title IX Meeting

·         Helped with community service/service learning logging hours

·         Contacted agencies that have a community service/service learning partnership with JSU

Reflection

I was very excited to be helping out with JSU’s Center for Community Service & Engaged Learning. Community service is a very important aspect of my life. I think giving back to the community can have a very beneficial outcome and is important for our youth to understand. JSU does a fantastic job with making sure their students experience what it is like to help others. In order to graduate from JSU a student must complete 120 hours of community service unless they are a transfer, then it is 60 hours. That is an amazing amount of time these students have to spend over their two-to-four years in school. When I was researching other institutions, not very many had a requirement of community service hours and if they did it was around ten hours. JSU exceeds that drastically. I appreciate their effort to holistically grow each student!

While working with the sexual misconduct policy this past meeting was very exciting. Great minds were working together and much was accomplished. It was amazing to see student affairs professional’s gets so excited about something most might see as tedious. Their passion for the students and their safety was evident. I hope to have the same kind of passion regardless of the task when I am working professionally. Additionally, the ability for them to analyze other institutions practices to expand their knowledge and create a plan specifically for JSU was great!

This is my last week here at JSU and my goal is to continue like I have the past three weeks and dive into any obstacle given and find a way to make it happen!

Raychel Payne: Center for Student Activities Week 3

Activities:

• Continue preparing for College Ready
• Facilitated the last freshman orientation student organization fair
• Worked on a contract for a potential musical artist to come in the Fall
• Picked up mannequins for the upcoming Miss MSU trunk show

Experience:

This week was short for me because I was traveling home for the weekend and only collected hours three days this week. With that being said, I still had a lot of experience. My supervisor Emilie and I are still working on the final stages of planning the opening events for the College Ready program.  She is also out of the office this week so I will be finalizing all of the arrangements for next Mondays programs on my own. I truly appreciate the opportunity to do this part of the planning independently and that my supervisor trusts me enough to have it done correctly.

We are also working on a contract for a possible musical artist to come in November and I was able to see how the contract is being created and follow communication with the artist's agent. Because practicum takes place in the summer I would typically not be able to see how the event plays out this Fall, but Emilie is working with Music Makers to get me a potential place to work production in the Fall for this concert. Being able to see the planning of this concert from the very beginning and then through the actual production would be amazing.

 John and I on the Golf Cart picking up Mannequins!

Finally, this week we began planning for the Miss MSU Trunk Show to take place tomorrow. My job in this was to pick up a few mannequins to display garments for the show. This was a fun experience for me because I was able to spend time with the student assistant in the office and have a few laughs riding in the golf cart on campus. What I love most about this experience is that I get to have fun interactions with students on a regular basis while also being productive. Another example is getting to work with Music Maker Productions for the student organization fair again this week. There are many talented and driven students working in this office in some capacity and it has been great getting to learn about all that they do.

Practicum Networking Opportunities: Lindsay Pinkston- Week 3

As a continuation from my previous blog post, I want to share my final goal I hope to accomplish during my practicum. My final goal and a very important one is to develop more as a professional. I have professional experience within a classroom setting being that I taught 2nd grade for several years, but I do not hold as much experience being a professional within student affairs. My practicum experience is going to help me accomplish that. My site supervisor has helped me create a list of professionals to meet with and discuss what career counseling looks like in the realm of their work. I think this is a wonderful opportunity because I will get to see different aspects of career counseling and not solely what a career counselor does everyday. Here is a preview of my list: 

a. Meet with Travis Railsback who is Executive Director for the department to discuss managing the leadership and basic management within the office

b. Meet with Gayle Howell in Engineering Career Center to discuss how their department functions

c. Meet with Susan Cowles in Business Career Center to discuss how their department functions

d. Meet with Ellen Pate who is the Career Consultant/Coordinator of Assessments to discuss the success of the Career Center’s programs for students

e. Meet with Jesse Gardner who is the Director of Career and Leadership Development with Athletics to discuss her role

My practicum experience is also going to allow moments to network and, within the student affairs world, that is essential. I am looking forward to next week when I will be at UA to begin my practicum!

-Lindsay Pinkston

 

Chelsey Vincent: Academic Advising Week 3

Activities

• Advised incoming freshmen at Orientation
• Advised incoming transfer students at Orientation
• Prepared for the academic session
• Welcomed students to the academic session

Experience

This week I worked under the supervision of a different academic advisor who has a lot of experience academic advising. Last week I had a student that could not enroll in a math class because of her ACT score. This week the academic advisor told me to tell students to take a placement test to be able to enroll in a math class. I immediately felt awful for the student who I told would not be able to enroll in a math class the week before. Then I remembered that I asked one of the advisors to check her schedule, and I felt better. This reinforced the need to have someone come behind me to check my work- especially while I am still learning. 

I also had my first experience with transfer students. The student I worked with chose a science-related major, so the science classes she chose were of high importance. I asked another volunteer to help me advise her, and she did. What I did not know was that this volunteer was just as clueless as I was. After we helped her as much as we could, we asked my supervisor to look at her schedule, and everything we worked on was wrong. I think the lesson learned here is to be careful who you ask for help. They may give help but give it incorrectly. 

Jacob Haun- Holmes Cultural Diversity Center Week 3

Pertinent Weekly Activities

• Met with a student to discuss Training opportunities
• Spoke with director of another department to implement new initiatives
• Spoke with new parents at freshman orientations
• Submitted a report into weekly staff meeting
• Met with site supervisor to tweak the training schedule

This week was another really eye-opening experience in the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center. I am learning so much and I am really happy that I pushed myself to try something new. I think I always knew that diversity was something that was kind of uncharted for me, and I have really pushed myself to learn some new and exciting things. This week I had an awesome opportunity to sit down with some students and discuss their experience of going through the training that I am planning. I have heard a lot of administrator opinion, but it was nice to get the balance from a student. They are the ones who are on the front lines and that I should be catering the experience towards. I love the fact that HCDC has them in the office over the summer, I feel that I am really able to get some awesome feedback and experience from them being there. 

Another exciting thing I did this year was worked with housing to help implement some new initiatives. I was not aware of the scope of things that I was going to be able to do with this office over the summer, and I definitely had not planned on helping them get new programs off the ground. I am lucky enough to have some experience with housing through my assistantship, so that made the interaction a little easier. However, I think that laying the foundation for the program is something really exciting that will help really boost my experiences within student affairs. 

Another new experience that I had this week was submitting a report for my office. While this sounds trivial, it is something new for me. I am not typically in charge of any action items for a weekly meeting agenda. It was a really proud moment for me to submit my work and be able to show the things that I have accomplished in only a short amount of time. 

A revalation that I had this week in working with HCDC this summer and especially with parents is working through the diversity conversation. I have found that not only are we educating students, but we are educating parents. Additionally, I think that it is important to understand that people are in all different levels of their understanding in regards to diversity, and that the struggle is something that we must continually work through. That has been one of the biggest lessons I have had to learn, but also an amazing indicator of some of the things I need to know for my students when I start working again in the fall. 

Whitney Dedmon- The Career Center- Week 3

• Met with a student to critique her personal statement and resume
• Conducted academic advising at two freshmen orientation sessions and one transfer orientation session
• Assisted one of our staff with a presentation about the Career Center, what it offers, and why it is necessary
• Assisted the student workers at the front desk to learn their responsibilities and how to work with students and families who walk into the Career Center

This was another great week! I am absolutely loving everything that I am able to be a part of at the career center. This week I was able to individually meet with a student on my own to critique her personal statement and resume. I found this to be very nerve racking. This student was applying to get into MSU's MBA program, so I felt a good deal of pressure to make sure I give her the right advice for her personal statement and resume. However, the meeting went very well and she left with two very strong documents for her application. It was so much fun getting to work with this student and apply the things I had been learning while shadowing previous meetings with students.

Also, I performed academic advising for freshmen and transfer orientations. The freshmen advising sessions went much like the previous ones that we have had. However, the transfer orientation was a little more difficult. Transfer students usually come in with quite a few hours. So, these students who have taken 30-60 hours and are still undecided present a much more difficult advising time. Most of the core classes they have already taken, so you must find classes that can still go towards several different majors. Most of these students have at least narrowed down their choices to two or three majors which makes the search easier. I have learned so much from being able to work with all of these different students.

Lastly, I was able to assist the student workers at the front desk when they worked with walk-ins. Most of them were students from orientation who were interested in finding jobs on campus. I was able to learn how the workers at the front desk show them around the site and help them figure out how to find jobs. Also, I was able to go with one of the senior coordinators in the office to a presentation about the career center to some of the freshman athletes. I really enjoyed being able to see what a general presentation about the career center to a class is like. Working with the athletes is really fun as well. They are a very interesting group of students and it is a great experience to be able to work with them. July will bring a whole new array of experiences for me and I am very much looking forward to it!

Hannah Mountford Week 3

Activities:

• Chair of Judicial Review Board
• Created graphs to go into the end of the year report
• Finalized RA training presentation
• Helped out with the organization fair and freshman orientation

Experience:

I really enjoyed my week in the Dean of Students' Office this week. I was able to do a little bit of everything that that is something that I was really hoping to get out of my experience. I think my favorite thing that I was able to do this week was chair a student conduct board. I have had the privilege of serving on a couple of boards throughout the year, but I have never been able to be the head of the board. It was a great experience, and even though I was super nervous, it was cool to know that my supervisors trusted me enough and were willing to let me get that opportunity. It went really well, at least I hope, and I am hoping that I am able to get an opportunity to help out in the future. 

I also got to finalize the powerpoint for RA training. I was able to sit down with Tabor and go over slide by slide of what I have been working on and then get some good perspective about ways to improve. This also lead to me being able to analyzes the number of on campus incidents that occurred this past year and then with the help of the graduate assistant Bradley, we were able to make a bunch of different graphs to go into the power point. It was cool to see it all come together. I also really like being able to take a different point of view to see the overall incidents that occurred on campus aside from just knowing what happened in my building. 

Finally I was able to help out with orientation again this week and I really enjoyed that. On Friday I was helping with orientation and that lead to me having lunch with the Dean of Students, Dean Bourgeois, the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs, Bill Broyles, the Director of Housing Dr. Bailey, the Associate Dean of Students, Jeremy Bahem, and the director of Parent Services, Cat Walker. This was really cool because it was super informal, and a great way for me to interact with some people in positions that one day, I aspire to be in. It was also a great way for me to be able to just show them who I am while also getting to know them. It was a really great week in the Dean of Students Office and its crazy to believe that I only have 20 hours left. 

Amber Norwood: Orientation and Events - Week 3

Activities:

• Met with supervisor
• Assisted with Orientation Housing Check-in
• Worked an orientation sessions from beginning (Thursday morning) to finish (Friday afternoon)

Experience:

      The past weekend at practicum was a whirlwind, but a great one! I did the usual things that I've been blogging about for the past couple of weeks, but I also got to assist with orientation housing check-in. I was really excited for this opportunity since housing is a functional area that is somewhat foreign to me. I was able to check families in for the orientation portion and then learn about the process of checking students into a residence hall. Eventually, I was confident enough in my (very limited) knowledge of the process to answer some questions about the housing process or refer the family to another worker. 

      I also finally got to assist with an orientation session in its entirety. My job usually prevents me from experiencing the full event because I have to hold office hours. However, this past week I took Thursday and Friday off. It was really fun to get to participate in all aspects of the event. I can tell that the trust between the staff and I are increasing because this week I was put on the duty roster to work parts of the event without any supervisions as if I was a professional staff member and not a summer intern. 

     As usual, I met with Kylie several times throughout the week to discuss how things were going and I always appreciate her being very intentional about giving me an "inside look" at orientation. Since she went through the program herself, she knows how important it is for me to learn all that I can.

This is what our Orientation Leaders look like by the end of the week! Don't worry, orientation was already over :)

Joshua Thompson: Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion - Week 3

Activities:

• Met with supervisor
• Participated in staff meeting
• Ran errands for office
• Partnered with neighboring institution to promote summit
• Starting revisions for post summit evaluations

Experience:

Firstly, I would like to start off by saying that I am really glad that I chose to complete my practicum at the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion. The staff really do a great job in keeping me included in all things associated with the office and I feel as though I am growing professionally each time that I go in. 

This week I was giving the chance to make contact with other institutions to promote a conference that is being put on by the office for men of color in the fall. I really like the fact that I was allowed to do this and based off of the responses that I received, there is a lot of excitement going around about this event. In addition to partnering with other institutions, I collaborated with staff to create a promotional, "instagram" page for this event to further our marketing efforts. Aside from marketing this event, I got the chance to start making revisions on the post assessment fro the event, which will help me when I am coordinating my own events once I am in my desired profession. 

The staff here really make me feel as though I am apart of the team, and not just a graduate student and that is not something that I expected from my practicum position. I appreciate all of the experiences that I have gained so far and I hope to continue growing professionally and learning more. 

-JT

TiShawn Polk: Housing and Residence Life – Week 3

Activities:

-Finalize schedule for in-house presenters for RD and RA training

-Attend Weekly RLT committee meetings

-Meet with supervisor

-Video on campus professionals

Experience:

I have to report that I am really enjoying my limited experience within housing. This weeks duties included contacting and finalizing presenters times and locations by this past Tuesday. While it does not seem like a daunting task to send emails, it is a nerves thing for me because I do not like to be intrusive. If a person did not respond after the first email, I have a hard time phrasing the follow up email because I always feel like it comes off as being pushy or overbearing. However, I trudged through my nerves and successfully contacted everyone I needed to. My other task involved helping Hannah record professionals in different departments on campus who are related to or may come in contact with housing officials. The video clips will be compiled into a larger video that will be shown to incoming RAs to familiarize them with the services and offices provided on campus. This was enjoyable meeting new people and establishing more contact with those I already knew. It was awesome.

Through this process I have learned much regarding number 6 under the learner outcomes. I have had to constantly re-engineer myself to take on different tasks and learn how to approach others in a professional way. Also, I have had to understand what areas and situations I am not comfortable in. One thing that still surprises me is how willing committee members are with helping with implementing the summer trainings. I was really looking for my experience to begin in July, but I have already had great lessons learned thus far.

One lesson that I have learned this week from previous reading is the professional development in the sense of fostering relationships with people already established in the student affairs world. Something so simple as recording your mentors in HCDC or establishing connections with those in student activities is reaffirming to why I chose this major. Plain and simple it is for the people.

Brent Varner - Student Support Services - Week 3

Activities

·      Ran errands for the department.

·      Participated in the information booth for Student Support Services during orientation.

·      Participated in leading academic advising during orientation.

Experience

This is the third week of my practicum experience. During the first week, I was really just learning the ropes, so to speak. I got a lot of hands on experience during my second week. This third week has been quite wonderful. I truly feel like I am apart of the Student Support Services family. Throughout the week, I have been getting things ready for the transition of offices starting Monday. This meant doing more manual type labor such as moving tables, chairs, etc. I was happy to do it though. The actual moving of computers and phones will be on Monday morning, since Susan’s last day was Friday, June 27, 2014.

While I have participated in several academic advising sessions in the past few weeks, this week was my first time to participate in the Student Support Services informational booth during an orientation session. We were set up on the bottom floor of the union next to the Starbucks. It was nice since there was quite a bit of foot traffic. Over the first 2 weeks, I learned a lot about the office of Student Support Services. I was able to confidently showcase this to anyone who was interested when walking by. Manning this booth was also quite informational in and of itself. I was able to pick up on more details of the official procedure for registering for services from the office. Other things were important as well. For example, I learned what the difference is between a 504 and an IEP. I really enjoyed getting to share my knowledge with the incoming freshmen.

Finally, it was time for my favorite part of my practicum experience for the week. That is to advise the undeclared majors at orientation on Fridays. It felt good to have faculty and staff in the room ask me questions that I could answer! As a part of this advising process, I will sometime have to call in an override to the command center at the registrar’s office. I really enjoy having the direct impact on students that I get from doing these academic advising sessions.

Kelsey Jones: Shackouls Honors College Week 3

Activities

- Represent Shackouls Honors College at Orientation sessions
- Continue planning events for Honors Convocation
- Assist in in Honors Advising
- Review student handbook

Experiences

Week 3 working with Shackouls has continued to provide me with valuable experiences. For the most part, my biggest jobs remain representing Shackouls at Orientation and planning for Honors Convocation. At a Campus Services fair this past week we were particularly busy so I got to speak with a lot of parents. I hadn't realized previous to this practicum experience exactly how enjoyable working with parents can be. I enjoyed getting to explain to them what their student would be experiencing as part of the Honors College, and I got to help ease their nerves about sending their student to college. There is one particular experience with a parent this week that ties my practicum and assistantship experiences together perfectly. The Honors College living/learning community is hosted in Griffis and North Halls. I will be serving as the Residence Director of Griffis this upcoming year and when parents learn that I will be the professional running their childs "home away from home" they are very eager to discuss how I'm going to make sure their "baby" is taken care of. This particular parent was extremely worried about her son making the transition into college and whatnot, so I just got to have quite a lengthy conversation with her about the process and resources available and she appeared to leave feeling reassured that her son was going to be okay. I love my job.

I also got to finally dip my toe into the functional area of academic advising this week! If students are having trouble getting the one required Honors course into their Fall schedule they are directed to the Honors College offices in Griffis. This week we had several students and their families drop by and there were two or three times that I got to sit directly in the advising sessions with my supervisor. I really enjoy academic advising because it gives you the opportunity to learn the individual students goals and help organize their college experience in a way that helps them achieve their goals. I just feel that the quality and level of investment of your academic advisor completely determines your college experience. I really do. So, I was very thankful for the opportunity to be a part of these advising sessions. I found this week at practicum particularly rewarding because I learned that I enjoy both working with parents and academic advising a great deal.

Finally, outside of orientation sessions I have been continuously working on planning events for the Honors Convocation in the Fall, as well as reviewing the student handbook and seeing if any changes need to be made. Planning Convocation has been pretty great because I'm working closely with the Honors Council (pretty much SGA for the Honors College) and working with students and learning how a new student organization runs is always fun! I feel like I chose a really unique practicum experience and it's turned out to be genuinely fun and rewarding. I'm excited to continue!