Competency Reflection

Through the Personal and Ethical Foundations Class, I really was able to take what I have already known about myself, the profession, and students and develop strong connections and grow into those aspects. What I mean by this for example, I know retention is something that colleges have always struggled with. As I was once a student that had to see a retention specialist in my undergraduate degree, and knowing I wasn’t the only one. Although I did this interview for the VPH competency, I learned through doing an interview with an admission director, that COVID-19 has really made more of an impact on retention. UWL does not really have any issues with enrollment however they have had a drop in students from their upper class. I thought this was really interesting. The artifact I will be using for this class is my Annotated Bibliography. The topic for this paper was student retention on students from different minority groups. Just doing research I learned so much about how underrepresented some of these groups are. It is also interesting because there are underrepresented minorities that get overlooked by other minority groups. Many university lack the diversity on campus, but they want to keep those diverse students on campus. The question is, how do we do something like that? I feel like many colleges value that diversity but are stuck with a campus that is majorly white, and this makes those students of color uncomfortable to be on campus. So through this project it has made me very aware of the disservice many colleges are providing to their students of color. My role as a student affairs professional will be to be an advocate for those students, but also actively coming up with ways to accommodate those students. One major theme to this competency is values and beliefs. I have several values that I feel have always been strong and will continue to be strong. One of those core values I hold is commitment. I am committed to many things in my life and one of my biggest reasons for going into this program was wanting to make a difference in students lives. This is a great population to help with and I am committed to making changes now and into my professional role. 

 Reflection from Advising and Supporting Lens

Advising and Supporting helped provide me with a different and maybe more advanced lens. Through this class I have been able to take a deeper look into how I can make an impact on students and what my beliefs and thoughts are could be helpful but at the same time detrimental. Being a new professional there are many temptations that we learned about and things I certainly have done in the past, as I feel there is a blurry boundary at times because we are still students but we are also professional staff. I working with Campus Activities Board and last year when I first started I think it was more important for me to try to find a relationship with them which turned into trying to be their friend which is really not the best way to do that. Nothing negative came from it I just struggled with feeling like an outsider. When the new team started Spring 2022 I realized that I did not really need to try to be their friend, the relationships just grew from interaction and the trust also grew from interaction and validation that through all of this I will be there for them. Though this I have been able to seek environments and collaborations that provide adequate challenge such that personal development is promoted, and provide sufficient support such that development is possible. I have found through some difficult situations that trust means a lot to students. That will be something that I will always bring to my positions is knowing that they can trust me. As Fall 2022 semester is coming to an end, my supervisor is leaving, which is putting me in a position where I can make some other decisions as well as grow and develop a lot in my position. Advising and supporting has given me a lot of ideas that I feel could be incredibly useful for the future of CAB. I will be able to transfer thoughtful reflection into positive future action, which makes me feel excited to continue on in the field. COVID-19 really impacted the way students learn and function and as student affairs professionals, we really need to take that into account when we think about student well-being. Starting Spring 2023 I will be implementing a different structure the typical 1:1s that I have held in the past. I will be doing weekly 2:1's with my event coordinators and they will need to stay the entire hour to hour and a half where I will advise them but also force them to work on all of their CAB work so that I do not have to hound them to get it done, like I have been doing this semester. I am doing this in hopes that this will provide a better work life balance for my students so that come the end of the semester they are not feeling overwhelmed. 

Something else I thought of in relation to this class and competency is my work with my practicum, which is a First Year Seminar. This was a chance for me to work with other students outside of an organization. This gave me the opportunity to advise on more items related to academics. However, I feel I have a decent amount of work to do in this area, it has made me look forward to possibly teaching other classes in the future. I will utilize my PowerPoint presentation on registering for classes that I used. Although it is very brief I went in depth with showing the students exactly how to register using the Schedule Planner. The experienced gained through helping co-teach this showed me that depending on your audience the same techniques you use with one group of students certainly does not match what you can and should do with others. I am excited to continue down the path of teaching for first year seminars.

 Final Reflection

Since COVID-19 it has become obvious that the first thing we as professionals need to be more supportive of is the health and well-being of our students that we interact with and supervise. As a professional I feel that this will always be an uphill battle with trying to balance life, school, and work for both out students and ourselves. I know that I can improve with being more aware of how I impact others as well as understanding what my students might need. I think about this a lot because each individual is so different and the way that they might support their own wellness is different than their peers. This is also important for each individual student to understand as well when it comes to the health and well-being of their peers. In my future position, I will want to work on incorporating a form of self-care during meeting times as a group and potentially during advising meetings. This will can help lower the stress and anxiety that might come with some meetings and and appointments with advisers. 

As I have moved through my graduate assistantship and looked back at where I began, I have found it interesting to see the growth in myself. I think more advanced and work to improve on these competencies. I think more about the ethical codes and professional standards is an area I feel I have excelled in most. This is because I came into the profession with no understanding really of what it means to be a professional in student affairs. There is still work to be done in this area but I have a great understanding on the influence of culture, morals, ethics, and other protocols. I have also learned that talking with colleagues can be very beneficial to the outcomes of situations or even when you are unsure of what to do they are always a great resource to use. 

To conclude, the Personal and Ethical Foundations Competency has is really important to understanding the foundations of student affairs and how to work with students in advising rolls but also student development. I look forward to continuing my work in this competency as it benefits the system and myself.