Ethical Professional Practice
In order to develop along this competency area, I have had frequent conversations with my internship supervisor about my professional values and personal code of ethics, especially when they conflict with departmental policies and other professionals’ behavior. I have often consulted with more experienced professionals in my department (e.g., Senior Staff on Duty, Assistant Directors) when responding to higher-level student crises and complicated conduct hearings, and have referred students many times to such appropriate resources as the Counseling Center when necessary, as encouraged by the skills described in this competency area (ACPA & NASPA, 2010).
When considering the skills associated with this competency area, I have noticed how important it is to “recognize the legal influences on the ethical statements of different functional areas and professions within student affairs (e.g., medical professionals, counselors)” (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 14). This presents the challenge of balancing this skills area with that from the Advising and Helping competency area which states professionals should be able to “collaborate with other campus departments and organizations as well as surrounding community agencies and other institutions of higher education to address mental health concerns in a comprehensive, collaborative way” (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 9). This is especially difficult when we account for other ethical standards and federal regulations (e.g., HIPPA, FERPA). As a professional, I hope to develop a greater understanding of the legal obligations and respect for privacy and confidentiality inherent in our interactions with students, while still ensuring the safest and most secure environments for all students.
In an effort to align my practice with the ethical standards and expectations of our profession, I do my best to hold myself accountable to those standards and expectations I set for my students. I welcome the opportunity to discuss inconsistencies in my practice and look for mutual accountability between myself and my students and my peers. I believe this is the only way we can ensure that we as professionals abide by the ethical standards of our field and functional areas. My experience at the NASPA Annual Conference this year is one example of holding myself accountable to those professional standards. While many peers and colleagues chose to take the opportunity of being away from their campuses to let loose, I took the opportunity to demonstrate integrity between the accountability I practice with my students and my own actions.
Human and Organizational Resources
Several aspects of my internship have helped me develop along the Human and Organizational Resources competency area. The most pervasive practice has been through the on-going hiring process for our desk clerk staff. The turnover rate for these student employees is very high because many do not have the appropriate expectations for their abilities to work overnight shifts (12-4am and 4-8am), and often take on more shifts than those for which they are physically prepared. Regular evaluations of both the Resident Advisor and desk clerk staffs also contribute to my development along this competency. Additionally, I have continuously worked to improve and modify my supervisory style and techniques so that I can be the best supervisor for my staff while remaining true to my style and expectations.
At the departmental level, I served on the Staff Selection and Training Action Team during my first year and worked throughout the year to plan, refine, and implement staff recruitment and interviewing events for the Resident Advisor and student desk manager staffs. My experience on this action team helped me gain a more complete understanding of the various consideration that go into staff recruitment and selection. One of the most impactful considerations from my experience was discussion on recruiting students of color and the challenges of balancing the need for a diverse selection pool with the desire to hire the most qualified candidates possible. Additionally, there were also often moments of disagreement on how to go about refine interview questions and other recruitment practices, so the opportunities to “resolve conflict within the unit and between members of the unit” were not hard to come by (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 19).
The artifact I have for this competency area actually focuses on the organizational resources components, which I developed through my practicum with the Associate Director for Facilities and Operations in the Office of Residence Life. One of my main projects was to revise, update, and in some cases write the Comprehensive Emergency Action Plans (CEAP) for each of the residence halls. This assignment helped me gain a clearer understanding of crisis management from a large-scale perspective as well as the various facilities and operations considerations professionals need to take into account. The CEAP that I am using as my artifact is an inactive (older) version of the one for my hall (Centennial Hall) because it allowed me to utilize my experience from my internship to enhance the emergency plans that were already developed. This experience helped me put into practice several skills required for competency in Human and Organizational Resources, including: “[engaging] in policy and procedure development, implementation, and decision making that minimize risk to self, students, other constituents, and the institution,” “effectively and appropriately use facilities management procedures as related to operating a facility or program in a facility,” and “describe campus protocols for responding to significant incidents and campus crises” (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 18).
Student Learning and Development
This competency area comes into my work with students every day, though is not one of the competency areas in which I feel the strongest. The times when I utilize student development theory the most are during conduct investigation meetings and one-on-one meetings with the Resident Advisors I directly supervise. Throughout the program, and especially in the CSP 6020: Theory and Assessment of College Student Development course, I believe I have done well in articulating a variety of theories and applying them to my work, recognizing where students are in their development along several models, and understand the limitations of those models and theories as they relate to students’ intersecting identities (ACPA & NASPA, 2010). Aside from these basic-level skills, I have also worked to incorporate practices that promote learning and cognitive growth through training sessions and presentations I have led with Resident Advisors and hall council members. Utilizing engaging content meant to challenge students to achieve session learning outcomes, I believe I have successfully reached a level of proficiency in this area.
While attending the NASPA annual conference, I took advantage of several opportunities to attend sessions that focused on various aspects of student development, including identity intersectionality, authentic masculinity (through the lenses of fraternity culture and student conduct), and inclusive leadership and cultural humility. These sessions helped provide a sort of refresher for my knowledge of some of their associated theories and prompted me to consider new ways I could incorporate them in my daily practice. As I move forward in my career, I plan to review various theories and models of development and learning so that I can improve my work in this area and more readily identify students’ developmental gains and areas for growth.
One example of my development in the area of Student Learning and Development is my Formal Theory Paper from CSP 6020, in which I analyzed three students’ positions along Renn’s (2004) theory of mixed-race student development. In the paper, I not only analyze each student’s development in their mixed-race identity, but also how other identities (e.g., gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status) impact how they view themselves as mixed-raced or multiracial individuals. Additionally, I took into consideration their experiences with family in terms of racial socialization and the communities they had found for themselves on campus. I believe this artifact demonstrates my competency in this area because I was able to articulate the theory for the student participants and myself, identify through which of the five identity patterns the individual students made meaning of their mixed-race identity, and identify the intersectionality of various other identities within the study.
References
Bresciani, M., Todd, D., Carpenter, S., Janosik, S., Komives, S., Love, P., & Tyrell, S. (2010). ACPA/NASPA professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners. American College Personnel Association, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
Renn, K. A. (2004). Mixed race students in college: The ecology of race, identity, and community on campus. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion has been a frequent, though not primary, focus of my experience over the last few years. I have participated in several diversity and social justice training programs, worked with staff and students to develop their own multicultural competence, and have served on committees through my internship for which diversity was often the topic at the forefront of our work. Some of these experiences include the Higher Education Student Affairs annual social justice retreat, bystander intervention training through the iStand program (a collaboration between Bowling Green State University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and Center for Leadership), and serving on the Staff Recruitment and Selection and Diversity Action Teams through the Office of Residence Life.
As a member of the Diversity Action Team, my primary focus for the fall semester was to plan and implement the annual Tunnel of Oppression event. I helped develop the gallery-style self-guided event around the Cycle of Oppression, finding topics of diversity and social justice to match each part of the cycle. Some areas of the tunnel included microaggressions, stereotypes, and current issues on campus, in the community, and across the country that related to various identities and social justice.
During my undergraduate experience, I also held an internship with the Intercultural Education cluster of the Center for Leadership and Social Change at Florida State University. One of my primary responsibilities during my internship was to coordinate and plan the annual Multicultural Leadership Summit, which involved a keynote speaker and several rounds of breakout sessions that focused on issues of diversity, identity development, and social justice as it related to students’ leadership experiences and opportunities on campus.
The CSP 6035: Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs program design project allowed me to practice many of the skills outlined by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion competency area. My program design focused on helping students understand their individual identities at an introductory level, as well as how those identities intersect and the positions of privilege or oppression they hold because of those identities. Through individual and group activities and discussion prompts, the program design encourages participants to explore their multiple identities and consider the times of salience for each of those identities. I believe this program design effectively demonstrates my competency in the area of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.