Organizational and Human Resources
Assessment, Advocacy, and Networking
Universities have multiple departments and positions. Student affairs professionals must be able to understand the role of partners, allies, and adversaries when completing institutional goals. I have grown to understand and recognize the roles and networks in organizations and how they each play a role in the accomplishment of a goal. Networking is extremely important to this field and to goal achievement. I have shown advocacy for my students when rules and regulations are too broad and they have extenuating circumstances. I have used my networking skills to broaden my and my office’s scope during conferences. Assessment is a growing need. After taking an institutional research course, I looked into the correlation of program entry and a students first semester math course, gender, and race to present to the program. My assessment, advocacy, and networking skills are constantly growing and are a focus for my professional development.
Skill Development
Identifying growth for myself and my students has been integral to my experience in higher education. After realizing I was missing experience to meet a personal goal, I was able to reach out to supervisors and put together a position that both benefited the department and my personal skill development. Through time in this new position I was able to delegate tasks, provide constructive feedback, and help put together news systems for training and hiring. I also have designed plans of actions for my student mentees to focus on weekly and long-term goals based on needs, strengths, and weaknesses. I have been able to help students develop their own skills through delegation and developmental feedback.
Hiring and Staffing
Through my experience in the hiring process of student staff, I have learned institutional policies and practices for fair and ethical recruitment and hiring. I have also learned how to describe ethical hiring techniques and criteria for the students assisting in the process to ensure an ethical hiring process. Interviewing and application review is essential to building a strong team and I can bring these skills to future positions.
Supervision, Communication, and Conflict Resolution
Supervision is a fine line between oversight and independence. I am able to work with supervisees to find a balance in my supervision style and their needs to provide a thriving environment and solid communication. My communication skills are able to be tailored to the appropriate situation in verbal and nonverbal formats. This is the aspect of my skills I am most excited to continue and improve upon in future positions as I strive to continually increase effectiveness and knowledge of supervision skills and knowledge. As I supervised peer staff through training module creation, we transitioned to an online format during the COVID-19 crisis. Being able to communicate and provide feedback throughout that transition taught me and my students a lot about flexibility and perseverance
Technology
Technology is extremely important to many positions within student affairs. In my experience with academic advising, it is imperative for quality scheduling, documentation, resource referral, communication, and overall quality of services. I am able to use current technology to best benefit student support. I easily learn new technology formats and software, and I value innovation in the workplace. I have brought forth ideas of new online training modules for our student workers. I also suggested a new way of shadowing our fellow advisors after advising appointments were moved online that allowed for us to learn from each other while providing autonomy to our students.