Professional Values

Integrity can be used to describe a variety of ethical principles and characteristics one strives to uphold. I believe that acting with integrity means to be honest, virtuous, equitable, and moral in your decisions and actions. I value the ethical notions of doing no harm (or the least harm) and being just. I chose to enter the field of student affairs to serve students and facilitate their development. Therefore, I believe I have a professional obligation to serve students by means of virtue and integrity. To infuse integrity into your work, I believe you should be transparent and honest with supervisors and supervisees, advocate for the implementation inclusive, sustainable policies and procedures, take ownership of mistakes and blunders, and treat all individuals with respect and compassion.

Integrity

Competency Development

I believe that it is my duty as a professional to be fully competent in my work. I value competency development and the expertise in your job. A foundational level of competence is necessary for a professional to be valuable in their role and accomplish meaningful work. I strive to be a professional who embraces opportunities to cultivate my current skills and knowledge, seeks additional professional development, and learns new techniques that can improve my efficiency and process. By no means do I think that one professional should be a master of all competency areas of the profession. But, I do believe that we are in a field that is ever-changing and obligates us to continuously develop our own proficiencies to be successful and maximize our impact.

Humility

To be humble is to maintain a realistic view of yourself and to not inflate your own self-pride. Humility is the act of being humble. I value humility, particularly in the sense that I value constructive feedback, the lessons learned from making mistakes, and modesty. I appreciate private recognition and reflection on a good job; I do not enjoy arrogance and overconfidence in one’s abilities, and I strive to never ‘get too big for my britches’ as the old saying goes. The work of student affairs practitioners is incredibly admirable and important, but this does not mean that we should excessively boast about our accomplishments. Instead, I strive to be a practitioner that is self-aware of her strengths and achievements, but swallows her pride to be respectful and humble at all times.

Collaboration

I value team work, cooperation, and working together to accomplish a common goal. I firmly believe that more heads are better than one, and that we can achieve more when working collaboratively. More hands on deck means that more work can get done. Additionally, when there is a group of people working on a task, there is likely to be more diversity in thought and experience being brought to the table; this can lead to a more innovative, integrative, or creative end result.

I also believe that we should collaborate when creating expectations, goals, and the vision for our units. At the beginning of the academic year, I allow my resident advisor staff to take part in generating our shared expectations, goals, and vision that will guide our staff. I enter the conversation having my own expectations, goals, and vision in mind, but believe that it is beneficial to empower staff members to help create these outlines. As a result, I feel each staff member is more invested in the vision and feels more involved and supported.

Student-centered Practice

Students are the foundation of our work in student affairs. I wholeheartedly feel that my responsibility as a practitioner to advocate for students, support their unique developmental needs, and always consider the impact of my decisions and actions on the students with which I work. In my graduate hall director role, I am often that voice in the room encouraging my supervisor and other administrators in the department to consider the possible implications of our work on the diverse range students at BGSU. I believe it is critical that I continue to advocate for students.

To better do this, I strive to partner with students by getting to know students individually to learn about and understand their unique needs, challenges, and successes. I also assert that integration of student development theory into practice is another way to be a student-centered practitioner. By knowing and applying theory to practice we can not only determine where students are currently in their development, but we can also determine how to facilitate continued development.