Kenzie Elsbernd

Senior Portfolio
Loras College

Preface
Loras College offers its students a unique opportunity to receive a well-rounded

Liberal Arts education, which solidifies a solid foundation for it graduates future in

becoming the best version of themselves. A personalized explanation on how the

combination of the Loras College dispositions, college experience opportunities, and

a Liberal Arts education of my four year career, will allow any future employer or

critic the opportunity to really get to know me. This portfolio is a summary of my

more important work, successes, and personal reflection on my growth as a human

being at Loras College. To those whom read this, it is the hope that they will find

interest in my story, so to reach out and connect with me. It is one of lifes greatest

joys when multiple people can build professional relationships by sharing our

knowledge and talents to build up success for humanity.

Introduction

The four dispositions of Loras College are as follows: active learner, reflective

thinker, ethical decision maker, and responsible contributor. This portfolio will

highlight two of the disposition, ethical decision maker and responsible contributor,

that I had the most growth in and connection too. Using personal life examples and

artifacts, I will present a beginning, present, and future picture of my personal

character. I have an outgoing personality, strong work ethic, and a generous heart

bringing happiness into others lives. The Loras College community attracts people,

like myself, with these type of characteristics. Loras helps foster these

characteristic during a time when people are ready to learn who they are, and how

they can best impact the world with their talents. My Loras career will show any

future employer that I do strive to become an effective community leader and make

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Senior Portfolio
Loras College

a responsible team member. Two qualities I have gained during college that match

up very well with my personality and will bring to the communities I serve after

college.

Responsible Contributor

One of the first clubs I got involved in at Loras College was Campus Ministry.

Ever since my involvement in campus ministry I have volunteered my time in

providing/serving meals at the Dubuque Hope House, participating small group

discussion on the Catholic faith in Discovery Retreats for high schoolers in the

confirmation process, leading the Knights of Columbus fraternity at Loras, and being

part of a team that organized annual retreats for college students. My time

volunteered was only a small contribution of the 90,000 service hours the Loras

College community had altogether. However, it was through my small efforts as a

responsible contributor that made a big impact on other peoples lives. During my

time as a leader for the Knights of Columbus, we fundraised 6,000 to build a well in

Uganda through the Wells of Life Foundation. The Business Speaking and Writing

course I took my sophomore year, it was part of the class to do some service

project. Four other gentlemen and I wanted to make a lasting memory for Professor

Merkel, whom I had a class with freshman year but passed away one year later. The

team decided to plant a tree on campus in his memory, and to also connect the

skills of business writing with our project. Through the education gained on writing

professional emails and grant proposals, we were able to work with the Trees

Forever Foundation and have a tree donated to Dr. Merkels memorial. Now, it is

encouraged to have a well-rounded education, especially in areas we may need

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Loras College

more work on. I struggled with writing, and having the Business Writing and

Speaking course encouraged me to keep pursuing some form of grant and proposal

writing. In my junior year I took a grant writing course, and for this class I was

paired up with the Dubuque St. Stephens Food Bank to fill out a grant for them.

Even though this class was heavy teaching on writing skill, I needed to put together

meetings and presentation for the Director at St. Stephens Food Bank. Here I used

my previous knowledge in public speaking to create short informative presentations.

Even from my lectures in business management class we learned how to set up

agendas for meeting, conduct the meeting, and how to get the most information

possible from those attending the meeting. Through the combination of these skills

was it possible for St. Stephens Food Bank to receive a $2,500 grant in the summer

of 2016. Whether it was a mandatory class assignment or not, there was a personal

joy in being a responsible contributor to the Dubuque community. Even in high

school I received an award on graduation for volunteering over 500 service hours in

the community. However, it was at Loras College where my passion for serving and

the development of my professional skills, was I able to make a bigger impact in

how I served. There was nothing wrong with helping serve the 10 hungry people at

the Hope House every Thursday, but in the same amount of time I dedicated there I

was able to help St. Stephens Food Bank feed over 100 people. I truly believe that

a responsible contributor should not settle for only small acts of charity, but should

use their talents to make large community sized impacts in which sustainable good

for many replaces their previous misfortunes.

Ethical Decisions Making

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Senior Finance students are encouraged to take an advance finance course

called Life Portfolio. Not to be confused with the senior capstone project of creating

a Portfolio and web site, Life Portfolio teaches students the importance of making

smart financial and ethical decisions with the Loras College endowment fund

portfolio. As a class, decisions are made on which stock to buy or sell throughout

the semester. There is two criteria however ever publically traded company must

meet to be in the Loras portfolio. First, it must pass a Catholic social screen. Second,

it must pass a financial screen and board review at the end of the semester.

Focusing on the Catholic social screen end of it, I had recalled from my Christian

Values course freshman year the seven basic teaching of the Catholic Church on

social justice. So when one of our current portfolio companies, Wells Fargo, was in

national news for opening accounts without customers consent, several classmates

and I opened up the discussion of cutting Wells Fargo for being unethical. Drawing

from my business ethic course, Christian Values course, and human identity

philosophy course I was able to put together a presentation for some of the

skeptical classmates on how the culture within Wells Fargo was pressuring its sales

teams with high expectation goals and the threat of losing their job if not meet. The

threat of ones lively hood and no options to achieve a high standard, is

psychologically making the person feel they must submit to anothers will. The

others will being the supervisor, who would turn a blind eye so that the employee

could open these unauthorized accounts. This violated the dignity of work and the

right of workers , by putting the economy before the people. Plus, its a bad

business model to put priority of making money over the priority of customer

service according to business ethics. When placing phone calls with potential

clients, it was important to be honest in every detail of the sale and leave nothing to

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surprise. When dealing with one customer in particular, he was asking for some

under the table dealings to avoid taxes. Informing my manager right away we were

able to convince the customer together that the consequence where a high price

and a fair justice to those kinds of unethical deals. Being able to communicate to

customers when something seems unethical was an important lesson I had learned

in my Human Resources class. Feedback is essential to any business if you want to

fix problem and foster a positive work environment. When faces with having critical

conversations, like the truck customer, leaders should not take a passive approach.

Instead professional explain what the story you heard, give them a chance to

explain their story, and then propose a solution to them that offers a benefit to all

parties involved. Even though it may not seem like it, dialogue is key to ethical

decisions. Along with the conversation one should be will to be open to new

information all the time. I picked up very quickly in my philosophy course that in

order to provide a moral law, one should be open minded to all facts so to find the

basic truth within it all. When I was younger I had a tendency to avoid difficult

conversations, and get emotionally upset if it did not go my way. Today I may not be

perfect, but I am willing to admit fault, find the truth, and present that truth to

others in a friendly honest manner. I have proved my honestly and openness to

dialogue in my past as an intern, leader, or team member. This will be a disposition I

truly desire to keep continuing to uphold the rest of my life.

Conclusion

Why does understanding the Loras College dispositions and Liberal Arts

education have anything to do with my personal life, or even be important to an

employer after graduation? It is because I know the Loras College disposition do

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Loras College

work in making people become the best version of themselves, and that kind of

success is what everyone wants ultimately. All colleges can offer a degree in

selected fields of study, and then let the application of these studies take place

post-college. Loras offers its student experience, application, and a degree. It

prepares us for a life of continuous learning, so that we can go to our communities

and start making a difference right away. In order to become an ethical decision

maker or responsible contributor, one needs to go out experience it to know what

works and does not work. Failure may be part of that experience, but it is much

more relieving to have failed early on in college with something small before

entering a career. Loras helped me early on to keep trying new ideas and went

through several different class to know how I could use my talents in helping make

a positive impact on the world. There is no on simple answer to a big problem. As a

Loras graduate I recognize this, and found that in order to a well-round knowledge

in life can bring multiple solution that come together and solve a problem.

My Future

It is my hope after college to find a person to share my life adventure with. I

want to enter a professional career in the financial industry, to help people enjoy

financial freedom and achieve personal goals. My desire is to become a leader in my

local community, championing for the empowerment of others to continuously

desire to become the best versions of themselves. Together then we will make the

world a better place, by investing in each person I encounter. Just as Loras invests in

every person who makes up its community.

1. Connections made between educational experiences

a. Philosophy of Human Identity and an Introduction to Psychology course. As a
management major, we take one or two classes focusing on the importance of

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human relationship within the work space. In finance, it was mention from time-
to-time how some investors may over react making an investing mistake due to
basic human psychology of risk. Yet, I found that only Human Resource
management came the closest to explaining the why of basic human behavior.
In truth, Human Resources mostly provided the necessary tools for a business to
deal with human related problems. So I found having this philosophy and
psychology course help to develop the big picture of dealing with human
behavior, by giving me the answer to my why question. Now when my finance
class talks about investor quickly selling out of a stock, because the price is
dropping dramatically, I can relate back to some psychology material on humans
natural flight or fight instinct. Even when we talk about how happy works are
ones with certain benefit other than material compensation, I understand this
desire for happiness comes from a philosophical deep internal desire of a soul
seeking fulfillment in relationships.
b. I can use some of my notes and paper from my Human Identity course on the
topic of Happiness, and relate these artifacts to some of my notes and papers in by
Human Resource Management class on the topic of employee satisfaction. I will
also a paper written on human moral law/ ethics in my Christian values course,
and how it relates to the qualities of a good leader in my Global Leadership
course. I truly want to focus in on the ethics artifacts that I have heavily taken to
broaden the big picture of my studies. The reason on will focus more attention
on this topic, is because during several interview with perspective employers this
was a common theme of concern for new hires plus it is a stronger characteristic
of mine.

In my elementary years I transitioned through the stages of riding on my

grandfathers lap in the tractor to finally being the operator in the seat of this
massive piece of machinery. Driving a big piece of machinery is impressive, but it
was the background of good work ethics and self- motivation that lead to even more
impressive opportunities. Having a energetic, kind, and positive attitude have been
great characteristics of mine, which contributed towards me not being shy in
gaining new experiences. My Catholic faith, family, and community are the