Running head: AREAS OF GROWTH

Learning Outcome Narrative: Areas of Growth

Anna Crow

Seattle University
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Throughout my two years in the SDA program, I have had the opportunity to reflect on

the professional competencies that I would like to improve. I have developed more self-

awareness of my natural strengths and areas of growth. I was challenged academically and

professionally to grow holistically; I strive to continue this growth. Kegan’s theory of evolution

of consciousness shapes how I have thought about my development, specifically pursuing order

four, the self-authoring mind (Patton et al., 2016). Throughout my time in the SDA program, I

have realized further how important it is to build my awareness. I aim to be a person who is

critical and is developing my critical perspectives. My challenge to myself is to continue this

critical nature. My desire to grow further as a professional, I have chosen the theme of a

professional challenge to shape this narrative. My sub-themes of focus include; activating my

voice, creating and utilizing goals, and implementing procedures.

Activating My Voice (LO#10, Artifact C2 &D)

My identity and voice as a professional developed during my time at SDA; however, I am

continually striving to be better at this. The sub-theme of activating my voice was important for

me to include in my areas of growth narrative as it may be the most challenging development

area for me. However, utilizing my knowledge of theory into professional development practice,

I knew that once I became involved in the program, the more likely I was to be successful and

supported throughout my time (Astin, 1999). Dimensions of LO#10 covered in this section

include confidence finding, self-assessment, and networking.

Over the past two years, my internship experiences in the SDA program have impacted

my professional growth in a variety of ways. Specifically, I was able to explore functional areas

that I wanted to delve in deeper too: college access work and student involvement. Before the

SDA program, I was an AmeriCorps member for two years with City Year Milwaukee.
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Throughout these two years, I developed a passion for working with young adults in

environments that allowed me to challenge educational and racial inequities. These passions

ultimately led me to Seattle University and specifically to SDA.

While entering the SDA program, I searched for opportunities to engage in nonprofit

organizations and explore college access work. To satisfy this search, I interned at the Greater

Seattle Business Association with their scholarship fund. Through this internship, I learned a lot

about how I show up professionally and the areas I need to challenge myself. Finding my

confidence and inserting my thoughts was feedback that my site supervisor shared with me

(Artifact D). I recognized at the end of my internship that I missed opportunities to present or

contribute ideas.

After reflecting on this experience, I have actively engaged with my self-authoring

development thinking about and putting into practice Kegan’s development theory in many

different spheres and have also recognized that there are places for development (Patton et al.,

2016). I have and will continue to engage in this reflection by asking for feedback more often

and seeking out opportunities to connect me back to my passions for working with young people.

One way I have been able to connect my past experiences and my time in SDA has been through

reflective and social justice driven opportunities to write papers on these issues. I valued this

opportunity in my Leadership and Governance course for a critical issues paper (Artifact C2).

This paper was a pleasure to write on free speech issues on college campuses. This advocacy

piece keeps me tied to the reasons why I am passionate about student affairs work.

Another area I found to be helpful for me is continually learning how to network

effectively. These experiences will help me gain the confidence I need when heading into spaces

that are more challenging for me to raise my voice. Through my GSBA experience as well as my
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Professional Development Chair experience, I have engaged with networking but would like to

go further. Specifically, I will strive to attend more local networking events that will connect me

and allow me to practice valuable communication skills. I believe that this experience will give

me the confidence I need to continue my job search and will assist me in my professional

practice.

Utilizing Goals (LO#7, Artifacts C3 & D)

Throughout my entire graduate experience in SDA, I have been challenged and pushed to

organize and create effective and efficient goals and timelines for myself. This foundational task

professionally has been difficult for me as I am a visionary leader who may have the vision in

mind.

In my internship with the Student Government at Seattle University (SGSU), I adhered to

the timeline set forth for me by my site supervisor and created internship goals around the State

of Undergraduate Student Survey (SUSS). My completion of these goals directly impacts the

success of my students and address student success. My main objective in this internship is to

provide oversite for the SUSS analysis and data presentation (LO#7). My three relevant

dimensions of LO#7 are: utilizing theoretical frameworks as assessment justification, creating

and administering the assessment, and leading assessment coding and analysis.

The first dimension of LO#7 addresses the use of theoretical frameworks as a basis of

understanding assessment importance. One of the most challenging courses for myself in the

SDA program was Student Development Theory. In this course, I learned a lot about my ability

to create and adhere to timelines and goals as well as structure papers that support theoretical

frameworks and their layers. Artifact C1 best demonstrates this ability I gained. Because of this

specific knowledge, I was able to write assessment justifications for my created assessment
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through my GSBA internship. This created assessment was designed to be used by the

organization to assess the needs of the scholars in the scholarship program. I included both

qualitative and quantitative questions. I used the theories of multicultural competence, the theory

of involvement, and community cultural wealth theory (Pope, Reynolds, & Mueller, 2004; Astin,

1999; Yosso, 2005).

Through my GSBA internship, creating and administering the assessment I created went

through many different edits and versions until the correct length of the assessment and content

was complete. Kuh, Ikenberry, & Jankowski express that it is essential for the end goal to be at

the forefront of assessment. Also, assessment should be designed to create improvement for the

community it will serve, because of this, discerning what assessment to utilize is important

(2014). My ability to research and understand what other assessments used to ask questions and

the type of questions aided me in providing a quality product along with strong justification. In

addition, using the technology available was a great reminder that utilizing technology does not

need something new. I used a common software to ensure students were able to access the

survey without problems.

I demonstrated LO#7 through my leadership of assessment, coding, and analysis at my

internship at with SGSU working with the SUSS. I learned about how to code a large amount of

data effectively, presented to SGSU on how to do this, and oversaw a topic group on their

analysis. This dimension hit on many different competencies that are important to me. Mostly, I

learned quite a bit by being able to teach new content to others.

Upon reflecting on my GSBA experience and seminar, (Artifact C3) I was able to

demonstrate the learning outcome effectively, the timing and creation of the goals to create these

happenings have challenged and continue to challenge my growth as a professional. It is my

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hope; I can take these experiences in my assessment-based internships and implement goals and

timelines more fluidly into my professionalism.

Procedure Implementation (LO#1, 2, 9, Artifacts C1, F, G)

A large part of my time in the SDA program was spent at Cornish Commons supervising

student staff. This experience has intrigued me to become better at that supervision and start to

be more critical of my tactics I may use. To continue this critical nature, I will need to continue

seeking knowledge of current happenings of student affairs and ensure I am taking the time to

adjust my work to that of the student population. Through LO#1 I want to expand my knowledge

based on my experience in the SDA program, specifically; continue my research of higher

education foundations and current news, educate myself further on how to support marginalized

students, and utilize student development theories gained from SDA, specifically my

multicultural competence (Pope, Reynolds, & Mueller, 2004). A goal is to seek out position

opportunities that allow me to directly or indirectly support marginalized students utilizing

theory (Art. F). This commitment demands me to understand current trends and research of

higher education as well as understanding the application of these trends and theories.

My demonstration of LO#9 includes striving to learn more about higher education law,

how to implement the new policy, and stretch my knowledge on higher education finance. In the

class, Higher Education Law, most of what I learned and started to understand was that it is

important to keep up with policies and news that directly impacts both the institution and your

students. This up to date knowledge will be less in my face than it is right now in the program. In

Artifact F, my professional development plan, my goal for my first position post SDA, is to find

others who will help ground me in my work and organization. I will look at these mentors for

guidance on how to find best practices for our organization.

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In addition to seeking out resources on how to best keep up with current events, I will

continue to seek out theoretical frameworks such as Yosso (2005), Chickering (Patton et al,

2016), Astin (1999), and Multicultural Competence (Pope, Reynolds, Mueller, 2004) to use to

advocate and empower marginalized students. This desire to learn more about strategies and

theories comes from my introduction to uses these frameworks to back up arguments and

research (Artifact C1).

Throughout my time at Cornish, I was able to interact and supervise arts students who

had a very different outlook on their educational time than traditional university students. This

time demonstrated LO#2 by working in a specialty school, I can adapt to the needs of students,

and I will research as necessary to assist students. In addition to my practitioner adaptations, I

was able to create and implement a Resident Assistant (RA) training. This new area pushed me

to understand how the demographics of students would learn and receive new information. I

designed this RA training in my Course Design class (Art. G) and was then able to implement

components of the training with my student staff at Cornish. With help from best practices and

theoretical frameworks, such as Astin’s Theory of Involvement, I was also able to create

initiatives that allowed students to praise and acknowledge each other’s positivity in the

residence hall (1999). Lastly, through the class Best Practices, I was able to connect with

practitioners and draw connections between theories to conclude that understanding students can

look many ways.

Conclusion

My past and SDA experience has grounded me in my passions for student affairs and

young people. After reflecting on how I can grow as a practitioner, I look to reflect on how I will

use my self-assessments further.

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References

Astin, A. W. (1999). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal

of College Student Development, 40(5), 518.

Kuh, G. D., Ikenberry, S. O., & Jankowski, N. (2014). Using evidence of student learning to

improve higher education.

Patton, L. D., Renn, K. A., Guido, F. M., Quaye, S. J., Forney, D. S., & Evans, N. J. (2016).

Student development in college (Third edition. ed.). Hoboken: Jossey Bass Ltd.

Pope, R. L., Reynolds, A. L., & Mueller, J. A. (2004). Multicultural competence in student

affairs (1. ed. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community

cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91.