Wisdom I've gathered from Spring Fieldwork 2014

·      You have to negotiate many different roles (personally, professionally)

o   Continue to holistically develop your own identity

·      Trust the process

o   It is more than a professional mantra

o   It can be personal

o   It can be a mixture of both.

·      You have to do The Work

·      Live your mission and philosophy

·      It’s ok to revise

·      Understand my privilege

·      You have to create space for

·      Be an Ally

o   Find out what social justice means to you

o   Define your definition of allyship and social justice

·      You have to create a space for ALL Students

o   To learn

o   To be safe

o   To find community

o   To connect to campus

o   To grow-develepmentally

·      Be OUT

o   My identity matters

o   Who I am informs my practice

o   My lived truth shapes my Student Affairs Professional Identity

o   My identity shapes my work

o   With your identity (personal and professional)

·      Work-Life Negotiation (not balance)

·      What are your values? Where do they come from?

·      Inspire Others

·      BE courageous

·      You will have to have the “conversations”

o   Not just the easy ones, but he difficult ones (you will benefit from taking the courage, others will also be better for it)

·      Finding the “Right Fit” matters

·      Authenticity-Value it

·      Find and be able to articulate your voice

o   What I’ve gathered that resonates with my voice: authenticity, vulnerability and resiliency

·      Recognize the populations you need to serve

o   Students First

o   Staff, faculty, administrators

o   Adapt accordingly

·      Stay Current

o   (Scholarship)

o   Keep learning

o   keep being in enviornments where you are encouraged to learn

·      Theory can be used as a way to help serve students

o   Theory should be used to inform your practice

o   You also have to trust your gut

·      Recognize that you can’t do it all

o   Life happens

o   There needs to be a negotiation

o   There will be ridiculously long days

o   You also have to set

o   Work Hard, Play Hard

·      Remember to ask yourself: where are students in their own development

o   Ask Questions

·      Collaborate

o   Develop a good rapport with co-workers & others in this field

·      Relationships matter

o   Don’t burn bridges

o   Our community is small

o   Personal relationships matter (friends & family)

·      Mentorship

o   Who am I going to mentor?

o   Who am I going to be mentored by?

o   Who is going to challenge you, support you?

o   Who are you going to vent to? Learn from?

·      Understand life happens

·      Do what you need to do to avoid burnout

·      It’s called (Reflective-Scholar Practitioner for a reason)

·      Always reflect

·      Know your worth

·      Find a way to be continually nourished and renewed

Ten Year Plan

Ten Year Holistic Professional Plan

In the ten years, I will be 36 years old. I think my largest goal is to continue to cultivate my sense of purpose in my worldview.  Wellbeing, self-care, soul-care, service, community and inspiration; these are core themes of my future. I will be authentic.  I will be resilient. I will be vulnerable. I will be of service. As an educational leader for college and university students I strive that I will bring my passions into the core of my practice; today and tomorrow.

            In terms of identifying strengths and weaknesses I want to continue to practice mindfulness. I feel that I want to continue to be a person that is constantly growing and development. I think this is one of my greatest strengths. I feel that I constantly want to reflect on my whole self. Look at places where I feel that I am deficient and lost and do what I can to heal those weaknesses. I feel that this is especially important to my survival. I think one of my weaknesses is feeling like I am lost all of the time. I feel that because of personal reasons, I may always feel like this, but I will always practice strategies to find myself when I am lost. I feel that hope, positivity and compassion are key strengths when I reflect on my development. I also know that emotional stability is not in my strong suit. This will be something that I will continue to be mindful in my future. This also strongly shifts my professional plan by staying in California. These will limit the universities that I plan on working for’ but they will also contribute to my emotional well-being; over time with the help of counselors, friends and therapists I hope that I will be able to find a support network just in case the job market pushes me out of state.

I plan on continuing to find a balance with time management. I know that in my current position, I am often overwhelmed with my commute. In the next two years, I plan on relocating closer to South Orange County. I feel this will be good not only for my health; but also for me to be able to take care of myself in terms of my physical well-being. Rest is especially important to my concept of self care.

             In terms of financial planning for retirement, I have opened a 403B at my current institution and i plan on becoming vested at UCI after 4 years. On top of that I save another 7% of my income into another retirement account. I hope that I will be able to have a good portion of my student loans paid off. I am trying to learn the differences between wants and needs in terms of financial decisions. I need to cut back on things that are not serving me in the long term. At this time of my life, I’m not sure what to do yet, but I am thinking of owning a home in the next ten years. 

            When I reflect on my definition of family, I believe that family is both chosen and biological. I have a dream of being surrounded by my close family made up of inspirational mentors, supportive family and loving friends. In terms of children, whether or not I am partnered, I plan on raising a child. At this current stage in my life,I know that I am planning on starting a family with my partner. As both of us will have Masters degrees and work in pretty stable fields we are hoping that we will be able to raise a child in a comfortable home.  My partner and I are also thinking of marriage in the future, but at this moment we are still enjoying our relationship as it stands.

            I plan on constantly continuing my education as a Higher Education Professional. I previously have planned on going straight into a doctoral program. That plan has changed. At this current time I am reflecting more on counseling or social work, whether this is pursuing another masters program or potentially getting a doctorate in social work. I am also considering doctorate programs in educational leadership. I feel this would be incredibly useful in advising and counseling students across multiple identities. My plan is to use this education to help continue to develop resiliency skills in the diverse college students that I will serve. I want to constantly continue to learn and create knowledge because I believe we need participants in developing new knowledge. I think this may mean working with a scholarly journal or a group of writers to add to the definitions and lived experiences around social identities. I hope my narratives will offer new stories and ways that students can survive. Yes, good to pursue

            In reflecting on career development and aspirations, at this time I am reflecting on becoming a director of a multicultural resource center or working as a director in diversity or multicultural services. I feel that this will serve my need to follow my passion of supporting student communities that I feel are close to my heart. I also plan on working with Semester at Sea in the next five years. I feel this will not only give me an opportunity to see more of the world, but I also feel that this will give me the opportunity to work with students as they discover different cultural identities that may be different than their own.

            As another career pursuit, I would like to attend the Social Justice Institute and work as a facilitator in the future. In working with a professional organization, I plan to continue my involvement with NASPA and the Consortium of LGBT higher professionals. I feel that both of these will assist in my understanding of professional competencies.  I would like to develop new initiative to serve queer students of color. I feel this would be especially important, as there is a lack of scholarly articles surrounding queer students of color.

            I also find it nourishing to develop workshops around issues of social justice. At any of my institutions I want to develop leadership programs that focus in these areas. I want to also continue work developing student conferences. At this moment, I have worked on a few conferences that develop with students with multiple identities and have intersectional focuses in their mission statements. I would like to work with students to make these larger national conferences so that we can serve college students across the country. 

            Yoga and poetry are two very important pursuits that I have not maintained while in graduate school. These are two areas of my life that I have had to let go of because of time constraints, but I am aware of how necessary they are to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. I enjoy these pursuits with friends, but I also feel that these can be solitary activities that i feel constantly restore me. I have missed these greatly. 

            Mentorship, is another important area in my ten year plan. I want to be person that can be a role model and possibility model. I want to offer myself as a servant to other students and take on mentorship roles. I also want to continue to take on mentors that will fulfill my different needs. I know that in my ten year plan, I will need those that will support me, those that will challenge me and those that will educate me. I know that I need learning partners and colleagues that can teach me. In the next ten years, I will continue to develop relationships that I have already established with mentors as well as seek new ones.  

            Emotional development is important to me. I need to practice self-care. As a bipolar person, I am not what we consider neurotypical and I need emotional support and I need to practice developing skills so that I can survive in my day-to-day life. I understand this and being someone who has a borderline personality disorder, that I must live with these truths. I must be healthy. I must work and live in nourishing environments so that I can be balanced. This is not a want or a desire. This is something that I need. This is something that has been apart of who I am since I was very young; and it will remain with me my whole life. As I reflect on my emotional and intellectual well-being in the next ten years, it is a necessity that I take care of these areas in my life. I think this is especially important on how I develop a safe and nourishing work environment. I need to find a supportive institution, that lets me take care of my health and practice healthy living. I must be proactive in finding a supportive institution.

            In terms of life planning, I plan on aiming higher and delving deeper in my understanding of myself and the world around me. In the next ten years and well into the future, I plan on finding ways to make meaning in my life. My faith is very important and I want to find ways to cultivate my spiritual health. I think this will be possible as I incorporate time to focus on my spiritual health. I want to spend time as much time as I can developing my identity and spirit. As an artist (poet), I believe words are important. I want to be an educational leader that speaks truth to power and share my story as a testament of survival. I feel that it may be very important for me to write and publish. I want my life will be my legacy. My faith, being of service. These things are important to me. 

BlaqOUT Conference

Activity Name & Description: BlaqOUT Conference

BlaqOUT Self Care Workshop

On April 18 & 19^th, 2014, I was able to host a session at the BlaqOut Conference.The conference is for individuals who self-identify as Black/African American or of African descent and as Same Gender Loving, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning or somewhere else on the LGBT spectrum.

I was invited to be an active member in the planning committee of this student conference by Black LGBTQ Higher Education Professionals. As an active member, I am assisting in conference duties, assisting in online meeting sessions and general conference planning duties. At this conference, I will be presenting a workshop entitled “Radical Self-Care-A workshop on Queering Wellness and Cultivating Balance.”

At this time my goals are to provide students with cultivating wellness techniques and as they create personal wellness and self-care plans that relate their individual identities. At this time, I am still developing learning outcomes and learning outcomes, but my workshop request has been submitted to my fellow conference planners.

My workshop consisted of a 60 minute session. As I reflect on the workshop facilitation, I wish I had requested the 90 minute session because the participants found it nourishing.

Students will have opportunities to develop and share resiliency skills with one another. This is personal challenge for myself to negotiate balance, but I also feel I have a keen insight in assisting others in their journeys. My goal is to also connect multiple student development theories into my workshop. I feel this aligns with our course objectives. To connect this workshop to other course goals, I feel that this aligns with the learning goal to assess, design, implement a program. My goal is to include a preassessment and post assessment where I hope to utilize student learning outcomes and through individual participation, I plan to utilize a scaffolding approach to move students from basic to advanced.

      Visual aides were used in the presentation both through the use of a powerpoint but also the written words that students shared in response to the questions proposed in the workshop.

The Learning outcomes for the presentation were as follows:

(1)  Students will be able to share lived experiences and resiliency skills.

(2)  Students will build a sense of community while sharing narratives around their own definitions of self-care.

The presentation consisted carry different self-care and wellness strategies and I was able to lead a facilitated discussion. I tried to use many different methods to have students interact with one another and to also engage them in their own learning.  I asked students to form into discussion groups their students were asked to share their own draft strategy and resiliency skills and report back to the larger room. Groups were instructed to respond to a number of questions that they would report to the larger group. Based on the larger group discussion, I would encourage students to work with me and explain their own experience to not only me, but to all of the positions. I wanted to take a role where I could learn from the students, I didn’t want to just engage in a banking method, but I wanted to really listen to their rich perspectives. This was very empowering for me, not only as a facilitator but also as a participant. I mentioned at multiple times, that I am a learner in this experience and we must work together to drive the session forward.

Date/Semester

April 2014 (Spring Semester)

Learning Domains Addressed (Labels)

X Leadership

X Social Justice & Advocacy

X Education

X Personal Development

Learning Outcomes

 -Student will be able to develop a workshop where students will be able to build a sense of community while sharing narratives around their own definitions of self-care.

Assessment Rubric

	SLO #1
Advanced	I will be able to gather 5 student definitions and strategies from student feedback.
Competent	I will be able to gather 3 student definitions and strategies from student feedback.
Basic	I will be able to gather 2 student definitions and strategies from student feedback.
Poor	I will not be able to gather 3 student definitions and strategies from student feedback.

Evidence (Shown in Notes, Website and Pictures)

http://blaqoutucr.blogspot.com/p/bios.html

Name: DeeJay Brown
Position: Professional Staff
Affiliation:  UC Irvine

"Creating space where we can express how our vulnerability and our resiliency can be radical places both for ourselves as Queer* individuals and how our power and solidarity can create more space for the Larger Queer Community. We have an immense power to transform and self determine who we are and it is awesome to just bear witness of who we are when we join in community."

Reflection

The goals of the workshop were met. In terms of evidence I received both conference evaluations as well as qualitative information that I embedded into my workshop. At the conference, I wanted to bring an issue close to my heart and one that I wanted to work with students. I feel that self-care is one area in my life that I will constantly seek to improve. It also embodies mindfulness and self-growth. One of the goals of the workshop were that students would be able to share lived experiences and resiliency skills. I also wanted students will build a sense of community while sharing narratives around their own definitions of self-care. I feel that both of these goals were met, I also found out in the break after my session, that students continued the discussion with other participants.

At the end of the presentation I was given verbal feedback regarding the presentation and workshop. To assess student learning I was able to ask students to develop their own list of self-care strategies. I also emailed this list to all participants and other professionals have emailed me to share the scholarship and articles that I used to frame my presentation.