Advising and Helping
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“The Advising and Helping competency area addresses the knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to providing counseling and advising support, direction, feedback, critique, referral, and guidance to individuals and groups” (ACPA & NASPA, 2010).
Competency Growth:
During my time as a graduate hall director at Bowling Green State University, I advised a hall council, had mid-year check-ins with residents on academic probation, and was a member of the on-call duty rotation. As a practicum student in the Center for Leadership, I had the ability to advise the cohort members of the Falcon Leadership Institute, a program build upon the ideals of servant leadership, relational leadership, and the social change model, as they planned and implemented a community service project. Through these and other experiences during my graduate career, I believe I have developed the advising and helping competency at an exemplary level. Artifacts that demonstrate this competency’s development are: the KAB Hall Council Bylaws, two bids for the annual Resident Student Association End-of-the-Year Banquet, and the results from a brainstorming session done with the Falcon Leadership Institute 2013-2014 Cohort at the retreat when they brainstormed their goals for the community service project.
Advising Kreischer: Ashley/Batchelder’s hall council was the first time I acted in a formal advisor role. As a hall council, we started the year off strong, with many resident interested in taking leadership roles in hall council and attending all meetings. After elections at the beginning of the year, we began to have issues with retention of those in leadership positions and resident attendance for general assembly meetings. I was lucky to have two resident advisors working with the hall director and I to help advise the members of the hall council through their lack of attendance and retention of executive board members so that they could come together to fill their vacant leadership positions, improve attendance of meetings, orchestrate effective programs that were widely attended, and work to revise the official hall council bylaws. Whether it was simply asking them questions about things they may not have thought about, leading various brainstorming sessions, or rewarding the good work they did, advising hall council that year was an experience with its ups and downs, but was an experience I would never want to give up. Looking for some direction on what to do as an advisor, I read the chapter on “Advising and Consultation” in the Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession (Schuh, Jones, Harper, & Associates, 2011) textbook. From the text, I gained valuable insight into the core values of advising, along with the goals, outcomes, skills, and competencies used in advising.
Hall council worked for three weeks to revise the “KAB Hall Council Bylaws,” which hadn’t been revised in the past decade. An initiative led by the two resident advisors, the executive board held extended executive board meetings where they updated each article and section accordingly. For the end of the year banquet for hall councils run by Bowling Green State University’s Resident Student Association, each hall council had the option of submitting bids for various “Freddie Awards.” Two of these bids, “Hall with it All” and “Advisor of the Year” are artifacts I have also included. “Hall with it All” is the highest award given to a hall council who banded together the past year to overcome any issues they may have had to provide residents with a fun, safe, and inclusive learning and living environment where they could have fun. At the banquet, our hall council was shocked to be named “Hall with it All” and I could not have been happier to have had the privilege of advising them. The “Advisor of the Year” bid also shows what the hall council submitted, without my knowledge, for the award in my behalf. This bid nicely captures what the students’ saw in me as an advisor, as a graduate hall director, and as a leader that worked tirelessly with them throughout the year.
As a graduate hall director, I also held advising meetings with students that were on academic probation after their first semester at Bowling Green State University. In these meetings, we talked about why they struggled academically, the various resources available to them on campus, and various study skills that may help them succeed academically moving forward. When on-duty for the east side of campus, I advised resident advisors as they encountered various incidents throughout the night. Resident advisors would call the duty phone and I would ask them questions about each situation before providing them with and/or confirming the correct course of action or meet them to help with the situation/crisis.
Advising the 2013-2014 Falcon Leadership Institute cohort has also furthered my advising competence. I worked with this group of students to advise them on the completion of a community service project, a requirement of the program. Our work together on the project started at the beginning of this year at the retreat, where I led them in a brainstorming activity to help provide them with some direction for their project. The results of this brainstorming activity are another artifact shown here. Throughout the year, the cohort worked to set up the project and I was able to ask them various questions that helped drive their work and decision making processes. When their initial community service project presentation did not end up working out, I was there to provide them with support and challenge them to pull together a different service project. In the end, the cohort successfully orchestrated a “Vintage Valentines Day Party” for the residents of a local nursing home, Sterling House, complete with vibrant decorations, vintage music selections, a piano player, and a night filled with bingo and fun.
Competency Growth:
During my time as a graduate hall director at Bowling Green State University, I advised a hall council, had mid-year check-ins with residents on academic probation, and was a member of the on-call duty rotation. As a practicum student in the Center for Leadership, I had the ability to advise the cohort members of the Falcon Leadership Institute, a program build upon the ideals of servant leadership, relational leadership, and the social change model, as they planned and implemented a community service project. Through these and other experiences during my graduate career, I believe I have developed the advising and helping competency at an exemplary level. Artifacts that demonstrate this competency’s development are: the KAB Hall Council Bylaws, two bids for the annual Resident Student Association End-of-the-Year Banquet, and the results from a brainstorming session done with the Falcon Leadership Institute 2013-2014 Cohort at the retreat when they brainstormed their goals for the community service project.
Advising Kreischer: Ashley/Batchelder’s hall council was the first time I acted in a formal advisor role. As a hall council, we started the year off strong, with many resident interested in taking leadership roles in hall council and attending all meetings. After elections at the beginning of the year, we began to have issues with retention of those in leadership positions and resident attendance for general assembly meetings. I was lucky to have two resident advisors working with the hall director and I to help advise the members of the hall council through their lack of attendance and retention of executive board members so that they could come together to fill their vacant leadership positions, improve attendance of meetings, orchestrate effective programs that were widely attended, and work to revise the official hall council bylaws. Whether it was simply asking them questions about things they may not have thought about, leading various brainstorming sessions, or rewarding the good work they did, advising hall council that year was an experience with its ups and downs, but was an experience I would never want to give up. Looking for some direction on what to do as an advisor, I read the chapter on “Advising and Consultation” in the Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession (Schuh, Jones, Harper, & Associates, 2011) textbook. From the text, I gained valuable insight into the core values of advising, along with the goals, outcomes, skills, and competencies used in advising.
Hall council worked for three weeks to revise the “KAB Hall Council Bylaws,” which hadn’t been revised in the past decade. An initiative led by the two resident advisors, the executive board held extended executive board meetings where they updated each article and section accordingly. For the end of the year banquet for hall councils run by Bowling Green State University’s Resident Student Association, each hall council had the option of submitting bids for various “Freddie Awards.” Two of these bids, “Hall with it All” and “Advisor of the Year” are artifacts I have also included. “Hall with it All” is the highest award given to a hall council who banded together the past year to overcome any issues they may have had to provide residents with a fun, safe, and inclusive learning and living environment where they could have fun. At the banquet, our hall council was shocked to be named “Hall with it All” and I could not have been happier to have had the privilege of advising them. The “Advisor of the Year” bid also shows what the hall council submitted, without my knowledge, for the award in my behalf. This bid nicely captures what the students’ saw in me as an advisor, as a graduate hall director, and as a leader that worked tirelessly with them throughout the year.
As a graduate hall director, I also held advising meetings with students that were on academic probation after their first semester at Bowling Green State University. In these meetings, we talked about why they struggled academically, the various resources available to them on campus, and various study skills that may help them succeed academically moving forward. When on-duty for the east side of campus, I advised resident advisors as they encountered various incidents throughout the night. Resident advisors would call the duty phone and I would ask them questions about each situation before providing them with and/or confirming the correct course of action or meet them to help with the situation/crisis.
Advising the 2013-2014 Falcon Leadership Institute cohort has also furthered my advising competence. I worked with this group of students to advise them on the completion of a community service project, a requirement of the program. Our work together on the project started at the beginning of this year at the retreat, where I led them in a brainstorming activity to help provide them with some direction for their project. The results of this brainstorming activity are another artifact shown here. Throughout the year, the cohort worked to set up the project and I was able to ask them various questions that helped drive their work and decision making processes. When their initial community service project presentation did not end up working out, I was there to provide them with support and challenge them to pull together a different service project. In the end, the cohort successfully orchestrated a “Vintage Valentines Day Party” for the residents of a local nursing home, Sterling House, complete with vibrant decorations, vintage music selections, a piano player, and a night filled with bingo and fun.
References:
ACPA & NASPA (2010). Professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners. Washington, DC: Authors.
Schuh, J. H., Jones, S. R., Harper, S. R., & Associates. (2011). Student services: a handbook for the profession (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
ACPA & NASPA (2010). Professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners. Washington, DC: Authors.
Schuh, J. H., Jones, S. R., Harper, S. R., & Associates. (2011). Student services: a handbook for the profession (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.