Diversity Agent
uses competencies, personal traits, knowledge and skills in an accepting and inclusive manner
LEAD 212 Class Leader (Spring 2014)
My primary goal as a Class Leader for the School of Leadership Studies’ Introduction to Leadership class was to facilitate a twelve person learning community’s exploration of the question, “leadership for what?” through critical reflection, practice, and service learning. In the fall, when I taught for the first time, this class is offered exclusively to first semester freshmen. The second semester I taught, in the spring, the class is opened up to all students freshmen through seniors. Thus, you might have students who are freshmen who tried to enroll too late in the fall, you might have sophomores who have friends who live the minor and are now thinking about adding it themselves, and you might have juniors and seniors who are looking for an extra elective. Whereas in the fall, first semester freshmen have little idea of what to expect from college in general, the students in the spring each brought with them an already formed perception of the course and expectations of what they would put in and what they would get out of the class. When I first realized this, I think I felt a bit defensive. I think this attitude stemmed from my own personal, incredibly positive experience in this class and involvement with the school, and a desire for all of my students to buy in and experience the growth and transformation that I had. Instead of ignoring or trying to convince my students to be there for the same reasons I was, I realized that I needed to hear and to give value to each of the unique motivations and expectations my students were bringing to the class.
One of my students in particular kept pushing back on me every time we talked about theory. He asked a ton of questions about application. At first, I felt responsible to be the authority and expert and provide answers for each of questions. Eventually, I realized that I was speaking largely from my own context and experience. As I asked more questions about this student’s life and aspirations, I realized that he was working at a job on campus where he was supervising other students his age and that he really wanted to learn how to be a better manager and boss. Once I realized this, I was able to invite him to bring his context and experience into our classroom. We would talk about a new theory and I would ask this student, “What do you think this would look like in your workplace?” In doing this, I was able to invite the student who was perhaps most likely to derail or distract the group, to partner with me in teaching and learning with the rest of the students.
Mortar Board Apartment Tower Event (Fall 2014)
During my senior year as a member of Mortar Board National Senior Honor Society, I had the privilege of serving as the Director of Community Service. At the beginning of the year when we were discussing vision and the type of impact we wanted to have in our year together, something that surfaced for my class was our desire to engage in deep and meaningful ways and to prioritize quality over quantity. What this looked like for community service was deepening an existing relationship with Apartment Tower, a public housing complex. Instead of serving one meal a semester at the complex as previous Mortar Board classes had done, we decided we would like to host monthly events of some kind. The housing manager had hinted that most of the residents were single middle aged to elderly adults. That same semester, as part of my Family Studies curriculum, I was enrolled in a class called Human Development and Aging. Something that we talked a lot about in our class were our stereotypes of who is old and what it means to be old, and that these stereotypes often influence our patterns of interaction and programming. As I planned our first event at Apartment Tower, it was important to me that any activities that I prepared would be meaningful and engaging for adults and informed by their unique interests and not stereotypes or generalizations. It was a unique event from anything I had ever planned before in that we did not have a message or something to accomplish or get across during the event. Instead, the purpose of the event was to begin to establish and build relationships in a way that might inform future events.
Heading in to the first event, aside from the meal, I had also prepared a simple get to know you game as well as a seasonal scategories game. However, that night when we got to Apartment Tower and began to interact with residents and serve the meal, what became important was not a rigid program, but an ability to see and respond to the people that were there. I encouraged my team members to spread out and sit among residents at the different tables. As we did this, as we sat down, joined in conversation, and invited others in, I was amazed at the natural dialogues and then card games that emerged. I think the biggest win of this time together was that in serving a meal and intentionally including and inviting in the people who were there, we not only created space for residents to build relationships with us, but for them to deepen existing or create new relationships among themselves.
Ethical Dimensions of Leadership (Fall 2013)
In the fall of my junior year of college, I had the opportunity to take a class called Ethical Dimensions of Leadership. In this class we discussed the difference between ethical temptations (choosing between a right and a wrong) and ethical dilemmas (choosing between two rights). In the case of ethical dilemmas, having a core set of values does not typically help one resolve and act on the dilemma, but instead more clearly name what the competing factors are. Resolution and action depend on context and require placing one value before another and being able to stand by that choice. For me, I experienced two different layers of learning. The first, occurred on an individual and more internal level in being able to identify my core values and develop the ethical fitness and courage to make value-based decisions and hold to them. The second layer involved learning how to navigate ethical dilemmas, and make value-based decisions corporately.
One of the first activities we did in this class was to make a “values deck” of notecards on which we wrote our top fifteen core values and our definitions for each. Later on in the semester, we shared these value decks with one another and one of the major takeaways is that while many of us in name share the same core values, our definitions, or resulting actions may vary. For example, “family”, was a value that many people professed. Yet, in the classic ethical dilemma of a parent deciding whether to take a promotion, work extra hours, and earn extra income to support the interests and secure opportunities for his or her family, or to deny the promotion in favor of spending more time at home with his or her family, my class could not arrive at a unanimous “right” choice. Both sides claimed that they were making the decision based on the value of “family”, but for half of our group prioritizing family meant securing future opportunity, but for the other half prioritizing family meant being engaged and available in the present. As I learned the content and was developing my own skill and ability to make ethical decisions, I also had to be intentional about hearing, considering, and giving weight to what my peers said. I think being a diversity agent oftentimes means asking questions, not just assuming all of my peers are in agreement, not just assuming we are all using the same definition of the same value, not just assuming one is right and one is wrong, but being genuinely curious about what each voice has to say and the heart and reason behind it.