Advising & Helping: Exemplary Level
“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.”
Advising and helping is central to my work as a Hall Coordinator, as I advise student staff members and hall council in building community, creating, planning, and facilitation of hall programming I do not limit my advising to job areas, especially with student staff members; I talk with students about their lives, their social and academic success and challenges as well as future aspirations."
During my time at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), I have had the opportunity to serve as an advisor for Hall Council and pursued an advising practicum opportunity in the Office of Student Activities at BGSU advising the executive board and one branch of Dance Marathon. I also spend a great deal of time advising and helping Resident Advisors and residential students as a member of the on-call duty rotation. I believe I have grown to have exemplary competence in this area. I have continuously challenged myself to improve myself in this area as I feel it is central to all student affairs work.
Through my advisory position with Hall Council I have assisted students individually and in group settings in problem solving, decision-making and goal setting. I have also worked with the Hall Council President to develop her confidence, skills, and abilities in helping and advising the other members of the executive board. The rapport I have built with students has helped in my ability to both challenge and support their decision-making procedures. I have facilitated conversations with the executive board members about engaging a wide audience and setting goals that enhance the current living environment of the hall but that also lasts into the future. As the spring semester began, myself and the President held a retreat to build unity with the executive board as well as set goals for the semester. During the retreat I had the President take the lead; I interjected only to challenge the group to think from multiple perspectives or think long term. I believe an important aspect of advising is not to share or push my own opinion rather helping student to recognize multiple options and diverse perspectives allows them to make their own decision and problem-solve. I believe the Advisor of the Month nomination I have included in the artifact lists exemplifies how students perceive my work as an advisor and that my style is recognized by the students in this group. I have also included the agenda used at the hall council retreat this spring. I worked closely with the Hall Council President to create a retreat that met the needs of the group where they were currently at and that would push them to set goals and find out how to best work together to achieve goals. I believe the agenda demonstrate my ability to help students take ownership of their work.
Serving as a Dance Marathon Advisor for one semester was an unforgettable experience. My advisory experience was with the executive board and one branch of the steering committee, directly advising the Assistant Director for Internal Affairs. In this position, I worked closely with the Assistant Director for Internal Affairs I provided him with constructive feedback to help him most effectively lead his branch and work with other members of the executive board. Working with individual captures my advising style, a balance of task talking and student centered conversations about the individual. The first step in this process is to establish a level of rapport with the individuals in order to build trust and ensure they feel comfortable talking to me about their life outside of the organization or job. I have found by sharing things about my life students are more likely to do the same. Through my conversations with students, I have realized that genuinely showing interest in their work, life, and personal well-being goes a long way. In order to demonstrate genuine care I utilize my active listening skills.To demonstrate my skill in advising a member of a student organization I have included notes from a one on one meeting in my artifact list. I believe these notes outline how I typically enter meetings with students, spending time checking in with them on thier life, academics, and on the organization itself. In this particular meeting the student brought up several concerns about the group, rather than providing answers the notes how the brain storming list of solutions and action items the student was able to discover through or conversation.
Advising and helping students is not always about helping them navigate positive experiences, often in both my advisory and Hall Coordinator roles I must help students work through conflict, differences, and difficult situations. As an advisor, when conflict has come up between group members, I listen to the ideas of each group member and then ask questions of the group assisting the group in process of resolving the conflict. In an advising and helping role it has become clear to me that I cannot choose a side in times of conflict, doing so can negatively impact the rapport I have built with students.
Serving on an on-call duty rotation and through various job responsibilities as a Hall Coordinator has allowed me to advise and help students often during times of crisis. I have responded to students in emotional distress, suicide attempts and ideation, domestic violence, physical assault, verbal altercations, alcohol poisoning, and various other incidents. I am able to consistently adhere to crisis response protocol provided to me during Residence Education training, as well as provide effective post-traumatic response follow-up. There have been times when I have called upon other departments to assist me and working through a traumatic event in the Residence Hall. Recently, an attempted suicide impacted a number of residents and student staff members. I followed protocol to have the BGSU Police department work with the student in distress and then requested to have staff from the BGSU Counseling Center come onsite to provide additional support to students. Following the event I worked with student staff members on enhancing their counseling skills to prepare them on how to facilitate conversations with students in distress and with friends of students in distress. Providing follow up to students and staff members is vital in assisting students process events, it is also during this time of follow up when maintaining confidentiality and connecting students to appropriate resources has been paramount. The duty report included in my artifacts list demonstrates my ability to provide assistants to students and staff in distress, use critical thinking, and act autonomously in working with students.
Throughout my advisory and crises management roles I have demonstrated an exemplary level of competence in the area of advising and helping. I have worked to advise and help student organizations as they work through challenges, group conflicts, and successes; built strong rapport and connections with students, as well as with other university staff members; and facilitated conversations to help students see the big picture and future projections of their efforts.
The following artifacts highlight my competence in Advising & Helping:
