Move-in day, 8.21

Ladies,

I am extraordinarily excited for this year! After today I know that I will be able to do justice to the position of RA. Today I handled a multitude of minor crises and finished them with perfection and complete attention to each student or staff member that I was speaking with. I know I will be able to handle situations of diverse issues with little to no problem now.

Today I learned that students are truly amazing. I met so many interesting women today and I am excited to get to know the rest of them, whether in Fickes hall or in our 3 other fantastic residence halls and apartment complexes. Moving students in today made me feel connected to them in a way I couldn't have captured through any other means. Today I was able to carry on small conversations with every resident that moved in and I knew exactly what to say when they asked questions. When taking this position I was nervous about answering questions and whether or not I would be able to maintain all of the tasks being an RA encompasses and plus the ability to give each and every obstacle the right amount of time. After move-in today I feel 50 times more comfortable with my position. Helping students today made me feel 100% confident that I have gained trust from the students. Throughout the first week, month, semester and entire first year I will do nothing other than put my best foot forward to ensure that I keep the trust I have gained from my residents. I want to work hard to ensure the safety and satisfaction of the students. I made a promise to this University and I was given the chance to prove myself. I will not let the University down. I made a promise almost a year ago to make Dean's list last year and i accomplished that in my first semester, with this reflection I assure you that this new promise to the University also near and dear to my heart and I will do my best everyday to ensure that I keep it.

--Hoohah!

RA training '08

Well folks,

I'm not 100% sure anyone still checks these, but I thought I would update.

Fall training started this past Sunday and has been going stellar. The new Residence Life team members are more than i could have dreamt for. Everyone is so involved and completely committed to the training and making things run smoothly. I am thrilled to be a Resident Assistant and have the opportunity to work with such an amazing staff this year.

I wanted to share an event that happened to me today, because I thought it was a great learning experience and I want to share the wealth. I was out for a bike ride during our evening off and as I returned to campus I rode past Laughlin hall. While traveling up the hill a family stopped me and asked what Laughlin hall currently was. After the explanations of my attending Chatham, Laughlin's status, and where i lived, the grandfather proceeded to tell me that his grandma was Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin's house maid for the upper floors. How amazing is that? I was just riding around campus enjoying the scenery after a nice bike ride and I met these amazing people who shared part of their history with me.

I thought it was an amazing moment.

Keep up the amazing work in training and I can't wait to see you all again tomorrow!

singular model for leadership

reflection #7 - is it possible to have a singular model for leadership in a cultrually pluralistic environment? i believe having a single form of any instruction is completely impossible no matter what the situation. As we talk about constantly in class, to properly lead you have to get to know the people you are working with. If we didn't have to get to know people we wouldnt do needs assessments. A good example of the need for different types of leadership is within the classroom. A teacher can not only teach to reach auditory and book students. She has to teach so that she reaches students of all learning types, including auditory, hands on, visual, etc. In a situation where only one type of leadership is used, not all people involved will get the full understanding of whatever might be going on. I really think that knowing your crowd is one of the most important parts in leading, so I completely disagree with the idea that you can lead with only one style. I think that it is possible, but to be an effective leader in all situations this is the wrong approach to use.

LPI

I think the best way to question whether or not I have developed in my leadership ways, is to look at how i have handled situations. I think it's better to look at example, rather than to speak of how i have changed. Where is the proof? I noticed that I have been working on building up my ability to tell people an idea might not work without hurting their feelings. I can look at the situation from their perspective and figure out how they would feel being told something a certain way, so that i can alter the way i talk to them. I have been doing this a lot with group activities in my classes recently. I have also been doing really well with handling arguments and confrontation. I strongly dislike arguments, but when I have been faced with them through out the day I handled them in a way that suprised myself. I am a leader and I am supposed to be setting an example, a long with some of the friends i find arguing. I want to take the first step by acting against argument, so maybe they will catch on and do the same thing. Before I take any action I always think about how my actions will affect other people, how they will react, and if that reaction is something desirable, if it isn't desirable I will change my plan of action. It might seem like a long thought process, but I've been doing it my whole life so I have got the hang of it. I am excited to finally have a chance to fine tune my leadership skills. I can already see the improvement.

Can you be a leader? Can I? - theory on titular leaders explored

To lead a person does not have to be in charge, so to speak. Leading is a step away even when you are not the named leader in a group project or any type of activity in life. To me, any input is leading in some sense. If people in your group are having trouble with an idea and you know how to take that idea and re-mold it into something the group can understand better that is a form of leading. Anytime a member of a group or society puts their ideas out into the world they are leading in some shape or form because other people will always be listening. Leading is all about taking your ideas or other's ideas and putting them into action. Leading is about helping people and doing what you can to make things work. Being a named leader isn't necessary to help through the process. Take for instance the first day we talked about what a leader was with Kouzes and Posner's book. The first step to leading is modeling the way. If you are sharing an idea or showing people how to do something or even making sure to take part in a group activity you are modeling the way. According to Kouzes and Posner that definitely means you are a leader. Leading is not all about getting a spot light shown on you and having someone "put you in charge." It's about how you use the tools that you have as a person and how you help others to understand by modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging others to act. By being a leader without the title you are already challenging to the process by letting your leadership ideals shine through when you aren't even expected to do so. I believe leading is not about a title you are given, rather something that everyone can do no matter what situation they are in. In my opinion, everyone can lead, but some people choose to explore their abilities and become more improved leaders than those who do not choose to explore their individual talents.

Interview Day!!

AMAZING!!! I had such a great day today at the interview. Did anyone else have as much fun as I did? I went into the interviews without a worry in my system, because I have worked with most of the people who I was going to be interacting with today so i had no need to be worried. I was a little nervous about the activities and i was convinced that we were going to be doing human knots, because i know how much Dean Moselle loves them. I'm glad we didn't. I was a little worried about that one. =) I had interviews first today and they went amazing. I don't think I could have done any better if i tried. I felt so comfortable talking to my interviewers and I felt really confident with what I was going to say and how the interviews were going to pan out. I had so much fun doing everything else in the day too. I really enjoyed the program activity, because I love thinking of program ideas. I have so many good ones that I can't wait to put into action when I become an RA, even if I have to do a mini needs assessment of my Res. hall first. I'm willing to do anything to ensure i plan an amazing program. I liked the tower building project, but halfway through my groups session I started thinking the way I should have been since the beginning of the session when we figured out what the task was. Of course it wasn't actually about building a tower! It was about group work... Wow. It's interesting how if you just take things at face value you will never actually get the full meaning of an exercise. It was a lot of fun. Our tower was really cool and it actually held the cup of water -- that was unexpected. I had such a great day today... I can't wait to get my acceptance letter! I am so sure that I will get the position after how well today went. I thought we were going to have to wait a lot longer to find out who made it too, so i am glad we are finding out on the 14th! We all get to relax for break and then as soon as we come back we find out if we made RA or not! This is amazing! Is anyone else as excited as I am?

Reflection 4 - Hillary for President

Looking at the different candidates for the Presidential election and their views on changes in higher education, I'm still sure my vote will go to Hillary. After looking at her direct website http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/education/ I have decided I really agree with her stand points on higher education. A few of the things I agree with are; increasing the federal pell grant, challenging selective schools to accept more lower income students and challenging colleges to keep down their costs and tracking their progress with an online college cost calculator. Increasing the federal pell grant will help students get more money for college from the government. Student loans are incredibly hard to get in the first place and when a student achieves a loan they have to pay it back for years after graduation, because of all the built up interest. I can't take out any loans by myself so i know that an increase in the pell grant would help me and others like me. Second, I know a lot of people would really love going to schools that are more selective with their admittance of lower income people, but they are turned down because of that exact thing. I believe a change in the way students are accepted into colleges selective or not, would be a major improvment in the higher education system overall because sometimes students are turned down for unfair reasons and I think that should really be cleared up. I also think that some schools accept the wrong people just because they want to meet a quota and I think this idea can help schools with that problem. Students should be accepted to colleges and Universities becasue they fit into what the colleges values are, not because the school needs more students. Finally, I absolutely love the idea of an online cost calculator to monitor the tuition raises in colleges. Going to college is so expensive these days that a lot of people can't afford to go in the first place. If some sort of cap was set on tuition costs at colleges a lot more students would attend and a lot more students would stay at their colleges until graduation, because they would be able to afford it. This would make graduation rates increase and make a college degree a little more attainable, which is becoming more and more necessary in today's world. Overall, I think Hillary has a win, win plan for higher education, because as i said before she has a way to help future students get more money to go to school and she wants to make it easier for students to get into their school of choice.

Reflection 3

My University is going to sound a little too perfect, but work with me here. It's my University, right?

If I could build my own University it would be small and an all women's university. I like small campuses better than large ones, because the environment has a more more community like attitude, rather than a fend for yourself feel to it. I would also make sure my school recycled and was green friendly. I want to make sure the students, faculty, staff, etc all share respectful attitudes with each other. I would have a set of res. hall rooms for early risers and people who stay up late, because there are usually problems in res. halls because of this and I think it would be a lot more efficient to have res. halls dedicated to both sleeping patterns so people could get along a little better in their living environments. My University would have 24 hour food services and full access to the library 24/7. I would also have a campus lounge for students, faculty, and anyone else to relax in. The lounge would need to have comfy chairs, some active things, computers, and food options so people wouldn't have to go all the way back to their res. halls or apartments because they have an hour break between classes. This lounge would be an academically as well as a physically stimulating environment. My res. halls would have guest policies just like the ones at Chatham, because I think our guest policies make a lot of sense, see student handbook. My res. halls would also have water fountains and black and white along with color printers and access to scanners and photo copiers with no cost to the student. At my University everyone would have a week break every other month for a cool off period, because staying at school without a break every once in a while is hard to do sometimes. Class times at my University would also be solid once they were put on the registration website, because it becomes an inconvenience for everyone when class times change after people have already enrolled in the course. My campus would look almost identical to Chatham, because I love the set up. I want my campus to be very environmentally engaged. I want my campus to be a beautiful oasis down a long road no one ever travels, unless they live there because they have no idea where it leads. My University would be very academically engaging with tons of interesting classes and opportunities to take classes at other Universities. I would want a diverse student body along with the faculty and staff. Everyone working for the University or attending the University would be selected because they represent something my University stands for. I want this to happen, because when my faculty, staff, and student body leave campus I want the people they interact with daily to know they came from my University just by the way they carry themselves. I could go on forever about my University, but I am going to stop now. My University would be one of the most amazing Universities around. In the end I would want it to be similar to Chatham, but with some things adjusted. After all, I chose Chatham because I love it here, why would I want to make anything different?

Reflection 2

I'm not sure how to answer this question. Right now I think some unrealistic expectations of the RA's are their psychic ability to know when someone is doing something wrong and their undying ability to prove it. I believe that residents should be punished for everything they do wrong to help enforce the rules of campus life, but I also feel like administration and students expect the RA to know when something is going wrong and catch it in an instant. For example if a student complains that incense is being used in a room on their floor, the student expects the RA to find it and punish the person with the incense. Chances are the RA won't be able to find them and even if they do, the incense could be gone or it could've been something cooking in the microwave. I really think everyone expects, since some students have the title Resident Assistant, that they can do anything and everything. The truth is not everything can be prevented and not all cases can be proved. RA's aren't superheroes, the title is nothing but a title and a way of life, no new abilities are obtained when the title is gained and i think a lot of people forget that.

Reflection 1

Volunteering is a big part of my life. When i was in high school i did a LOT of volunteering especially with the american cancer society and with a group from my high school called angels 4 champs. Angels 4 Champs was a club and Champs 4 Kids was the non profit. In Angels 4 Champs we raised money for pediatric AIDS by doing a lot of service projects.

With the American Cancer society I did Relay for Life. Relay for life is a 24 hour walk-a-thon. Schools register to take place in the event closest to them, which is usually at a high school track, a captain is elected and the captain attends captain meetings. Each school gets a plot on the grass in the middle of the track and they set up a campsite. Teams fund raise all year and then go to the event which is the most amazing thing in the world. Tons of people come together to support one cause and it's really beautiful. I was a captain all four years i was in high school, so i had a lot of experience with this event. Every event has a DJ and a lot of fun activities. Each campsite brings their own things to sell, to raise more money and often teams will bring cool activity ideas to keep them occupied the whole time. One team member must stay on the track at all times though, which is the only catch. Building up to this event family, friends, and students from the team can purchase luminaries. On the luminaries bag the purchaser puts a survivor or a person who was lost in the battle of cancer. At the event the luminaries are set up around the track and light. All of the attendees gather around the edge of the track and watch as the cancer survivors take their lap around. Everyone claps as the survivors pass and the next time around everyone joins in behind them walking around the track and to look at the names on the bags. There is no music while the survivor lap goes on and after the survivor lap every name turned in on a luminaries is read aloud and states whether they are a survivor or that we have lost them. This is the best part of the event, because it is sentimental and not a dry eye is in sight. It's just amazing how many people have won and how many people we have lost to cancer. The thing i love about this event is everyone's desire to help and raise as much money as they can for this cause. It's also amazing how much people will pull together and how much they are willing to do for this cause. At my high school we lost two students to cancer so this event was very dear to our hearts. People can amaze you when you give them the chance to. I love seeing people do their best and be happy and i love when people come together for things those things make events so magical for me. I think that is why i love this event so much.

The next events that i really love were with Angels 4 Champs. I did a lot of really interesting events with Angels 4 Champs. Our biggest fund raiser was gift wrapping at the Zany Brainy, the toy store. We used to gift wrap there during the winter holiday season and for spring holidays. Let me tell you, those were the best days of my life. I would volunteer for the whole day just because it was so much fun. I loved being around people all day and helping people by gift wrapping their presents. I became a pro gift wrapper by the end of my second day. My friends were also in Angels 4 Champs, but it was different for me because i had such a close relationship with the woman who ran it. I would sit and talk to her all day while i was gift wrapping. I was her number one volunteer my freshman, sophomore, and junior years. When I was at Zany Brainy and a lot of other gift wrappers were there i would get to stand at the door and tell people about what we were doing. This organization really helped me open up to new people and made me a lot more energetic about life. I feel like if i did not participate in Angels 4 Champs activities i would not be here today. Volunteering changed my life. Angels 4 Champs opened so many doors for me with volunteering in high school. Other activities we did with Angels 4 Champs were the AIDS walk. The AIDS walk used to be different than it is today. The walk we did was independent of the AIDS task force, but now they are together. I used to have so much fun at that walk, because i was able to meet new people and help people. Helping people is one of my favorite things in the WHOLE world. I love people and this event let me meet so many more people that i didn't even know what to do because i was so excited. I love events with people and responsibilities. I am trying to do a lot more walks now that i am settled into high school, but Angels 4 Champs and Champs 4 Kids doesn't exist anymore so I am out on my own.

I applied to start volunteering with the humane society and other animal shelters and i hope to start volunteering a lot more with outside organization while I am at Chatham. Who knows, maybe we'll have a Relay 4 Life event next year!