Reflection:
As a Mary Gates Leadership Scholar, I have designed and facilitated the program, Commuter Connections for the University of Washington's Commuter Commons. As a Commuter Commons Associate (CCA), I spend 14 hours a week working in the space interacting with commuter students. I chose to develop this program as I observed that commuter students typically aren't able to develop their Husky Experience compared to traditional students due to time consuming responsibilities outside of academia, such as children or working full-time. The program runs once a week for 50 minutes with the intent of relationship building, information sharing and skills development among commuter students. These activities have included arts and crafts, professional development sessions and board game tournaments.
My focus for my leadership development with my mentor, Ali Albrecht has been working on my flexibility in planning and creating cycles of feedback to meet the needs of those I serve in the space. Practicing flexibility has been a learning experience in being able to plan based on feedback rather than my personal vision and doing so later rather than weeks in advance to leave room open to feedback. I have learned how to create venues for feedback such as feedback forms, the way I advertise programs and incorporate feedback into handouts. Ali has served an essential role in supporting me with resources from First Year Programs, and at critically looking forward in how these skills can advance me as a leader in social work. Skills, such as flexibility are needed when working with clients and meeting them where they are, rather than where I want them to be. As the facilitator and a leader, I've learned to take on a more passive role and to let the relationship building happen more organically among students through just providing prompting questions and means for them to interact, such as board game tournaments, TV show discussions and origami paper folding sessions.
Through my observations I have noticed more discussion based practices between students, such as trying to share their thoughts compared to trying to understand each others' contributions and power dynamics occur based on individuals' identities. With a population that needs more informal programming due to their availability and other responsibilities, I have been able to reflect on the ways I can bring intergroup dialogue characteristics to other settings that are less formal. One way to do so is using my role as the facilitator is to shift the conversation towards those whose voice is less heard. I can also practice my social work skills in asking open-ended questions that are applicable to everyone in the group as well as reflecting what is shared in the group.
The programs have provided opportunities to initiate relationships through grassroots efforts. This has included utilizing existing resources such as other CCAs and build partnerships with other UW organizations, such as Board Games at UW. Both these aspects lend towards sustainability. Returning CCAs have expressed interest in continuing the programs and I hope to share all my content with one in the following weeks.
As a Mary Gates Leadership Scholar, I have designed and facilitated the program, Commuter Connections for the University of Washington's Commuter Commons. As a Commuter Commons Associate (CCA), I spend 14 hours a week working in the space interacting with commuter students. I chose to develop this program as I observed that commuter students typically aren't able to develop their Husky Experience compared to traditional students due to time consuming responsibilities outside of academia, such as children or working full-time. The program runs once a week for 50 minutes with the intent of relationship building, information sharing and skills development among commuter students. These activities have included arts and crafts, professional development sessions and board game tournaments.
My focus for my leadership development with my mentor, Ali Albrecht has been working on my flexibility in planning and creating cycles of feedback to meet the needs of those I serve in the space. Practicing flexibility has been a learning experience in being able to plan based on feedback rather than my personal vision and doing so later rather than weeks in advance to leave room open to feedback. I have learned how to create venues for feedback such as feedback forms, the way I advertise programs and incorporate feedback into handouts. Ali has served an essential role in supporting me with resources from First Year Programs, and at critically looking forward in how these skills can advance me as a leader in social work. Skills, such as flexibility are needed when working with clients and meeting them where they are, rather than where I want them to be. As the facilitator and a leader, I've learned to take on a more passive role and to let the relationship building happen more organically among students through just providing prompting questions and means for them to interact, such as board game tournaments, TV show discussions and origami paper folding sessions.
Through my observations I have noticed more discussion based practices between students, such as trying to share their thoughts compared to trying to understand each others' contributions and power dynamics occur based on individuals' identities. With a population that needs more informal programming due to their availability and other responsibilities, I have been able to reflect on the ways I can bring intergroup dialogue characteristics to other settings that are less formal. One way to do so is using my role as the facilitator is to shift the conversation towards those whose voice is less heard. I can also practice my social work skills in asking open-ended questions that are applicable to everyone in the group as well as reflecting what is shared in the group.
The programs have provided opportunities to initiate relationships through grassroots efforts. This has included utilizing existing resources such as other CCAs and build partnerships with other UW organizations, such as Board Games at UW. Both these aspects lend towards sustainability. Returning CCAs have expressed interest in continuing the programs and I hope to share all my content with one in the following weeks.