Running Head: AREAS FOR GROWTH

Learning Outcomes Narrative: Areas for Growth Leanna Patricio Seattle University Spring 2014

AREAS FOR GROWTH Integrative Theme: Thoughtful Leadership and Governance The integrative macro-theme for my areas of growth is thoughtful leadership and governance. This theme is important to me personally because I want to be a credible leader and, professionally, I feel that being a credible leader requires looking at decisions and issues from a variety of aspects and using a variety of leadership styles to handle these situations. A common misconception about leadership and decision making is that it is a linear process, when in reality, this is rarely the case (Witherspoon, 1996). It is because of this that I have identified this as an area for growth after the SDA program, and the three unique areas that I identified

include searching for leadership opportunities in professional practice, utilizing data and research in decision making, and understanding law and policy in decision making. Thoughtful leadership and governance requires challenging ones self to look for leadership opportunities, seek out new resources to use, and provide best judgment when making decisions. I feel that, while the program has taught me many transformational and reflective leadership qualities when working with students, and many of the courses might have touched on one of the three areas, I having only just begun to explore intentional leadership in order to grow from a positional leadership standpoint. Learning Outcome Dimensions (LOs 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9; Artifacts G, J, D, & C2) Actively searching for leadership opportunities in professional practice is an important area for growth, since we have learned from EDAD 570 that typically, no one views themselves as leaders early on in their careers. Indeed, I sometimes struggle with the idea of being a leader, but I know that I ultimately aspire to reach higher administrative levels at on a college campus, and so the task for me is to seek out new leadership challenges following the SDA program. All

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three of my areas for growth have been provided throughout the program and LOs 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 addresses these areas. Bollman and Gallos (2011) presented models around social identities, power, and interactions which have helped in understanding my leadership style and how I would aspire to use a place of positional leadership for advocacy. Artifacts G and J, from EDUC 513 and EDAD 570, provide great starting points to analyze my current leadership styles, evaluate my strengths and weaknesses, and to understand how I might take on leading a learning experience for employeesall of which might be components of searching for leadership opportunities. Artifact G is a program I developed for adult learners on how to organize recruiting events and creating a workshop with learning outcomes that is written with the use of research and theory on best practices for adult learners is one way that I could actively gain leadership experience. Artifact J challenged me to look at the number of leadership frames in order to understand my own leadership philosophy. Both of these artifacts speak to LOs 5, 6, and 8 since they required adapting services to a target adult learner audience, demonstrating leadership and collaboration skills, and also communicating effectively in speech and writing. I am also proud to say that in my work I have grown as a supervisor and lead within my office which has helped inform my experiences in class, in addition to the leadership role I have played as a co-facilitator for the First Generation and SES Inter-Group Dialogue meetings. The second area for growth is utilizing data and research in decision making, which specifically addresses LOs 7 and 9. Through many courses I was able to do research on a variety of topic areas, but had very few chances to utilize the research in my work, which is something that I would like to do in the future. Artifact D from SDAD 559 provided me an opportunity to research a more real-world setting by looking at intrusive advising practices at

AREAS FOR GROWTH North Seattle Community College through Gates funding. Understanding that with this type of funding, extensive research or best practices is required, in addition to collecting student data to for adequate benchmarking is what I gained from the program but wish to further develop after. At work, I have been able to understand the importance of data-driven policies and decision making while I serve on the Student Experience Design Team, where we look at retention data, student surveys, and market research to fully understand the experience for students from beginning to end. Finally, I would like to continue to grow in the understanding of law and policy in

decision making after the program. Artifact C2 from SDAD 585, is an evaluation paper where I researched the many different forms of budgeting practices amongst institutional types and explained what I learned about higher education finance. While I only theoretically explored finance and budgeting in higher education, this course as a whole taught me the ins and outs of budgeting basics that could be applied in the years to come, which include the need for understanding of policy around budgets, budget cuts, state policies (especially as a state institution), and also historical information around a particular department and its budget. Demystifying the fundamentals of budgets is a first step towards hopefully managing a departments budget as part of thoughtful leadership and governance practices. This artifact related directly to LOs 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 because higher education finance requires adapting resources to varying environments and needs, demonstrating leadership and collaboration with others around budget decisions, utilizing assessment and evaluation of programming to determine best allocation of resources, communicating all of this information transparently, and finally, understanding law, policy, finance and governance.

AREAS FOR GROWTH Demonstration of Development in Learning Outcomes Past (Prior to SDA Program). Prior to this program, I showed very little willingness to reach out and challenge myself to seek leadership opportunities or explore my leadership abilities. With that, I had very little experience with the concepts of ethical decision making through policy and law as well as using data and research in professional practice. Present (During SDA Program). Since starting the program, I feel that I have only just learned about the very basics of

each of these areas and could take a multitude of classes to really gain expertise. In reality, much of this information is learned on the job through experience, and I think that with my experiences in the program, I have been able to really scratch the surface of these areas while really engaging in the learning outcomes from projects and readings. Future (Post-SDA Program). In the future, I would love to be able to seek out more leadership opportunities and eventually work up to senior administrative levels. With this, I believe more experiences would allow for greater learning opportunities, both from practice and from formalized continuing education. I would hope to attend as many conferences and professional development programs to learn more about becoming a better and more effective leader in order to provide the best experience for my department and my campus community. As part of both professional practice and through formalized education, I would also like to seek out more research opportunities. Overall, I foresee many chances to grow in my leadership abilities and really exercise the learning outcomes gained from the SDA program.

AREAS FOR GROWTH References Bolman, L. G., & Gallos, J.V. (2011). Reframing academic leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Witherspoon, P. (1996). Communicating leadership: An organizational perspective. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.