Spring 2013 Graduate Assistantship

Title: Graduate Assistantship for the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs in the College of Health and Human Development - Student Success Center

Term: Spring, 2013

Description: As a part of my graduate assistantship duties working in the Student Success Center, I supervised the center, wrote monthly newsletters, and ran errands for the Assistant Dean.

Learning Outcomes: After gaining continuing my experience as a graduate assistant, I developed the following learning outcomes for myself:

• SWiBAT Learn to multitask between supervising the Student Success Center and concentrating on my work.
• SWiBAT Complete newsletters and posters on time for publishing.
• SWiBAT Help the Assistant Dean with errands and tasks in addition to maintaining confidentiality.  

Assessment Rubric: You can access my assessment rubric at the following link: Graduate Assistantship Rubric Spring 2013

In addition, below are the links to monthly newsletters and posters I made for the College of Health and Human Development's Success Center:

Evidence:

Newsletter- February 2013
Newsletter- March 2013

Athletic Training poster
Human Services poster


Reflection: For all the learning outcomes (multitasking skills, time management, and trustworthiness), I gave myself a score of "4-advanced".  

Multitasking by greeting all students who entered the Student Success Center while doing my work was a lot easier than last semester.  This semester I would occasionally glance at the door by using my peripheral vision and focus on subtle footsteps as students entered through the door.  Rather than being shy as I was last semester, I would welcome the students with a "hello" and/or ask a question such as "do you need help with anything?"  I tried my best to help students know help is available by setting aside my work if a student asked me a question.

This semester there was a lot of errands to run because the Assistant Dean was working on compiling and distributing scholarship applications to the individuals who will be reviewing the scholarship applications.  Due to it taking much time, time management was crucial to finish the newsletters and the posters.  Whenever there was downtime, I thought of what I should write about, the pictures I would use, and write my ideas whenever I had a chance.  This was effective because I never missed a deadline and I gave the Assistant Dean two to three days time to revise the rough drafts.  In return, it gave me more time to revise the final draft for publication.  In addition, the errands and tasks involved great attention to detail and confidentiality because the scholarship applications had personal information about the students such as grade point average, phone numbers, and address.  Errands and tasks included but not limited to: copying and filling out the information of all applications on blank applications so the Assist Dean had a copy, making photocopies of all applications for each evaluator, and organizing the applications by students' majors.  It was a positive experience helping the Assistant Dean finish her task earlier than she expected compared to her previous years working on the scholarship task.  I also felt important being given such an important task and for the Assistant Dean to trust me with the students' personal information as well as her personal information.  

Even though my graduate assistantship was short because the Assistant Dean was promoted and due to family obligations, my time at the Student Success Center strengthen skills such as communication and multitasking.  More importantly, I learned more about myself: strengths, weaknesses, and interests in Student Affairs with the help of the Assistant Dean.