Running head: LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

Amy Bergstrom
SDA Program E-Portfolio
Learning Outcome Narrative: Strengths

LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

Strengths (LO 2, 5, 6, 7, & 8; Artifacts C1, C3, D, E, F2, G, & J)

Through my time in the Student Development Administration (SDA) program, I have
come to understand that one of my biggest strengths is curiosity. When I took the Gallup (2014)
StrengthsFinder assessment, my top strength was identified as Learner, and the description of
that strength resonated with me: Whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process
of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you
(Learner, para. 1). Of course, the content also interests me, and overall, I think my inherent
curiosity about the field of student development will be a great asset as I move forward in the
field. Systematic inquiry, identified by Blimling and Whitt (1999) as an important practice in
student affairs, is fed by curiosity. This concept encompasses how I learn about students and
adapt services, develop leadership in myself and others, and synthesize the story.
Learn About Students and Adapt Services (LO 2 & 5; Artifacts C3, D, & J)
This dimension of my strength is a combination of SDA learning outcomes (LO) 2,
understanding students and student issues, and 5, adapting student services to specific
environments and cultures. Before the program, I had no experience with college students,
although I did spend many years mentoring junior high and high school students. I did not realize
all there was to know about college student development, and I had a narrow understanding of
higher education based on my experience as a traditional-aged, highly involved student.
I have come to realize that understanding students and student issues means
understanding students broadly, understanding specific populations, and understanding the types
of issues students may be facing during college. Although I am skeptical of generalizing theories
that were formulated around studying one population, often White men, to all students, it is
important for me to understand the foundational theories of student development such as

LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

Chickering (1969), Perry (1968), and Kohlberg (1981, all cited in Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton,
& Renn, 2010). But in addition to learning these, the Theory course helped me to take a critical
look at them and to seek opportunities to learn about specific student populations, whose
experiences might not be represented in traditional theories.
Many of my projects throughout the program have focused on this aspect of
understanding students, particularly from a cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) perspective. I
developed a workshop about students of color on campuses, examined the experiences of student
athletes in service-learning, and completed a project on adult students who have other
marginalized identities. In the Best Practices course, my group focused on what institutions do to
support traditionally underserved populations (Artifact C3). This has been among the most
important parts of my experience in the SDA program, as I have come to better understand the
multitude of experiences students are having and what my role can be to support them.
Integrated with understanding specific populations has been growing to understand the
issues these various students face in college. In all of the above examples, my focus has been not
only to understand intellectually but also to determine actions and behaviors that can best serve
students. During my summer internship in the Center for Service and Community Engagement
(CSCE) at Seattle University (SU), I had an in-depth experience guiding a group of students, and
our conversations were particularly fruitful to my understanding of student issues, as shown in
my internship seminar (Artifact D). One of my biggest takeaways from helping students through
the vocational discernment process was that their biggest expressed need was not in finding
answers to their big questions but in figuring out that not knowing could be an acceptable state.
Understanding students helps to inform my adaptation of student services to different
environments and cultures (LO 5). This includes getting to know the institutional environment

LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

and culture, discovering the unique needs of students within that environment, and creating
appropriate student services. My internships were instrumental as I grew in this learning
outcome. I had to be strongly rooted in my context at SU for the internship with the summer
fellows (Artifact D). The missional heart of social justice was very important in our discussions,
especially as the students wrestled with what they want to do in life and what the world needs.
Additionally, one of my internships was at Cornish College of the Arts, where I spent the
summer learning about art students, whose academic identity affects how they experience higher
education. I had many conversations with my supervisor about how art students understand and
express leadership, and these conversations helped me to adapt the training I developed for the
orientation leaders (Artifact J). For example, I wanted art to be incorporated into our training,
and I also wanted to find out more about the students and how they understood leadership. I
asked the orientation leaders to participate in an activity in which they explained leadership
through whatever art form they chose. It was a great way to get to know the students, and it was
a unique activity specific to the context we were in. It will be important for me to continue to
learn about students and adapt my services dependent on the institution I will be working in.
Develop Leadership in Myself and Others (LO 6; Artifacts C1, D, & J)
Curiosity about myself and others is crucial to my understanding of LO 6, developing and
demonstrating skills in leadership and collaboration. During my formal education before SU, I
participated in many co-curricular leadership positions as well as completed the Presidents
Leadership Program at Colorado State University. After I graduated, though, I was not in
positions of leadership in my work, although I did volunteer as a youth group leader. Overall, my
understanding of leadership centered on the idea of positional leaders, an understanding which
shifted a lot during my time in the program. My leadership classes, both Leadership in Education

LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

I and Developing Leadership in Sport, have changed my focus to thinking of leadership as more
of a process and that anyone can be a leader. This latter idea is especially influenced by the
Leadership Identity Development model (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen,
2006), a framework I now use when working with students as leaders.
I think of LO 6 as being about growing as a leader myself, participating in the leadership
process, and helping others to understand themselves as leaders. Leadership in Education I was
highly influential on my understanding of my growth as a leader, as shown in my leadership
philosophy paper (Artifact C1). Learning about the different foundational leadership theories and
frameworks helped me to understand how my unique personality can be present in the process.
For example, I connected with the human resources frame of leadership (Bolman & Gallos,
2011) and appreciated how a focus on empathy can be understood as a strength.
Both of my internships were important for me in participating as a leader myself and in
helping others to understand themselves as leaders. Developing the orientation leader training
schedule and manual for Cornish (Artifact J) was a complex process, especially as it was
important for me to balance providing the information the team needed, teaching the skills they
would need to demonstrate, and bonding as a group. Developing the training as well as
facilitating it was a big part of the leadership process for me, and I think I was able to help the
students understand themselves as leaders. In my CSCE internship, I was supervising students as
they planned projects, as well as facilitating group dialogue, meeting with the individual
students, and overall managing the program (as seen in slide seven of Artifact D). It is a complex
program that required me to demonstrate leadership as well as teach the students skills in
leadership, particularly as they planned their projects.

LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

Synthesize the Story (LO 7 & 8; Artifacts E, F2, & G)

A final important aspect of curiosity is for me to be able to take the things I am learning
and share them with others. In particular, this has come through LO 7, utilizing assessment,
evaluation, technology, and research to improve practice, and LO 8, communicating effectively
in speech and in writing. My background is in journalism, and I think I have always been an
effective communicator in writing and, to a lesser extent, in speech. However, I had very little
experience with assessment, evaluation, and research (although I do have a strong background in
technology), and I had not thought much about using those tools to improve practice.
Utilizing assessment, evaluation, technology, and research to improve practice means
having skills in all of those areas, knowing when to use the different tools, and most importantly,
taking what is learned to develop better practices. For my service-learning project in Counseling
Across the Lifespan (Artifact E), we were asked to develop an assessment tool. Working on this
project helped improve my research skills as we learned more about the childhood
developmental stage and how we could create an effective assessment tool. The tool also needed
to involve technology, both at the request of our community partner and because our research
revealed how important technology could be in creating an effective tool.
One of my most valuable experiences in using assessment to develop better practices was
through the process I participated in at Cornish. I worked with the assessment from start to
finish; I wrote the learning outcomes, developed the survey, analyzed the data, and wrote a report
summarizing the important points and making recommendations for future events (Artifact G).
This is also a demonstration of LO 8, communicating effectively in speech and in writing. This
learning outcome involves understanding the audience for the communication, understanding

LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

how to best reach the audience, and then using what we know to create speech and/or writing
that is most appropriate.
I believe many of my artifacts demonstrate effective writing; however, my Cornish
assessment report is a particularly important example of effective communication. This is
because I needed to create a formal report that was also easy to read, gave explanations for the
data, and offered suggestions for improvement. The audience included my supervisor, but the
report had the potential to be shared with many others within the institution, and I needed them
to have a thorough but not lengthy report. It was a useful exercise for me to sharpen my
communication skills. The letter from my colleague Michelle Lee (Artifact F2) also
demonstrates my communication skills, as she discusses my ability to share my ideas in the
classroom and to engage in thoughtful conversation.
Continued Growth
One of the great rewards of having curiosity as a strength is that it will continue to serve
me as I move forward in the profession. My challenge will be to continue to foster this in my
work. Graduate school is a natural place for curiosity and learning to flourish; I have many
opportunities to learn new things. As I move into my first professional roles, I will need to be
intentional in creating space for reflection and in seeking out new information and understanding
about students, about developing myself as a leader, and in using skills such as assessment and
research to make me a better practitioner.

LEARNING OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

References
Blimling, G. S., & Whitt, E. J. (1999). Good practices in student affairs: Principles to foster
student learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Bolman, L. G., & Gallos, J. V. (2011). Reframing academic leadership. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Evans, N. J., Forney, D. S., Guido, F. M., Patton, L. D., & Renn, K. A. (2010). Student
development in college: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gallup, Inc. (2014). Clifton StrengthsFinder [Online assessment]. Retrieved from
https://www.strengthsquest.com/
Komives, S. R., Longerbeam, S. D., Owen, J. E., Mainella, F. C., & Osteen, L. (2006). A
leadership identity development model: Applications from a grounded theory. Journal of
College Student Development, 47(4), 401-418. doi:10.1353/csd.2006.0048
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community
cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91.
doi:10.1080/1361332052000341006