Running Head: PORTFOLIO OUTCOME NARRATIVE: STRENGTHS

Portfolio Learning Outcome Narrative:

Strengths

Janet Nava Cardenas

Student Development and Administration
Seattle University
E-Portfolio

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STRENGTHS:
Resilience, Experience, Student Connection,
(LO#2, LO#4, LO#6; Artifacts A, B, E2, G, D)
As an undergraduate I applied to go into higher education without telling my family. At
the time my biggest fear was that they would be the biggest impediment of my success. As a
high school student being trained on a vision of American success while being an identified
minority with immigrant parents I learned to do everything I could do be as little as possible like
them. This phenomenon of assimilation was challenged and broken down once I was on campus.
The interactions that I had with others who assumed my narrative based on my appearance
taught me that the strength that I brought as a student was at the core of my parents culture and
values. Moving forward I found that my experience as a first-generation low-income student was
my drive to stay in higher education as professional.
However, my academic culture in the city I grew up in had taught me I was an exception
to a reality that had been already decided for me. Everything that I did in college, I paired with
an outline of my barriers. Still, every fear of failure came true for me at one point as much as I
tried to avoid it. I ran out of money and slept in my car, I became constantly and chronically ill, I
dropped and failed multiple majors for fear of science and math, I worked multiple jobs, my
father went to jail, and I dropped everything academic when everything else went wrong. Even
when there was so much I did well, these and more are the experiences that hold weight on me.
So much, that when I got to graduate school I stopped calling home as if losing ties with my
family would save me from crisis.
Of course, crisis kept happening and my graduate experience has been its own set of
experiences that I am still learning to understand. What I know is that as a graduate student I did

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everything I could not to find out who I was but to make sure that I did not lose it. In this
process my experience and resilience served me to listen and support my students.
These experiences and moments of resilience are what has taught me how I should show
up in a space to be perceived professional. They are also what have taught me how to find value
in my work and connected to my students. It illustrates my philosophy and style in practitioner
work that I will be carrying into my career. My strengths are reflected in both my work in the
SDA program.
Prior to the SDA program education was disconnected to my role as a community
organizer and advocate. While I learned such a role in my years as an undergrad, seeing the
amount of systemic structures that played a role in a denied education for those I worked with
made me doubt the education system. I had decided not to return to school because I could not
afford it and convinced myself it was my best option. I quickly learned that I could only do the
type of work I wanted to with a Masters degree.
As I began to understand myself in the context of education and Seattle University I
found that my ability to exist outside of a system was possible within it. The biggest reminder to
this was the students that I met. Specifically, students who know about me through word of
mouth or through active spaces and organizations on campus. It has been learning that I am a
connecting piece to some of these students and their education. Simultaneously, my presence can
make them feel belonging and theirs can make me feel there is an importance in existing in this
space (Evans, 2010). As I continue on my soul-searching or soul-building ( Welkner,2012 ) I
have come to find that I feel most connected to my work when I feel most connected to my
students. So I have learned to spend much time reflecting and building on my journey through
the experience and one-on-one connections that I make with others. These connections highlight

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what have for me been the milestones during my time at the SDA program. Student connections
are without a doubt the strength that has made me take ownership and pride in my work and how
I choose to do it.
These connections have been the strongest in spaces where I have worked with students
on identity development and racial injustice (SDA, LO#4). Although, I practice social justice
outside a connection with religion it has been rewarding to see that my students feel wanted in a
space that is connected to religious and academic institutional ties. I specifically, think about my
students in Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o se Aztln (MEChA). MEChA was my way of
moving away from a space of no motivation and transitioning to a space of community and
solidarity (Artifact A). My connection with these students (Artifact, E7) has shown my strength
in pushing forward language and ideas that promote an accessible education. As highlighted in
my mission statement ( Artifact B) I do my work to preserve, enable and build navigational
capital that allows for access (Yosso, 2005) (Artifact, E8).
Working with these students also made me a stronger learner as a leader and educator
(Artifact, E9). It is through their want to learn and build themselves that I was encouraged to
keep seeking theory on liberation. I started listening to understand the content of the class
without dismissing its content but instead applying critical theory on racial injustice, teachings of
healing, and self- empowerment to its gaps so that I could use it with my students based on their
needs (SDA, LO#2). The strongest skill that I demonstrate this in is one-on-one dialogue when I
encourage my students to find their own answers through mentorship.
During my first year as a graduate student a student started coming to my office every
week to share his experience at Seattle University. Every time he came I wonder if he would
come back because I always said my goodbyes after telling him that I did not have answers for

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him. On one of the occasions he asked me to lead an immersion trip on Dignity, Justice, and
work. This immersion was a best practice in student affairs that gave me a new perspective in
service. While service is not something that I favored, being able to work side-by-side with my
students to build the debriefs and facilitation made it successful with the group of students on the
trip. This experience allowed me to see my strength with student connection started by using
Critical Race Theory as a framework to storytelling (Delgado & Stefancio, 2001). Storytelling in
this framework is to build validity of ones story by giving the storyteller to share their own
reality. In this setting my students taught me about the different learning styles that they needed
in order to learn and receive information. These learning styles (Kolb, 2005) have taught me how
to present to students as well as to colleagues in order to have buy-in to what I present.
The Kolvenbach Learning Community is a project that I asked to take on to establish a
sense of purpose in my role as an Assistant Resident Director. The Kolvenbach community was a
program that started at the beginning stages of learning communities at Seattle University and
lost the focus when the learning communities expanded to the residence halls. This community
based on Jesuit learning (SDA, Lo#4) has been a space in which I have worked as a partner to
one of the students that I supervise in building program and structure. In addition, we develop a
commitment to social justice and sustainable living for a community and a group of students
based on their personal and spiritual interest and needs (SDA, LO#2). I have spent the last year
redefining the community activities and clarifying how to meet the intended outcomes of the
community through programming collaboration, and recruitment (Artifact, G). I learned
leadership (SDA, LO#6) in a setting that I was uncomfortable identifying with based on its Jesuit
connection. This experience taught my leadership comes out the strongest in collaboration to

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others in their passion. This development has shown me the strengths that I have in expanding
and strengthening outdated practices to meet the needs of the current community.
Beyond the collaboration of campus partners with the Center for Service and Campus
Ministry, and Oma, I have had the strongest collaborations with my students (SDA, LO#6). I
became a better educator by learning how to listen to those who my work affects. What allows
me to find strength in the leadership and mentorship that I brought to these spaces is that I found
these spaces as an avenue for development outside of my required work. This gave me a sense of
purpose and more dedication to my work.
In addition to the mentor that I hoped to provide in spaces like immersion, Kolvenbach,
and MEChA I was able to find mentors of my own. From these relationships I found the person
who could best describe that strengths and the character that I strive to bring to the professional I
want to be (Artifact, D). The mentorship I found in Pamela Alvarado, the Assistant Director for
the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Seattle University has been important in reminding me the
strength that I find and look for in my work. Seeing someone who is dedicated to the work of
students of color with the dedication and genuineness that she brings, reminds me of why my
strengths are important in this field.