Erika Orman

History, Philosophy, & Values

 

Category: Proficient

 

Description: "The History, Philosophy, and Values competency area involves knowledge, skills, and attitudes that connect the history, philosophy, and values of the profession to one’s current professional practice.  This competency area embodies the foundations of the profession from which current and future research and practice will grow.  The commitment to demonstrating this competency area ensures that our present and future practices are informed by an understanding of our history, philosophy, and values” (p. 16). 

In developing along this competency, I have improved in the following areas:

• “Describe the foundational philosophies, disciplines, and values on which the profession is built” (p. 16)

• “Articulate the historical contexts of institutional types and functional areas within higher education and student affairs” (p. 16)

• “Demonstrate empathy and compassion for student needs” (p. 16)

• “Describe the roles of both faculty and student affairs educators in the academy” (p. 16)

• “Articulate the history of the inclusion and exclusion of people with a variety of identities in higher education” (p. 16)

 

Activities:

 

CSP 6010.  One activity that helped me develop in the History, Philosophy, and Values competency is completing the Foundations and Functions of College Student Personnel course in my Master’s program.  This course is where I learned nearly everything I know about the origins and development of the student affairs field.  We learned about important developments that shaped higher education and role of student affairs, including the Oxbridge model of higher education and its impact on colonial colleges, the Morrill Land Grant Acts, the 1937 Student Personnel Point of View, the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944, and so on.  The Foundations class is where I was introduced to the CAS Standards, which serve as a basis for best practices in a variety of functional areas.  Furthermore, I used the CAS Standards to learn more about a particular functional area (in my case, Orientation Programs).  Each student in the class gave a brief presentation on a different functional area, which helped me to understand the purpose and best practices of each area.

 

Additionally, this class gave me the foundational knowledge to understand the difference between the liberal education model in the U.S. compared to the Germanic style institutions in Europe.  This knowledge was very useful in later coursework about the value of a liberal education and also prepared me for the Higher Education and Student Affairs study tour to Western Europe in which I participated.  This perspective will certainly be useful to me in communicating with international students about liberal education, as most other countries do not ascribe to this model. 

 

Finally, CSP 6010 helped me to understand how groups of people have been excluded from higher education over the course of history, and the modern implications for such practices.  We learned how higher education at Oxford and Cambridge, and later in the colonial colleges, was reserved for wealthy White men.  Slowly, higher education became accessible to the middle class, women, and persons of color.  In this course, I learned about key historical points, such as the Civil War, Morrill Land Grant Acts, the creation of universities for Black students, Brown v. Board of Education, and the Higher Education Act of 1965, and affirmative action, that opened the door to people who had traditionally been excluded from higher education in the U.S. 

 

CSP 6035. Building on this foundational knowledge, the Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs class increased my understanding of the modern implications of different groups being excluded from higher education.  We spent a good deal of the course examining how socioeconomic, racial, and gender identities impact people’s access to, and success in, higher education and later employment.  As part of this course, I completed a group assignment called the Community Mapping Project, for which we visited a local urban high school to examine the resources that are available to students there and how this impacts their access to a quality education.  I cannot relate to this experience, as I grew up in a rural area.  However, visiting the school and observing with a critical eye helped me to understand those students’ lived experiences.  Through this exercise, I built empathy for students coming from this type of background.  

 

Reference

ACPA & NASPA (2010).  Professional competency areas for student affairs

               practitioners.  Washington, DC: Authors.