SJI has four major components by which competency is assessed: Understanding of Self and Navigating Systems of Power, Critical Assessment and Self-Directed Learning, Engaging in Socially- Just Practice, and Organizational Systemic Advocacy (ACPA & NASPA, 2016). As I critically reflect on my own competency in this area, I would be remiss to undercut the value of the hard work and dedication I have put into growing and educating myself, but as with many of the other competency areas, I know that I still have so much yet to learn. It is with confidence that I can say that this is one of my most advanced competencies, having surpassed the foundational and intermediate levels as outlined in the ACPA/NASPA Professional Competencies Rubrics (2016).

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Pulling from my work experience, I can identify multitudinous examples where I have been an advocate, a resource, an educator, a promoter, a demonstrator, and an all around proponent for issues of social justice on the many campuses that I have been fortunate enough to work. My work with underrepresented and marginalized populations - ranging from veterans to first generation students, students with ASD to international students, DACA students to LGBTQ+ students, students of color to students of differing religious backgrounds - has afforded me myriad opportunities to expand my understanding of communities that I belong to, and to those that are completely new to me. In each of these instances I become a more empathic practitioner, with a greater understanding of both humanity, and my profession, and as a result, am able to educate those around me while ensuring that I am fighting for social justice and inclusion.

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For just under six years, I worked as a School Certifying Official (SCO) for Veteran Educational Benefits. For the purpose of assessing my competency, I will focus on this particular social justice issue, however, it is but one of many that drives my passion. I feel that my many experiences in this role in addition to my personal life experiences during this time, allow me to easily seat myself at an advance level of competence. As such, I will not discuss how I measure up to both foundational and intermediate levels in each of the subcategories, but state simply that it is meant to be implied.

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Under the first sub category – Understanding of Self and Navigating Systems of Power – the advanced section touches on two main points: ensuring equitable access to campus resources, and providing consultation to campus on how best to dismantle systems of oppression (ACPA & NASPA, 2016). This was a constant demand within my role as SCO. I frequently advocated for the equitable treatment of my veteran students which could look like educating an advisor on how best to schedule courses around the student’s benefit level, to working with the Office of Accessibility resources to aid in the understanding of a student’s accommodation needs, or working with financial aid to ensure that the student’s bill would reflect the current status to avoid account holds. It looked like helping a student go through a formal complaint process when their faculty member dismissed or disrespected a student’s lived experience and expertise, and on other days it could take the form of fighting for systems to change on the state level to ensure that students received the benefits that they were entitled to in a timely manner so as not to be financially penalized.

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This sub category is often interwoven into the next – Critical Assessment and Self-Directed Learning - as I had to expertly assess what our institution was doing to work within the complicated interwoven systems of Federal, State, and Institutional (ACPA & NASPA, 2016). I worked with the Registrar’s Office to assess individual departments on their performance, and assessed the many programs that were being run specifically for this population of students. Self-reflection is an endless task that works in tandem this institutional assessment piece, and one that I took very seriously. The third subcategory of this rubric revolves around engaging socially, and I think that it ties largely into the self-reflection piece of the above category. I sat in on panels, went to symposiums, attended national conferences, was a Staff Advisor to a veteran club, and participated in countless on and off campus veteran-centric events. All of these experience helped me to think more critically about my place in the world, and how the world views our veterans.

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Lastly, the fourth and final subcategory of this competency, I feel parallels the first in that its action is to ensure that resources are equitable – where the Organizational Systemic Advocacy category goes further is how it expands to encompass not just resources, but policies, practices, facilities, structures, systems, and technologies (ACPA & NASPA, 2016). This is also something that for veterans is a constant struggle, and a fight that I fought, and at least sometimes won on the two campuses for which I worked. I would say, too, that I found myself constantly taking responsibility for the practices, etc., of my institutions, and in that I shouldered a responsibility to enact change when I saw that those changes were needed.

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I am incredibly fortunate to have so much work and personal experience with the veteran community. What I find incredibly exciting now as a graduate student, is the work I am able to do through my coursework, internships, study abroad, alternative breaks, and my graduate assistantship. During my first semester as a graduate student in the HESAA program, I was introduced to concepts in all off of my courses that while I have long since been practicing, I now have an understanding of the theories that are behind those practices, which helps me to find a deeper understanding, and a validation of my practices, and how to grow to better help students.

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In my introductory Counseling course, we spoke extensively on how to counsel people of different backgrounds and experiences than our own and learned techniques on how to address tough issues relating to this. For my course in Student Affairs Administration, we learned how to assess campus climate and how drastically different that assessment might look from a traditionally underrepresented student than it may to others. One of our major projects in this course was looking at campus from a certain population’s point of view, and coming up with a strategic plan on how best to address issues of concern within our department, and campus-wide. Student Development Theory was an excellent course to take in tandem with Student Affairs Administration as I was able to take theories of student development and actually apply them to my coursework, and ultimately, to my work. We studied theories of development relevant not only to all student learning, but more specifically to students identifying within a variety of underrepresented and marginalized populations.

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In addition to coursework, The Civic and Community Engagement Office (CCE) on campus has provided life-changing experiences for me as part of my educational experience at Buffalo State, and has served to expand my understanding of, and advocacy for issues of social justice. I interned for the CCE in Spring 2019, and I also participated in their Alternative Break programs – from both student and staff perspectives. During Spring 2019, I took a Study Abroad course that will culminated into a social justice trip to Ukraine, Poland, and Germany during Summer 2019 that was in partnership with the HESAA department. This trip focused on how students in the higher education landscape can be, and have been, the agents of change for social justice issues. It is important to me as a professional to engage in as many opportunities as possible that revolve around Social Justice and Inclusion, and it is fortuitous that I am able to study at an institution like Buffalo State where SJI is at the heart of their mission, vision, and values.

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