MSHE Retreat 2020

REFLECTION

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 MSHE Retreat was held virtually on Zoom. Initially, I was concerned about how this experience would go. I knew that the MSHE program is a cohort-driven model, so I was worried that I would miss out on a crucial opportunity to bond with my peers. However, I came out of the day feeling that I did develop genuine connections with my peers and faculty members, even in a virtual environment. The virtual activities prepared by the faculty members helped in facilitating interaction with peers and faculty. Additionally, Dr. Carol Lundberg asked our cohort before the Retreat if any students would be interested in facilitating a few ice breakers throughout the day. My fellow cohort member, Efren Diaz, and I volunteered to execute a few ice breakers to encourage bonding amongst our cohort members at the Retreat.

My first learning outcome goal was to facilitate virtual ice breaker activities to foster connections between cohort members and faculty members at the Retreat. Efren and I met several times to discuss potential ideas for ice breakers. Efren was a great team member. We had a similar vision for how we wanted to frame the activities – we wanted the activities to be fun and interactive yet focused on driving connections between people. As a result, we created three different activities to facilitate throughout the day. The first activity was a humorous “breaking the ice” activity where students had to compete to create the best captions to different images. The second activity was an activity called “Everything from A to C,” where students were encouraged to share physical items in their spaces that corresponded to facilitators' prompts. The final activity was called “Sculptures of Strength.” This activity encouraged students to reflect on their existing strengths and create physical sculptures that represent these strengths. We concluded by asking all student to contribute their strengths to a “Mentimeter Word Cloud.” Reflecting on this final activity, I can see how we borrowed from Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth Model (Yosso, 2006). Yosso emphasizes that all students bring their cultural wealth and strengths to the table. Similarly, we encouraged our cohort members to reflect on their existing cultural wealth and strengths. We were already leaning on the leadership and educational theories we learned in class and applying them into practice.

For the second learning outcome, the “Lifeline Activity” facilitated within our advising groups really helped to create a space where I felt safe discussing with my peers about my own identity and life experiences and why I decided to pursue a career in higher education. I am usually pretty private about my struggles as a first-generation, immigrant graduate student of color from a working-class family. It can often feel vulnerable and scary to share these kinds of stories. However, my advisor Dr. Ding-Jo Currie, and my fellow cohort members made me feel comfortable sharing my story. I shared how my own experience navigating the higher education system inspired me to enter higher education as a career myself. I was also deeply inspired by my cohort members' vulnerability and courage in sharing their own stories. It was a profoundly grounding experience to reflect on how my own life experiences have shaped my decision to enter higher education and to see how all my fellow peers have the same dedication to serving students. Our identities and life experiences continue to shape us today - it has a profound impact on the kind of student affairs practitioner we will become.

For the final learning outcome, all the activities facilitated throughout the day helped me feel more connected to my peers and faculty members. With my peers, hearing each other’s stories helped me feel connected to each of them. I now better understand my peers, particularly my fellow advisees, and why we are in this field together. The breakout rooms with each faculty member also helped me better understand each faculty member’s story and how they came to be teaching at CSUF. While I did build many connections, I also wish there were more time and ability to naturally bond with each other outside of the formal activities. However, I understand that due to the virtual format and time limitations, there is only so much bonding that can happen at this Retreat. I hope that there will be an opportunity to bond further with my peers and faculty members in-person in the future. At the end of the Retreat, I still learned so much about my fellow cohort mates and faculty members, and hope to create more opportunities to learn even more about them moving forward.

REFERENCES

Yosso, T.J. (2006). Critical race counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano educational pipeline. Routledge.