NASPA Western Regional Conference 2020

REFLECTION

This was my first ever time attending NASPA. I had heard much about NASPA from other student affairs professionals. While I wish that the conference was held in-person, I am glad that the virtual environment allowed me some flexibility as well. It was much easier to pay and take the time to attend the conference when there was no travel involved!

For my first learning outcome, I attended two workshops directly related to my current work to deepen my current practices and knowledge. I currently lead the Peer Mentor Program for Orange Coast College’s Student Equity Office. In my role, I advise three Peer Mentors who work with 47 first-year students from disproportionately impacted student populations. This is my first year leading the program by myself, so I am continually looking to learn best practices to improve the program next year. I attended two workshops directly related to my work: “Near-peer coaching and success for low-income students at California State University Stanislaus” and “Speak Logic Model to Me: Tools Used to Elevate Peer Led Programs!” I learned a lot from these two workshops. I learned how to use a logic model to build and improve Peer Mentor programming and how CSU Stanislaus’s Peer Coaches virtually manage their caseload. I will definitely bring this knowledge back to my work at OCC.

For my second learning outcome, I attended a workshop that did not directly relate to my current work to expand my breadth of knowledge as a student affairs practitioner. I attended a workshop titled “Strategies for Encouraging Student Employee Advocacy & Civic Engagement,” hosted by students and staff at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. While I supervise student workers, my current role does not have much to do with developing their advocacy skills or civic engagement. However, this is something I’d like to encourage more within my students moving forward I hope all my students feel that they have gained the soft skills of advocating for themselves and their communities at the end of their time with me. The workshop provided some great case studies of student advocacy and civic engagement that sparked ideas on how I could adjust our student employee training to touch on some of these same themes.

Lastly, I achieved the third learning outcome by connecting with fellow student affairs professionals at the NASPA Asian & Pacific Islander Knowledge Community (APIKC) Zoom Reception. Actually, my favorite part of conferences is re-connecting with old faces and meeting new people throughout the hotel! So, I was nervous that this Zoom Reception would not allow for the kind of interaction that I really enjoy at conferences. To my pleasant surprise, this was a really great experience. At the APIKC Reception, I joined a breakout room for Graduate Students & New Professionals and got to meet some great graduate students/new professionals. I even exchanged contact information with a few people and connected after NASPA. Overall, I really enjoyed NASPA WRC 2020 - more than I thought I would! I hope not to let my initial reservations about attending a virtual conference stop me from taking advantage of such great professional development opportunities in the future.