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    Student Affairs Philosophy Statement

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    1) The document outlines the student affairs philosophy of Nathan Flyzik, focusing on holistically supporting students, developing leadership, and remaining a scholar-practitioner. 2) Flyzik believes in centering students and considering them holistically, including their identity, emotions, health, and relationships. He also sees leadership development and adjusting his own leadership style as important. 3) As a graduate student, Flyzik has added maintaining research and assessment skills through regularly reading literature to his philosophy to stay innovative and evaluate programming effectively. He recognizes his philosophy will continue evolving as he gains experience.

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    Student Affairs Philosophy Statement

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    231 views5 pages
    1) The document outlines the student affairs philosophy of Nathan Flyzik, focusing on holistically supporting students, developing leadership, and remaining a scholar-practitioner. 2) Flyzik believes in centering students and considering them holistically, including their identity, emotions, health, and relationships. He also sees leadership development and adjusting his own leadership style as important. 3) As a graduate student, Flyzik has added maintaining research and assessment skills through regularly reading literature to his philosophy to stay innovative and evaluate programming effectively. He recognizes his philosophy will continue evolving as he gains experience.

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    1) The document outlines the student affairs philosophy of Nathan Flyzik, focusing on holistically supporting students, developing leadership, and remaining a scholar-practitioner. 2) Flyzik believes in centering students and considering them holistically, including their identity, emotions, health, and relationships. He also sees leadership development and adjusting his own leadership style as important. 3) As a graduate student, Flyzik has added maintaining research and assessment skills through regularly reading literature to his philosophy to stay innovative and evaluate programming effectively. He recognizes his philosophy will continue evolving as he gains experience.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    231 views5 pages

    Student Affairs Philosophy Statement

    Uploaded by

    api-532999262
    1) The document outlines the student affairs philosophy of Nathan Flyzik, focusing on holistically supporting students, developing leadership, and remaining a scholar-practitioner. 2) Flyzik believes in centering students and considering them holistically, including their identity, emotions, health, and relationships. He also sees leadership development and adjusting his own leadership style as important. 3) As a graduate student, Flyzik has added maintaining research and assessment skills through regularly reading literature to his philosophy to stay innovative and evaluate programming effectively. He recognizes his philosophy will continue evolving as he gains experience.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 5

    1

    Student Affairs Philosophy Statement

    Nathan Flyzik

    Department of Educational Leadership, Miami University

    EDL 676 A: Foundations of Student Affairs

    Dr. Jayne Brownell

    November 16th, 2020


    2

    One of the most common questions Student Affairs practitioners are asked is; “So, when

    did you know you wanted to enter Student Affairs?”. I enjoy this question because it often allows

    practitioners to reflect on their past philosophies and how they are changing through their

    development as leaders. For me, I made the decision to enter Student Affairs as a young

    Orientation Student Coordinator in my sophomore year at Keene State College with little

    realization that the profession existed. I would soon discover the great work that takes place at

    colleges and universities and the philosophy that guides it. In the following pages, I will share

    my own philosophies about Student Affairs work and how they connect to professional standards

    set in the field. I aim to highlight how solid and fluid my beliefs are about my work, ultimately

    realizing that as I develop I will always be shifting in my ideology.

    Beginning with my beliefs as a young professional at my undergraduate institution, I

    focused on centering students in all facets of my work. As a student coordinator, I was happy to

    offer my student leader perspective while also urging professionals around me to consider

    students as well. I still hold true to this belief and find it in one of our profession’s founding

    documents; “consider the student as a whole- his intellectual capacity and achievement, his

    emotional make up, his physical condition, his social relationships…” (American College

    Personnel Association, 1937). As professionals we need to consider students holistically,

    centering all facets of their identity in order to better assist in their success. If we ignore key

    parts of a student when interacting with them, not only does the student feel harmed by this but

    we also directly violate one of the oldest tenets of our field. I aim to keep this notion of

    centeredness and holistic view at the core of my philosophy, while recognizing that it must go

    farther than defined in 1937. Much has changed since the founding days of Student Affairs, and I

    would add new holistic designations such as race, ethnicity, gender, sex, and socio-economic
    3

    status to consider. As a profession, our core is crucial to our existence, but equally important is

    the malleability we bring to the ideas that we center our work on.

    As I ended my undergraduate career and shifted to look at graduate school, a new key

    element of my philosophy began to develop; leadership. Leadership is a topic that I have enjoyed

    reading about and applying in many positions in Student Affairs. At my core, I believe that we

    should be constantly adjusting our leadership style by staying up to date with new ideas and

    applying new concepts within our teams. ACPA & NASPA (2015) define this as the ability to

    “seek out and develop new and emerging constructs of ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’”. Moving

    forward, I identify that a key part of my work in Student Affairs will focus on defining

    leadership to students and colleagues at the institutions I work at. Many professionals overlook

    leadership as a skill that one should arrive having already developed or as one that is inherent in

    some and not others. This is detrimental, as in every office, department, and division, a clear

    leadership culture should be established and developed periodically in order to sustain success.

    To hold true to this part of my philosophy, I aim to read and absorb different leadership

    perspectives in Higher Education and other fields. I have already started developing a leadership

    library with classic books on leadership, and new concepts just releasing this year. Overall,

    throughout my career I aim to define and adjust my leadership style and definition to support the

    different environments I work in.

    In reflecting on my current experience in grad school, I have added an element of my

    philosophy that focuses on being a scholar-practitioner. I have always been interested in

    research, but after the first semester of classes I now realize the importance of staying up to date

    with current research in the field. I identify this part of my philosophy as an area of vigilance,

    where in Sriram & Oster (2012) it is shown that “Scholars and practitioners continuously
    4

    espouse the importance of research” but struggle to engage in research regularly. This part of my

    philosophy challenges me to continue to read research and apply it to my daily practice beyond

    my masters degree program. I believe that when we subscribe to research, we keep up with

    innovative ideas that would assist us in our positions and stay creative in how we approach the

    issues in our field. Reading research would also require a commitment to assessment, which

    would better our institution by using results to better programming, distributing resources, and

    solving issues on campus (ACPA & NASPA, 2015). Overall, it is clear that remaining up to date

    with the scholarship of the Student Affairs field has positive effects on both our innovation and

    evaluation skills as professionals. I would develop this part of my philosophy by reading

    newsletters such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, subscribing to journals that my institution

    has access to, and eventually pursuing my Doctorate after obtaining field experience.

    All in all, my philosophy is a mix of values that the field has defined throughout its

    history and some perspectives that I have developed over my short time in Student Affairs. Key

    ideas to my philosophy are to see the student in a holistic lens, develop and define leadership at

    every stage of my career, and continue my scholarship beyond the conclusion of my graduate

    program. I also recognize that while I feel solid in this philosophy statement, there is no doubt it

    will be open to change as I continue to develop as a professional. To stay stagnate is to decline,

    as I develop and change these ideas will shift with me. As I grow as a professional, I will refer

    back to this philosophy and adapt it as both I and the field change moving forward.
    5

    References

    American College Personnel Association. (1937). Student personnel point of view. American

    Council on Education Studies, 1, 1-10.

    ACPA & NASPA. (2015). Professional competency areas for Student Affairs educators.

    .https://miamioh.instructure.com/courses/128013/modules/items/2332200

    Sriram, R., & Oster, M. (2012). Reclaiming the" scholar" in scholar-practitioner. Journal of

    Student Affairs Research and Practice, 49(4), 377-396.

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