9/6/2013
The committee I choose to evaluate the progress of for this class is the First Year Interest Group/FIG program for Adams State University. Within the FIG Program I am the Art Mentor. I have five students within my program and have specific goals for the students as a whole to be able to achieve.
The most important goal for the Art FIG Program is retention. This achieved through ensuring that each participating freshman has the best possible experience during his/her first year at Adams State. Within our group, to realize this goal, we will be participating in on Campus events, meeting faculty at Adams State, and participating in team building activities so that they can create a web of connections to help them feel secure and confident in attending this University. In order to achieve these goals as a whole, I will also be setting specific personal goals.
Budgeting will be my greatest mountain to climb for this semester. I have struggled with budgeting in the past and know that in order to be successful in any leadership position I MUST learn effective budgeting. Because planning is closely knit with budgeting, I will improve the effectiveness of my planning as well. Specific action items will help me achieve both my personal and committee goals.
Last week I made the action item of creating a “get-to-know-you” paper and preparing for a get-to-know-you activity. A few days later I met with as many of my students as possible and had them answer fun questions about themselves and suggest ideas for what they would like to see themselves doing with this program over the year. To keep the meeting laid back and fun we met at Milagro’s. They all enjoyed the questions and were anxious to see what we will be doing with the answers they gave me. Also, a fun perk, we ran into James Trujillo while at Milagro’s and I introduced all of my students to him. He then invited us to the Chili Cook Off for the 17th. Conveniently, being assertive in that moment helped us towards achieving multiple of our goals in one meeting. I plan to take advantage of every opportunity for my FIGS.
Yesterday I presented the program proposal to my boss of getting my FIGS together to make T-Shirts that play off the fun answers they gave me from the Milagro’s get together. The event will be on the same day of the Chili Cook-off so that we can attend that and then go and make our soon to be awesome shirts that we will be able to wear for any exciting trips we take.
Today I will be meeting with my Advisor to review the progress I have made so far with my FIGS. Because the semester is early, I have only met with my FIGS once, but felt that the meeting went very well. It was casual and was meant to help everyone introduce themselves as well as get feedback on things they would like to do. But, had I been more assertive in finding all of my students in my program prior to this meeting, I know I would have had more in attendance. I made an extra effort this past week to find all of them and will continue to try to see them on a one-on-one basis outside of our monthly events. Hopefully this will help the students feel more comfortable with coming to the events and have more desire in being involved with the program. I will also make sure to follow up with previous events and record the effectiveness of each one in achieving the goals for our program.
My biggest goal for the next two weeks is to follow up with one of my student’s suggestions of an out of state trip to compete in a sidewalk chalk mural competition. This idea got all of my students excited and so I will be budgeting and talking to my supervisors to see what the possibilities are of making it happen.
Over all, I think I have done a pretty decent job of fulfilling my role as a leader to my students. I have been able to answer questions, create environments for them to feel comfortable, and have contacted them outside of meetings to give encouragement. One change I would make to improve would be to focus on facilitation. I will brainstorm ideas of how to help them take individual responsibility for their success as a student at Adams State. At this point, the only other challenges I have are making sure I understand completely how to fill out paperwork prior to receiving permission for my scheduled events and that I am getting my FIGS excited for the things we have planned!
