Orientation Leader

Finding My Voice by Finding My Passion

Overview

The primary role of an Orientation Leader is to run the Advising and Orientation (A&O) sessions that introduce new students to UW. OLs offer both logistical and relational support to programs but their primary responsibility is to facilitate small group discussions and activities with students around campus resources and values and to provide peer-to-peer insight on everything from navigating the college transition to academic course planning.

The 2018 Orientation Leader Staff repping the iconic purple polos and khaki shorts #OLInThisTogether

Personal Importance of Work

I applied to be an Orientation Leader because I was looking for change. I was drawn to the position because I felt like I could empathize with both the students who were excited to be at UW and with the students who were in places of uncertainty or fear at the idea of this next step. The biggest thing I walked away with was an understanding that to me, the ability to lead is not dependent on being in front of people but is instead defined by a person’s ability to walk alongside others wherever they are at. My students and teammates found a friend and an advocate in me, and in myself, I found a passion for student-centered work in Higher Education, particularly with under-supported student populations, that continues to inform where I invest my time today.

Tasks Accomplished

Welcomed and presented to over 9,000 incoming students and their parents over the course of 28 Advising and Orientation programs for Freshmen, Transfer, and International students
Participated in a 10-week training class focused on skill-building in areas of equitable leadership, implicit bias recognition, and serving the needs of various student sub-populations
Collaborated with Academic Advisers to support students through their first experience navigating the UW course registration system
Facilitated group discussion around topics such as health and wellbeing, campus culture, and race and equity with groups of 18-40 students.
Collaborated with campus partners to provide a holistic perspective on the resources available to UW students

Leadership Competencies Gained

Self-Understanding

This experience helped me find my leadership style, which in turn helped me to better understand myself and my strengths and capacities. When I started the job, I believed that good OLs were supposed to be energetic, “get-up-in-front-of-people” extroverts, so I tried to act that way even if it felt ingenuine. However, as the summer went on, I began to notice that in the moments where I was more of my genuine self – calmer, more observant, more of a listener –I also found myself having deeper conversations with students, able to facilitate conversations around harder topics, and connecting more intentionally with teammates. Eventually, I began to understand how quiet steadfastness and empathetic listening are traits that are just as needed in leaders, and how these attributes facilitate connection with a different audience than more outgoing leaders often reach. As I began to notice through feedback and observations the impacts I was having just as I was, I was better able to invest even beyond Orientation Leading in places where my strengths would allow me to serve most effectively and grow most productively.

Conflict Negotiation

Prior to being an OL I was terrified of conflict and had trained myself to not to stir anything up because I did not know what healthy conflict negotiation should look like. However, immediately upon stepping into A&O, I realized that conflict avoidance would not be effective. On my first day I had a student who seemed to consistently make microaggressive comments against an identity held by other group members. After pushing through the day, I burst into tears at team debrief because I was at a loss for how to intervene. My FYP mentor worked with me that evening to practice strategies for addressing both identity-based conflict and general confrontation. The next day when something happened again, I tried for the first time to navigate conflict head on and with grace and intentionality. I immediately and specifically addressed the issue with the perpetrator in an appropriate setting, checked in with the other students, and sought to listen instead of making assumptions about what was going on. Throughout the summer, I continued to hone these skills, as well as learned when it is appropriate to take conflict to a higher authority. In whatever setting I am in now, I am naturally able to fall back into the conflict negotiation I learned as an OL and have healthier ways of both addressing and processing it.

Inclusion

As an OL I collaborated constantly with diverse groups of people. As a result, I developed the competency of inclusion because of the opportunities I had to practice techniques that would foster inclusive group cultures. Specific to my OL team, as we began to train, I started to notice that certain OLs were included in activities and discussions more than others. In response to these observations I decided to make it a point to intentionally invite these OLs into conversations and plans and to take time to check in with them one-on-one too to let them know they were seen. As the summer went on, I began to notice that slowly, others also started to use the same techniques for inviting teammates in, which strengthened team cohesion and trust and therefore allowed us to better go out and serve students. I applied techniques for fostering inclusion to student groups too, through strategies like using different facilitation methods to include more voices in group times and by adjusting icebreakers to accommodate for individual needs. Overall, Orientation Leading taught me how to be both a team member and a leader who brings people together by keeping the values of belonging and inclusion at the heart of all I do.

Facilitation

An important skill I developed as an OL was my ability to effectively and confidently facilitate a group. When the summer began, I was frustrated by my lack of group time productivity with students. However, I reflected on a class I had where everyone was consistently excited to contribute and how that environment was facilitated. From that, I decided I would try some different group engagement techniques and flip discussions back to students more. I began incorporating activities such as pair and share, notecard writing, and small group discussions alongside big group conversations, and found this prompted more participation, direction, and enthusiasm. This made me realize that part of facilitation is understanding that not all group members might be comfortable engaging in the same way. Also, as I saw more students participating, my confidence grew, which had a positive effect on my facilitation and ability to keep a group on track towards a goal because as I began to see myself as capable, this allowed students to also see me as a credible facilitator, which motivated them to listen, respond, and stay on task. While my OL role developed facilitation within student groups, I have since been able to apply the facilitation strategies I learned to other contexts too.

Verbal Communication

The work of an OL centers around verbal communication. Whether it was in presentations, group activities, skits, or one-on-one interactions with students, staff, and campus partners, I developed my verbal communication competency as I learned the importance of clarity, pacing, volume, and tone and how to adjust these elements to fit different contexts. One place I developed verbal communication skills was during student registration. In registration labs students would often become stressed about course planning. Thus, I had to learn how to approach tough conversations with emotional students with empathy and honesty and develop an ability to problem-solve through alternate options for course planning with students. Beyond student conversations, other communication skills I learned were how to effectively delegate tasks specifically and kindly to others, how to pace myself in presentations and play to the audience, and how to step in and out of conversation, particularly conversations with those we served in program that began to lean towards more heated. Overall, Orientation Leading taught me how to engage in verbal communication across many contexts and with many different people, and this is a skill that I have been able to adapt to many other relationships and positions in my life.

Mission

I found myself between two opportunities for Summer 2018 that I knew would take me very different directions. One, I could spend a summer in South Africa partnering with nonprofits focused on prison rehabilitation through a ministry I was involved in. While the location would be new, I had previously spent time abroad doing similar work and found myself comfortable with the idea of investing more in that area. Two, I could be an Orientation Leader, where I would be in the familiar UW community but would be required to step into a new and challenging role. As I considered my personal mission and goals, I realized that my desire was to grow myself, deepen my roots where I was at, and explore Higher Education careers. While I had previously been pursuing health and work abroad, which the South Africa program would align with, my mission had adjusted, and I realized that Orientation Leading would move me along in the new trajectory I was on. Through choosing OL over South Africa, I developed the competency of mission because I learned to articulate my internal mission and values out loud and to use this mission to make a path-altering decision.

Looking to the Future

My summer as an OL gave me insight on my leadership values and stirred a desire in me to continue to engage in student-centered work. The dynamic responsibilities I had challenged the internalized ideas I had of what I believed I could or could not do and pushed me to find my voice and exercise the agency that I have. I now have a toolkit of conflict negotiation strategies, a newfound joy in collaboration, and a deeper love for others. In the future I hope to continue to find opportunities to walk alongside students, particularly under-supported students, in their educational journeys and partner with them as they navigate and process challenges and excitements and growth that comes with Higher Education.

The first orientation group I led. This group was very encouraging and helped me to find my groove as I accustomed myself to facilitation

My Orientation Leader, Jack, left such an impression on me through how he led our group that as we ended our second day, I realized this was a job that I hoped I would be able to do too before I graduated UW

My group that happened to be comprised entirely of Out-Of-State students. We had 11 different states represented, ranging from California to Colorado.