NASPA and ACPA (2010) describe ethical professional practice as, “knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to understand and apply ethical standards to one’s work”(p.14). Through handling challenging situations in my professional practice, I have achieved a proficient level of competency.
 

My graduate internship provided many situations where I considered ethical standards in my work. I specifically grappled with ethical standards when implementing hiring for student staff members that I could potentially supervise. When hiring student staff members, my direct supervisor and I get to choose potential staff members before my other colleagues because of the specialized nature of my residence halls. To some of the applicants, being a resident assistant in one of my spaces was incredibly coveted. There were several instances where my colleagues and current student staff members encouraged applicants. In their encouragement, some applicants thought that positions were promised to them. In my first semester as a graduate resident director, I struggled with this tone around a hiring process and brought it to my indirect supervisor’s attention. Through consultation with her, I began a conversation with my colleagues that enabled us to have consistent language regarding the hiring process. Through this process, I found that for me ethical professionalism is enacted through consultation with my supervisors and colleagues in order to have language and practice which builds consensus.
 

In addition my professional practice is guided by my value to enact social justice in my work. With this lens, I constantly consider power and privilege as they shape interactions and processes with students. I have gone a step further to introduce this language to the student staff members that I have worked with. In a student staff member training at Brown University, I challenged students to consider the power paradigms that exist between students who have differential authority to their residents. I encouraged students to be mindful of the environments that they created because of their positional power.
 

Lastly, my coursework played a significant role in my understanding of ethical issues in student affairs. In CSP 6010, the Foundations in Higher Education course, I learned about the historical development of ethics in student affairs. Furthermore I became familiar with how foundational documents that articulated these values continued to inform practice. I am currently enrolled in the Higher Educational Legal course. In this course I learned more about how legal constructs continue to inform the development of our values and ethical standards.

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ACPA & NASPA (2010). Professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners. Washington, DC