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Professional Development - Guides (redirected from Bonner Pipeline Project - Guides)

Page history last edited by Liz Brandt 4 months ago

Front Page / Campus-Wide Centers /  Professional Development  / Guides

 

 

Professional Development

 

Guides

 


Overview  |  Guides  |  Campus Examples  |  Documents to Download


 

Contents


Strategies for Professional Development

 

FormalInformalSelf-DirectedExperience
  • Seek institutional financial support for graduate school
  • Attend and/or present at conferences
  • Participate in micro-credentialing programs 
  • Participate in communities of practice or other cohort-based fellowships and programs 
  • Annual evaluations 
  • Complete a benchmarking process for center or position
  • Complete a strategic planning process for center
  • Complete an advanced degree 
  • Attend trainings on specific skills or issues
  • Join a professional association
  • Write and publish in community-engaged scholarship
  • Participate in grant writing 
  • Regular meetings with supervisor  

  • Cultivate mentors and supportive colleagues 
  • Collaborate with faculty 
  • Serve on non-profit boards 
  • Participate in something not in your wheelhouse (e.g., dance) 
  • Run for office 
  • Engage with Board of Trustees 
  • Seek different perspectives
  • Make space for mistakes
  • Volunteer 
  • Lead Bonner Meetings
  • Teach credit-bearing courses
  • Serve on search or other committees 

 

 

Key Organizations & Information Sharing


After the publishing of A Crucible Moment, AAC&U launched the Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement consortia, a coalition of organizations that worked in different ways to support a broad spectrum of education, programs, and engagement across higher education. The Bonner Foundation was part of this consortia, attending quarterly conference calls and in-person meetings held at AAC&U and other conferences. As of 2020, membership in this consortia included:

 

 

To this list, we add other organizations that are important for their conferences and publications: 

 

 

You can download the one-page pdf that has the list and links to their websites.

 

Job Search Engines & Resources


As one advances in their career, the following are a list of search engines and resources to find next step positions and stay abreast to news in the field.

 

 

Community-Engaged Writing and Publishing

 

This set of resources supports a practitioners and scholars to write and publish their community-engaged scholarship. 

 

 

Job Sector Guides


With the work and leadership of the Bonner Foundation staff team and the 2018 National Bonner Interns, four sector guides were developed to:

 

  • Provide undergraduate students and alumni with a useful, concise resource about the job sector and careers in it that might interest them.
  • Provide Bonner Programs on campuses with a practical resource to integrate into Bonner Meetings, trainings, and reflections.
  • Incorporate relevant information and point to places that student and other users can learn more.
  • Not recreate other existing and much more comprehensive sources (like books, graduate school guides, and career services resources).
  • Incorporate the wisdom, perspectives, and advice of Bonner Scholar and Leader alumni who have made their way into these sectors and give current students a way to connect with their alumni peers, especially to enhance their professional networks.

 

 

 

The K-12 Education sector describes the industry invested in helping students learn in schools. This industry is comprised of careers associated with teaching or supporting learners in kindergarten through 12th grade. Though K-12 education typically refers to public schooling systems, which are funded by federal, state, and local sources, the sector also includes private schools, charter schools, virtual schools, technical and trade schools, and alternative education. Currently, there is a demand for educators who have background in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields, special education, foreign language, and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). The career that is most commonly associated with this sector is a school teacher, directly instructing and mentoring k-12 students in a classroom. However, like our Bonner service work, there are both direct and indirect opportunities to get involved. The indirect opportunities could involve work in consulting, curriculum development, instructional design, administration, and more. Here, you can find categories of jobs that fall within the field of K-12 education.

 

 

Drawing on the work of Ernest Boyer, civic engagement is defined as “working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values, and motivation to make that difference” (Ehrlich, 2000). The civic engagement sector in higher education is a recognizable field offering professional employment and advancement opportunities. In roles such as center and program directors, leaders of engaged scholarship programs, and even deans, professionals manage the work of college and university constituents (i.e., students, faculty, and staff) with nonprofit and government agencies. While most of these partners are local or “place-based” in communities neighboring the college or university, these professionals also build sustained partnerships and projects in national and international contexts.

 

This sector offers professionals a complex mix of roles and responsibilities that bridge being an educator, visionary, manager, advisor, mentor, and more. Over the past three decades, in particular, the civic engagement sector within higher education has grown significantly. As documented by Campus Compact (a national membership organization for institutions that supports this work), in the mid 1980s few campuses reported dedicated centers and offices to coordinate and manage the engagement of students. Today, nearly 100% of the more than 1,300 institutions in its network report having at least one (and often multiple) dedicated centers, offices, and units. As a Bonner Scholar and Leader, you are exposed to this sector throughout your four years in the program. The staff that lead and manage your Bonner Program are considered professionals in this sector. These offices may be housed in Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, specific departments, the President’s Office or other units. Regardless, these positions are now recognized as professional educators requiring a complex set of competencies and even advanced training and graduate education. 

 

This sector is now regarded as “Community Engagement Professionals,” requiring a sophisticated range of knowledge, skills, and professional competencies (Dostilio et. al, 2017). Many Bonner alumni may be inspired by the work of individuals in this sector, who seem to devote their professional lives to building and sustaining partnerships and projects, community change, and student success. 

 

 

At colleges and universities, learning transcends classrooms. Opportunities for growth and development happen in residence halls, on athletic fields, and in social settings. Student affairs  professionals provide services, structural and relational support to students engaging in learning both inside and outside the classroom. According to National Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA), a few core values within student affairs are encouraging an understanding of and respect for diversity, believing in the worth of individuals, and supporting students in their development. Though most colleges and universities in the United States have a division of student affairs, the actual departments that fall under this division varies. Thus, careers in the field of student affairs vary greatly too. The Handbook of Student Affairs Administration and professional associations, NASPA–Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education and ACPA–American College Personnel Association, identify eight typical departments within a division of student affairs.

 

 

According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Foundation, “Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities.” These communities can range from local neighborhoods to an entire country or even the world. “Public health professionals try to prevent problems from happening or recurring through implementing educational programs, recommending policies, administering services and conducting research” (CDC, 2018). Public health differs from clinical professionals (i.e. doctors, nurses) that are concerned with treating individuals after they are sick or injured. Public health is a multidisciplinary, diverse and growing field. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects 15.6 million new healthcare positions by 2022 - in which research, education, and social work will see consistent growth in the next decade. Bonner alumni often are drawn to the field to combine their interest in health with their values of addressing disparity and contributing to the welfare of others. Careers in public health commonly fall into several key categories. 

 

Development of the Pipeline Frameworks


Drawing on Existing Literature

 

To create the Bonner Pipeline frameworks, the Bonner Foundation consulted existing well regarded resources in the field of community and civic engagement more broadly. Chief among them is the newest literature and research produced by Lina Dostilio and colleagues through a national project with Campus Compact. This work used an empirical approach, involving surveys of more than 500 professionals across a broad range of institutions, to better define a set of competencies required by today’s community engagement professionals. This work can be found in the volume, The Community Engagement Professional in Higher Education: A Competency Model for an Emerging Field, published by Stylus in 2017. Several chapters outline the process undertaken, which also involved comprehensive literature reviews, the work of a designated group of identified national fellows over a six month period, and surveys through a number of community engagement networks. We have sought to analyze and incorporate insights from this literature and link our frameworks as relevant. You will find a list of sources consulted later in this handout.

 

One practical matter we adapted is the articulation of the competencies into three categories:

 

  • "Knowledge of” to refer to concepts, ideas, or constructs that professionals understand, should be taught, trained, or exposed to possess
  • “Able to” to refer to skills or aptitudes that these professionals have and apply
  • “Disposition” to refer to values, philosophies, and attitudes exhibited by individuals in their approach and work

 

The research on the Community Engagement Professional produced a framework with 93 indicators across 6 areas (the book notes there are 103, but they are not included in the table). A seventh area - Community and Economic Development - arose as a missing category, but indicators have not been developed for it. Taking a look at how the indicators fall by area is instructive and possibly reveals which indicators are more valued. The names of the categories and numbers of indicators in each are listed below.

 

Leading Change Within Higher Education

5 Knowledge Areas, 9 Skills, 6 Dispositions [20 indicators]

 

Institutionalizing Community Engagement on Campus

3 Knowledge Areas, 12 Skills, 1 Disposition [16 indicators]

 

Facilitating Students’ Civic Learning and Development

3 Knowledge Areas, 3 Skills, 2 Dispositions [8 indicators]

 

Administering Community Engagement Programs

7 Knowledge Areas, 7 Skills, 3 Dispositions [17 indicators]

 

Facilitating Faculty Development and Support

6 Knowledge Areas, 12 Skills, 5 Dispositions [23 indicators]

 

Cultivating High Quality Partnerships

2 Knowledge Areas, 5 Skills, 2 Dispositions [9 indicators]

 

Community and Economic Development (arose at end)

0 Knowledge Areas, 0 Skills, 0 Dispositions [0 indicators]

 

Additional Frameworks

 

These additional framework fit it with Bonner model and core philosophy which emphasizes student leadership and sustained community impacts.  Two areas (in which the Bonner Program is particularly strong and focused) have significantly fewer indicators than the others:

 

(1) facilitating students’ civic learning and development and

(2) cultivating high quality partnerships.

 

These two areas, along with community and economic development, are areas that the Bonner Foundation and Program may have additional competencies to contribute. Thus, the Bonner frameworks put more and equal emphasis on these three areas.

 

We added indicators for the missing seventh category, which is especially important to the focus on sustained, deep partnerships:

 

Community and Economic Development 

Indicators developed by the Bonner Foundation and Network

 

We also added an eight category that we believe is relevant and distinctive to the Bonner Foundation and Program’s history, approach, and philosophy:

 

Social Action and Building a Movement

Indicators developed by the Bonner Foundation and Network

 

This category captures our efforts and work to collaborate with and lift up the importance of sustained involvement across sectors – nonprofit, educational, governmental, advocacy, business and so on – in making positive impacts within the communities and campuses in which we work and live. It is also intended to name our developmental philosophy, which suggests that the work at hand does not stop at graduation but is continued from many professions and vantage points. Finally, it also focuses on the importance of systemic change and the need for humility, commitment, and ongoing efforts. We have sought to apply a developmental lens to the competencies themselves, operationalizing them as they often are made visible through specific roles and responsibilities.

 

Click here to download 26-page booklet on Bonner Pipeline Core Competencies for Emerging Leaders, Program Coordinators, Program Directors, and Center Directors (drafted in June, 2018).

 

Operationalizing the Frameworks Developmentally

 

Drawing on the emergent literature and model, we also go a step further in order to articulate frameworks from a distinctively Bonner lens. For one, a developmental perspective is core to our philosophy (and one that is often absent from other literature and practice). Our developmental frameworks extend to include those articulated for community partnerships, faculty development, and even campus centers. One result of this perspective, and of the depth and longevity of student engagement (over four years) is that we can tell many stories about Bonner alumni who have since moved into staff positions within their own alma maters and, often, at other institutions within and beyond the network. Additionally, another core aspect of our approach relates to a deep partnership model. The Bonner Program seeks to support community impact as much as it does student learning and development; we seek the two going hand-in-hand. Campus Compact’s review process identified another functional area of competencies needed by professional – Community and Economic Development - but have not yet articulated what lies within it. With the Bonner Foundation and Network’s focus on capacity-building outcomes and projects, as well as a model for partnerships that occurs over multiple years and with the engagement of new cohorts each year – we hope to build in some competencies that relate to our model. Hence, our frameworks will also seek to articulate key signature features of the Bonner approach and how they relate to each level.

 

The charts that follow have been created for four levels:

 

  • Emerging Leader: A senior or recent graduate who takes on a significant role as a staff member for the Bonner Program and/or on campus; Senior Intern; Program Associate; AmeriCorps VISTA; 1-3 years of experience

 

  •  Program Coordinator: The staff member responsible for coordinating and managing the day-to-day operations of the Bonner Program or other structured, significant programs within the center and campus work. Often, these staff members have 4-10 years of experience.

 

  •  Program Director: The more senior staff member who directs the Bonner Program or leads and manages other significant programs and initiatives (such as faculty engagement) within the center. Some Bonner Programs do not have both a director and coordinator. Typically, these staff members may have 8-20 years of professional experience as well as a graduate degree.

 

  •  Center Director: The administrator who is responsible for  who directs the Bonner Program or leads and manages other significant programs and initiatives (such as faculty engagement) within the center. Some Bonner Programs do not have both a director and coordinator. Typically, these staff members may have 8-20 years of professional experience as well as a graduate degree.

 

We later plan to also integrate these frameworks into a model for the Bonner Graduate (a senior), which will then link with student learning outcomes and a recommended training, education, and reflection calendar. This year, in working to launch the Bonner Alumni Network and analyze initial findings from the 2018 Student Impact Survey pilot, we will begin to delve more deeply into the professional development pathways taken by Bonner graduates. We plan to create a number of sector guides that highlight stories of different alumni working in a range of professional roles (i.e., nonprofit management, higher education, K-12, STEM, philanthropy, arts, business, culinary, etc.) and how they got there.

 

Consulted Literature and Recommended Resources

 

Individuals who are highly interested in the development of these frameworks may want to consult the resources on this page: Bibliography of Consulted Resources.