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		Professional Development: A Self Help Guide By Clive Pursehouse, Resident Director, University of Washington I am going into my fourth year as a Resident Director. I have now worked with over twenty people who have held the same position as me. I do not claim to be an expert in this field, (my Master’s is in Philosophy), but I can say with some certainty what it is to be a resident director, and that we are all after the same thing. We’d like to move out, move on, and move up. Several of us have no desire to remain in residence life or housing, some of us have been eyeing our supervisor’s position, or some of the progressive positions on various professional websites and some of us, we’re not necessarily sure what it is we’re going to do, we just have gotten a little tired of the late night fire alarms. When the discussion of moving on comes up amongst resident directors, or the equivalent, it leads almost always to the topic of professional development. The concept of professional development has remained somewhat mysterious, that is, if you talk to us. We’re pretty sure we know what it is. “Conferences right?” We know that it’s important, and people have told us that we should participate in “it.” Some of us, especially those of us who were active as graduate students in higher education or a similar field, have many coffee mugs, and tote bags, that speak to how professionally developed we are. Through all of this, I get the impression that much of what developing as a professional means is lost on many of us. We get caught up in the memberships, the conference attendances, and presentations; and we don’t really look at what it means to be a professional. Professional for many of us means that we have the ability to get the next job in the logical sequence of housing professional positions. It means another notch on our resume. If we hope to become polished professionals, in the truer sense, we need to move beyond this singular focus. We insulate ourselves with the belief that we are somehow more in touch with people, in a deeper sense, than any other of our administrative colleagues. My belief is that we feel this way mostly because we are lucky. We have great jobs. We’re given the opportunity to connect with people that most professions don’t get, and we get to play and call it work. We often dismiss the potentially valuable contributions from other fields and professions (both within and outside the sphere of higher education) because we find them “too cold” or impersonal. We detest elitism but we perpetuate our own particular brand. Watching people grow is one of our perks, and we often times get so focused on the voyeuristic aspect of growth, our watching others, that we leave our growth behind. The purpose of this article is to send a message, to try and shake individuals out of our slumber. If we want to become great professionals we need to look around, we need to stand up and be counted, and we need to do it ourselves. Looking Around Within the structure of the college or university there are several mentors to be had outside of our departments. Faculty and administrative staff, who we so often complain about, have so much to offer in regards to professional success. Many of us get to serve on committees with senior level staff and rather than take full advantage of what that opportunity might mean, we simply feel as though we developed because we now can include “Campus-wide Safety Committee Departmental Representative” on our resume. We miss the opportunity to speak with the Assistant Dean or Provost because we believe mistakenly that just being on the committee, adding this responsibility to our resume is the developmental part. While you can’t quantify the lessons you may learn from some of those more experienced staff members on a resume, they can certainly assist you with your professional progress. There are lessons to be learned from those who supervise us, and those who supervise our supervisors. The lessons may be of a positive or negative nature, we may learn what to do to be successful, and as well what not to do. It is often the case that many of us are resistant to the bureaucratic nature of the larger institutions that we find ourselves working within. Successful faculty and administrators tend to understand the way that the mechanism of the institution works. They have found a way to work within this system in order to be successful. We may not necessarily like the way the system works, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot accomplish our goals within that system. We often let the large bureaucracy sour us on our experience. Rather than take advantage of the opportunity to work at such a large, so-called “corporate” style institution we often rebel from it, or try to change the role that we have been hired to fulfill. Nothing could be more antithetical to becoming a true professional. Standing Up and Being Counted Many of us will be lucky enough to have worked with and for a supervisor who respects us enough to push us to grow as a professional. However much of the time this is not the case. New professionals who were part of a higher education or similar graduate program often expect the mentoring that they received as graduate students, in their first professional position. This is a mistake. The reality of working at an institute of higher education especially within a budget crunch is quite a distance from the graduate, developmental experience. Supervisors are usually being asked to do more with less. This does not leave much time, and especially recently, money, for developmental projects. In order to stand up for one’s self, regarding our professional development, the first thing that we need to realize is that the responsibility for our development ultimately lies with us. This means putting ourselves in positions to utilize opportunities when they are presented. Often times we are so occupied by our assignments or projects that we have been asked to complete that we fail to see the developmental opportunities that they may present for us. Rather than look for extra things that might potentially lend themselves to our development as a young professional, we often look to minimize our workload by doing what we’re good at or what we have done before. If we’re guilty of shorting ourselves on opportunities, then ultimately we need to blame ourselves if we did not make the most of a project or assignment. If we leave an institution feeling as though our professional development was ignored. We need to ask who has done the ignoring. If we can agree that it’s accurate that we’re the one who is ultimately in charge of our career, which seems self-evident, then we need to look more critically at the choices we’ve made rather than the lack of attention on the part of our supervisors or departments. Doing it Yourself Do-it-Yourself, the whole reason for success behind Home Depot is often not the first instinct of new residence life and student affairs professionals. This is a mindset we need to change if we want to optimize our professional development opportunities and the quality of those opportunities. One of the attractions of the do-it-yourself craze is the money saving aspects. The same principle applies in your career. When looking at the cost of memberships, registration fees and travel costs, it becomes apparent that doing-it-yourself in the conference arena is a considerable strain on the budget, particularly of entry-level student affairs professionals. There are several free or inexpensive opportunities for you within your own institution, and with your colleagues in your region. Do you regularly attend any of your institution’s lectures or workshops that address diversity, the law and higher education, or technology? While none of these workshops may be tailored directly to the work of a student affairs professional, there are certainly applicable lessons to be learned. These workshops also allow for the opportunity to meet people from various departments who may be valuable allies in future programming or other ventures that you may be able to utilize later. Drive-In conferences and regional colloquiums are usually free or nominally priced. These can sometimes be just as valuable to your professional knowledge base as any of the larger national conferences, because they allow for better networking opportunities. Colloquiums are a great opportunity to meet senior student affairs professionals in your region who can offer wisdom and practical advice and insight on the big picture in your part of the country, and how to be more effective in that particular environment. Reading, writing and arithmetic. These are obviously skills you already have, but you can never stop honing those skills. Take the opportunity as a new professional to learn how to write bench marking surveys, proposals and even grants. Your written word will also be very important when it comes to looking for a new job, so get all the practice you can. Look for opportunities to publish your writing, both in the field of student affairs and elsewhere. Reading the chronicle, and other journals and articles, not only keeps you current in what’s important in student affairs, but also they may offer you the opportunity to learn what’s going on at particular institutions where you may someday interview. Budgetary supervision is a great skill to have and the more experience you have in this area, the more marketable you become. Your job is the best professional development tool available to you. It’s not that you necessarily put in X number of years, but how those years are spent. One of the biggest mistakes that new professionals make is to attempt to impress their supervisor by doing their supervisor’s job. You were placed in your particular position because there was a need there, otherwise they would have interviewed your for your boss’s position. Learn every aspect of the position you’ve been hired to fill, look for ways to improve the work you do, or the way you do it and look for opportunities to venture into other areas of the field, while completing the tasks you’ve been assigned to. One of the positive aspects of an entry-level position is that it gives you a breadth of experience. Take advantage of that variety and you’ll leave the experience with skills that prepare you for the next step. About the Author Clive Pursehouse has been working in Residence Life for 3 and a half years and is currently a Resident Director in Haggett Hall at the University of Washington in Seattle. Prior to coming to the UW Clive spent two years as a professional at the University of Pittsburgh. Clive has both a bachelor's degree (from IUP) and a master's degree (from Western Michigan University) in Philosophy. You can contact Clive at clivep@u.washington.edu if you'd care to comment on the article.