Students and professionals that are treated with fairness and respect are often empowered to pay this respect and fairness forward in a myriad of ways (Bolman & Deal, 2013). As a professional who is currently working in Residence Life and Housing, ethical standards and professional practice become even more crucial, as I live where I work, work where I live, and live in close proximity to students. This struggle is often compounded when you take into account many of these students are only two or three years younger than me; these students often set expectations that someone so close in age will be a friend first, and a supervisor second. As such, I must act in a way that clearly conveys my confidence, ethics and standards with asserting myself as a professional, not as a friend. Beyond acting in an ethical way with students and paraprofessional staff, it is also crucial to identify one's own ethics; how does my own personal ethics come into play with decision-making, and how do I model this to students who I visibly impact?

 

While I was well-acquainted with the various issues for students with disabilities prior to EDU 776, Current Issues in Student Affairs, my classmates and I partook in relevant discourse and discussed hot-button topics such as how to better include students with disabilities into the academic and social setting. These perspectives contributed to my knowledge, as did further research on the matter which aided in my ability to identify lapses in institutional support for students with disabilities. I found through my research that despite ample progress in the past half-century, we as educators and activists must work harder and smarter to ensure inclusionary practices for students with disabilities become the norm. I discovered that we live in an era of complying with laws and regulations about students with disabilities, and not an era of embracing people with extensive physical, cognitive, and emotional needs. I was able to identify ethical issues in my own past and present positions (ACPA & NASPA, 2010). From this research and the weekly course discussions about various current issues, I began to identify how my actions and motivations as a professional are influenced by my own personal ethics. Attached to this section you will find a copy of my report on the modern challenges many students with disabilities face in a higher-education setting. 

 

In my graduate studies at Salem State University, there has been a heavy emphasis on ethical standards in our practice. The stakes are high in our profession; our conversations, actions, and inactions can, and do, play a major role in the lives and daily happenings of our students, colleagues, and members of our greater community (CAS, 2012). Most notably, the ideas of establishing beneficial relationships, abiding by personal ethics, and investing in one's own personal growth were explored in EDU 811: Administration and Organization's Organizational Analysis case study at a fictionalized institution. Attached you will find this paper that shows the breakdown that can occur when one's own professional ethics are not properly established and respected.

 

Beyond supporting each other in our various areas of personal and academic development and validating my own ethical standards, the American College Personnel Association (ACPA), the Council for Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS), and NASPA, Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education have provided a strong framework to follow and for which I emulate my actions as a professional. However, exposing oneself to the various frameworks is only one side of the coin; we must also work to understand cases that may come across our desk as professionals. This preparedness becomes all the more crucial when considering that there is no such thing as a "normal day" in our work!

 

In EDU 803B, Helping Skills for Student Affairs Professionals II, my group and I were tasked with responding to an ethical case involving pressuring parents and a fictional student stuck between pleasing his parents and honoring his own passions. This case hit on various aspects of the aforementioned frameworks, such as confidentiality, non-malfeasance, fidelity, and student learning and development (Fried, 2011). Attached you'll find our presentation that examines the various frameworks a student affairs professional would need to honor when dealing with a case of this caliber.