Journal Update #3 - 9/12/19
The Associate Vice President of Student Life Rebecca Flintoff and Dean of Students Derek Morgan were the two people that Emma shared my email and proposal with. I was filled with surprised joy as Rebecca Flintoff asked if she could share my practicum outline with the program evaluation team of EveryOredigger; she wanted to see how my study could be connected to the current efforts of the program. Due to scheduling difficulties from both sides, my meeting with Rebecca had not been until Thursday September 5.
Saying that I was nervous would be an understatement as I was a wrecked pile of anxiety approaching her office. I carried with me the five page drafted proposal that I had sent out to a few people already, and I came with a scrambled idea of what I would say. I entered her office to see a large room with a round table with four chairs beside it--the amount of space in the room definitely eased my tension. We initially opened with the typical, "how was your day?" until we eventually progressed to the nitty-gritty topic of mental health. She told me about the conception of of EveryOredigger and the intentions that went alongside with it. It was really interesting when she explained past efforts that were made in combating the mental illness epidemic plaguing the school. Previously, I held the notion that administration was ignorant of student mental health issues, and that anxiety and disorder was a typical part of Mines. Rebecca's work in collaborating with specialized psychologists, mental health researchers, and other organizations dispelled all of these preconceived notions, and I was in awe of the amount of consideration that was put into student care. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that I was even more nervous presenting my proposal--who would want to hear a Junior share his idea of studying mental health, especially to a person who have worked with people with doctorates in that field? Despite these fears, Rebecca was appreciative of my ambitions, and she wanted to invite me to the EveryOredigger chairs meeting on September 11 in the President's Room. At that moment, I considered the meeting a success.
At the closing of our discussion, she mentioned a book that she coauthored, Violence Goes To College. Rebecca told me that some of the chapters on college policy, evaluations, and college violence history would give me great insight on the administrative side of mental health pedagogy. I was shock when she gave me the only copy of the book that she coauthored, and I then knew that she was there to help me reach my goal. I told myself that I would make reading the book a priority before I saw her again.
Before I would get to share my ideas with the chair leaders of EveryOredigger, I decided to create a revised proposal that was more specific to my practicum. This would be the sheet of paper that I handed out to the administration and faculty of the chair leaders of EveryOredigger. I worked with Justin Latici from the McBride honors program to draft a table of deliverables and expectations regarding my future work. During my time with him, I also got the idea to conduct several interviews to serve as background information before I would start the final project of my practicum. I have never had experience with facilitating professional interviews, but I was excited to try this--it seemed certainly more interesting than sitting down at a desk and rummaging through formal research papers. Justin also mentioned that I should create a blog to document my efforts throughout the course of my practicum, so here we are today.