Thanks for considering this optional blog. For this post, please choose 2 questions to answer from each of the 2 categories below (for a total of 4 questions answered):
Overall Perspectives Experience:
What stood out to you/made a strong impression on you during the experience?
Was the workshop what you were expecting? If not, what was different?
Where your initial beliefs challenged in any way? If so, how did that make you feel?
What was one new (to you) idea that you took away from the experience?
Leadership:
What does "facilitating justice" mean to you?
How does your own leadership style come in to play in a social justice setting?
Do you have any experience of being in a situation where you decided to speak up about something problematic that was going on? What was the experience like? How did it make you feel?
Alternatively, have you had an experience of being in a situation where you felt like you should have spoken up but didn't or couldn't? How did that make you feel?
Having empathy as
my number 1 theme resonates with me in a big way. As I mentioned, I believe I
am a feeler with a capital F. Before I started in my current role, I worked in
the field of gender based violence prevention for many years and have been
certified as a rape crisis counselor two times. I've been an advocate for
survivors of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and stalking, and have
spent countless hours helping survivors process their trauma and work towards
healing. I love to work in a profession where I am helping others and where I
can practice empathy and compassion. I often try to put myself in the shoes of
others and figure out what they might be feeling and how a situation may be
impacting them. I often recite Brené Brown's quote "everyone is
fighting a battle you know nothing about" which helps me to remember that
we all have a lot going on behind the scenes that impacts the way we exist in
the world and how we interact with others. The flip side of being such a feeler
means that I sometimes struggle with things like giving negative feedback and
dealing with conflict because I want so much for everyone to be happy and taken
care of. I can also find it hard to allow people the space to fail - hence my
giving numerous reminders about assignments in our class - but sometimes that
means that I don't give people the opportunity to grow that failing can
provide.
My second theme, Developer,
speaks to how I see potential in others and how I approach working with
students. Part of the description states, "When you interact with others,
your goal is to help them experience success. You look for ways to challenge
them. You devise interesting experiences that can stretch them and help them
grow." Kind of sounds like ELP a little bit, right? I get a lot of
satisfaction and enjoyment out of watching students grow, develop, and find
their passion throughout their college years. I want to help and encourage them
along the way as much as possible in whatever way I can, whether it is in class
or through informal conversations, providing a meaningful retreat experience,
or just passing along resources. Perhaps one of the reasons I get so much from
this is that I did not have that type of support or mentorship as a college
student and I had to find my way on my own. As a result, I took a lot of
missteps that I feel like I can help my students avoid. One of my favorite
things is hearing from my students months and years after they graduate and
knowing that I had a small part in helping them figure out their journey. This
part of the Developer description really rings true for me: Signs of growth
in others are your fuel. They bring you strength and satisfaction. Over time many
will seek you out for help and encouragement because on some level they know
that your helpfulness is both genuine and fulfilling to you.
I believe my other 3
themes also fit me well. They each provide me with guideposts for how I live my
life and include challenging tendencies that I need to be mindful of. I know
that some of you didn't agree with your Strengths Quest results and some of you
felt that the assessment itself was not a useful tool. I will argue that,
whether you like or agree with it, self awareness and mindfulness of your
strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvements are a very important skills
for a good leader to have.
For this next blog,
please answer the following:
What are your top 5 themes? Do
you believe that your Strengths Quest results accurately describe you? If so,
what themes resonate strongly with you? If not, what do you think the
assessment got wrong? Does your Strengths Quest result change the way you
see yourself as a leader or as a person? How can you utilize your top 5 themes to be a better leader or group member?
Alright, grab a snack and get comfortable
because this Ted Talk is about 20 minutes long. I know some of you won't watch
it all the way through but I hope that you do because Brené Brown's message
about vulnerability is truly powerful and I think you'll get a lot out of it.
This talk touches on a subject that can be
difficult for many of us: allowing ourselves to be truly vulnerable even in the
face of fear and uncertainty. Some of you may get uncomfortable at just the
mention of the word vulnerable. Unfortunately we live in a culture that tells
us to hide our flaws, fears, and weaknesses at all costs and to show others
only our best, most put together selves lest we be rejected. When we do that
(and we all do it at some point), we deny ourselves the ability to make
authentic connection with others and we lose out on the most important parts of
our humanity - love, true friendship, belonging.
So what does any of this have to do with
ELP? We talked about values in class this week and I want you to use this blog
post to delve more deeply into your values and into the ways that you live them
through your actions. Using Dr. Brown's talk as a starting point, I'm
going to share with you more about my values and how I practice
congruence.
Later in the course we'll be exploring our
personalities and the strengths and challenges associated with them. I've taken
the MBTI and other inventories numerous times and they always tell me that I am
a feeler with a capital F and that a huge strength for me is my ability to
empathize with, validate, listen to, and support others. That part of me is
what made it possible to support survivors of sexual assault for 10 years as an
advocate and crisis counselor. It is what helps me build strong, meaningful
relationships with students and colleagues and with the people in my own
personal life. I deeply value compassion, connection, authenticity, and
love for ourselves and others. Those values have shaped not only who I
am in the relationships I have but also the profession I've chosen.
Dr. Brown's talk resonates with me on a lot
of levels. She says "connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose
and meaning to our lives." I agree with that 100% and find that the most
important parts of my life - being a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend,
and mentor - are all about the connections I have with the people I love.
However, having meaningful connection has not always been easy for me. Like a
lot of people, I have struggled with feeling not worthy of love and belonging
at times in my life. As a teen and into my twenties, I often felt that I was
not attractive enough, smart enough, or talented enough to deserve the things I
wanted out of life or to accomplish what I dreamed of. I often held back parts
of my true self in relationships with friends and partners out of fear of being
rejected. It took a long time and a lot of intentional work to finally be able to
embrace my imperfect self and to learn that I am enough just as I am. That I am
worthy of love and belonging just like everyone else is (and so are you!). I still
have moments where I doubt myself, beat myself up, and feel unworthy. Learning
to be unabashedly myself is an ongoing process and I don't always get it right
but I keep at it because it is important to me to be true to my values and to
be a good role model to my son and my students.
When Dr. Brown talks about the
wholehearted, she says that "they had the compassion to be kind to
themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can't
practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselves kindly."
Having compassion for myself was a huge step in getting to a place where I
could let myself love and be loved wholeheartedly. For me, being kind to myself
is about congruence. How could I have compassion and love for others if I
couldn't have them for myself? Congruence to me means "living
it" or as cliche as it might sound, "practicing what you
preach". I try to practice congruence in all of my interactions,
especially when I'm having conversations about life, goals, what is going on in
the world, and dreams for the future. When I'm talking with others, especially
students, friends, and family, it is incredibly important to me to be a good
listener, to be empathetic and compassionate, to be authentic, and to show
understanding and love as those are all values I hold dear. Practicing
congruence between my values and actions takes work and intentionality. It
isn't always easy but it is worth it in the end as it helps me to feel like I'm
being my best self.
I will leave you with this final quote from
Dr. Brown: “You are imperfect and you’re wired for struggle, but
you are worthy of love and belonging.”
For your assignment this week, please pick a video clip or TED Talk (no
longer than 20 minutes) and post it to your blog. Explain how and why it
connects to you and your values in action. What about the video you selected
specifically rings true to you? Why do you feel connected to your selected
clip? What do you do in your life to help you live what your clip exemplifies
and practice congruence?
Welcome to ASCI 21 and to SCU! Whenever you have a blog assignment due, you'll check this site to find instructions for your posts. We'll be spending 10 weeks learning about each other and reflecting in and out of the classroom and these blogs will create a creative space for personal reflection and connection with one another.
Your first assignment is easy: First, introduce yourself using a few paragraphs. Please feel free to give it some flair - share pictures, links, video clips, whatever will help us learn about you. Second, tell us about something you've done that you're really proud of.
Since I'm asking you to share about yourselves, I want to share a bit about me with you.
My name is Gillian Cutshaw and I'm originally from Fountain Valley down in Southern California. I went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and spent a lot of wonderful years living on the Central Coast during and after college. It is where my parents live and where I consider my home to be. I've spent 8 years working in higher ed, first in sexual assault and dating violence prevention at Saint Mary's College in Moraga and now in leadership education here at SCU. In my role here, I get to advise the Santa Clara Community Action Program (SCCAP), SCU's oldest and largest social justice and service organization, and I get to put on the Magis Leadership Retreat and teach ELP. I absolutely love working with students and I greatly enjoy building relationships with them and helping them grow and find themselves during their college years.
I'm a mom to a sweet, fun, and energetic 1 year old boy named Logan. He goes to daycare at Kids on Campus so you may see him being pushed around campus in his little car. He turned 1 in February and is pretty much the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. He just started walking in January (see video below) and my world now revolves around trying to keep up with him.
Before Logan came along, travel was a huge passion of mine. I went to grad school in Ireland and was fortunate enough to travel all over Europe during that time and since. I even went to swing dance camp in Sweden - twice! A lot of my travels were done alone but now I'm married to another travel enthusiast. My husband Kameron works here at SCU as a Network Engineer. He lived in Japan for several years and has traveled all over Asia. Together we've been to Italy and Ireland and have plans to go to many more places once Logan is older. For now though, we mostly hang out at home and enjoy cooking and eating all kinds of food, watching Marvel movies, Game of Thrones and This Is Us, exploring with Logan, and sleeping whenever we can.
Being a mom has changed my life in ways that I could never have imagined. Now I have a tiny person who gets up at 5:30am and looks to me and his dad to take care of him and show him how to be a person. It's awesome and at the same time it makes me think a lot about who I am, what I value, and how I want my son to see me as he grows up. It also makes me more invested in the world around me as I think about how Logan will be impacted by our society and culture as he gets older. It feels more important than ever to educate myself and make my voice heard on issues that I'm passionate about.
That's enough about me for now. I'm so excited to learn more about all of you and to take this adventure into exploring leadership with you. If you need anything or have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out! Thanks for taking the time to read my post and get to know a bit more about me. Now please enjoy this video of Logan taking his first steps:
