MISSION STATEMENT
This entry contains my personal mission statement developed during the winter quarter section of SDAD 5900 Student Development Capstone Seminar. This artifact was created to reflect how my values, passions as well as my personal and professional story that have led me to my role as an educator practitioner.
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This entry demonstrates how my lived experiences and salient identities inform I how I see the world and the interconnectedness that binds each of us together. This entry also demonstrates how I see my vocational call to promote diversity, demand equity, and create spaces for inclusion and belonging.
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The entry addresses the learning outcomes:
LO #2: Understanding students and student issues.
LO #4: Understanding and fostering diversity, justice and a sustainable world formed by a global perspective and Jesuit Catholic tradition.
LO #5: Adapting student services to specific environments and cultures.
LO #6: Developing and demonstrating skills in leadership and collaboration.
LO #10: Establishing and enhancing professional identity.
MY MISSION AS AN EDUCATOR
LOVE | RESILIENCE | HEALING
Who I am is the embodiment of the sacrifices, love, resilience, and prayers of those that have gone before me and those that will come after me. My mission as an educator practitioner is informed by my identity, lived experiences, and the opportunities of encounter I have been gifted throughout my time in education. My vocational call to this work seeks to empower and co-create transformative educational opportunities for all students. My values of inclusion, mutuality, kinship, and justice profoundly inform the way I live and understand the world. Additionally, these values are at the core of my work as a student-centered educator practitioner.
I recognize student success as deeply rooted within the unique identities, experiences, and richness of cultural wealth that each student brings with them into the academic space. I recognize that student success within educational institutions necessitates a culture of community and authentic relationship building. I believe each student deserves the opportunity to stand in their power, knowing that their success has the capacity to transform our educational institutions and dismantle societal barriers that exclude.
As a Xicanx, first-generation college graduate, it is my responsibility to not only take ownership of my salient intersectional identities, but to also leverage my positionality and privilege to create spaces that seek to celebrate diversity and prioritize inclusion. At the individual level, I approach my work through the critical lenses of justice, accompaniment, radical love, and compassionate care. At the institution level, I work from an anti-racist, anti-biased, culturally authentic and competent framework. At the intersection of my individual and institutional work is my desire to show up as my whole self, journeying, learning, and growing alongside the students I serve.
I believe that integrated reflective practice, mindfulness, mentorship, and critical self exploration are central components to my role as an educator practitioner. Through my involvement in diversity, equity, inclusion networks, commitment to continued professional development, mentorship, and community co-creation, I strive to continually improve my practice and to learn and unlearn so that I can better serve my students and the wider community. My work as an educator practitioner is a letter of love forged in gratitude for all that have accompanied me and to the students that will forge the path forward well after I am gone.