Running head: MIDTERM REFLECTION

Midterm Reflection
EDLD 8735 Higher Education Practicum
Jeff Patty
Georgia Southern University

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Midterm Refection Questions
Describe your practicum environment. Identify your mentor, other employees,
clients served, and the organization itself. Identify some ways you initially tried to orient
yourself to and gain acceptance within the organization. Rank your practicum experience
thus far on a scale of 0-5 with 0= poor and 5= outstanding. Explain your response - two
paragraph minimum.
My practicum environment is located at Georgia Highlands College (GHC). Georgia
Highlands College, formerly Floyd College and Floyd Junior College, has been serving citizens
of Northwest Georgia since 1970. GHC is a growing institution with six sites now situated
throughout the Northwest Georgia area and serving a growing enrollment of over 5,700
students. In 2011, the institution became a limited mission, four-year state college and now
offers a number of baccalaureate degrees.
I chose to complete my practicum experience in the area of student affairs. One of the
things I have learned in my twenty-five-year career with the college is that our whole purpose
for everything we do revolves around students. Without students, there would be no purpose for
all of our efforts. Our job is to provide every opportunity for our students to achieve their
educational dreams. Additionally, while completing the various courses in this Higher
Education Administration program, I have found the area of student affairs to be of particular
interest. For these reasons, I chose to work with the Vice President of Student Affairs to
complete my practicum project.
Dr. Todd Jones is the Vice President of Student Affairs and has served in this particular
role for several years. Like me, Dr. Jones has worked his way up through the ranks and other
positions within his area of discipline. He arrived at the top spot within his divisional area of

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the institution by dedicating himself to learning all he could about the many facets of his area,
working hard, proving his ability to lead, and engaging with other leaders to accomplish the
mission of the institution. For these reasons and others, Dr. Jones was an easy decision to work
with on this project. After approaching Dr. Jones about the possibility of serving as my
practicum mentor, he was immediately willing and gracious to offer his support. Dr. Jones
suggested a couple of ideas that could serve as my project and would also offer him some muchneeded assistance. The workload that Dr. Jones carries for his areas of responsibility seems
enormous to me. One of the projects that Dr. Jones had in mind was the creation of a new
Enrollment Management Plan for the institution. He has some specific areas of this plan that he
thought would be valuable to both him and me. My concentration for this project was to
conduct research into the surrounding counties and high schools we serve to determine growing
enrollment trends and projections. From these statistics, we could begin to draw some
conclusions regarding recruitment efforts and how those would begin to shape the Enrollment
Management Plan. Additionally, he needed research into the accompanying demographic data
surrounding these communities and students. Since we are situated on these six campuses
across a wide geographic area, we serve a diverse population. All of these raw data sets would
then need to be massaged and analyzed into predictive patterns and ultimately provide us with
guidance regarding recruitment strategies. Dr. Jones also hoped to accomplish adding more data
regarding retention efforts to this plan, as the current Enrollment Management Plan lacked
emphasis in this area. He also asked that if there was any summary analysis I could help write
from my findings, those would likely be useful in developing the language surrounding the plan.
In addition to working with Dr. Jones on this effort, he has recommended also working
with specialists in his various units to gain a better understanding or ask questions relating to the

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material I would be working with. I have spoken with the Assistant Director of Admissions,
Sherri Beideck, on several occasions regarding enrollment numbers and other recruiting
measures. I will also be discussing recruiting strategies and specific community challenges with
some of the other Campus Deans that are responsible for helping to coordinate these efforts on
other campuses, as I begin to group some of the data.
So far my practicum experience is certainly a 5. It has been great to work with Dr.
Jones and concentrate my efforts on something other than a technology related activity. Getting
to see how the beginning of a students enrollment process starts with recruitment and the
numbers of potential students is very interesting. Furthermore, the ability for us to strategically
market the colleges strengths to the different segments and communities we serve is incredible.
There are a number of potential students that have never really thought of GHC as their higher
education destination or understood the advantages we can offer. It is exciting to be a part of
this process and better understand what it takes to serve students from a different perspective
than we see in our own area of discipline, information technology.
Discuss/reflect upon at least one of the components of your portfolio and its
application to your practicum experience and/or a work experience one
paragraph minimum.
There have been several courses during this program that have been of particular interest
and I think contributed to my interest in the area relating to students specifically. A few of these
have been Contemporary College Student (COUN 7132), The Community College (EDLD
8434), and Higher Education Administration (EDLD 7431). However, I feel the course in
educational research, Educational Research (EDUR 7130), directly corresponds to much of the
work I am performing. While this course has by far been the hardest for me and contained the

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largest amount of work, it has offered insight into the process of conducting educational
research. While I am not exactly conducting an actual study, I am utilizing the same types of
research fundamentals. Once I have completely finished analyzing and ordering the data into
specific categories, I will certainly use some of the statistical techniques detailed in this course.
The course has taught me that raw data can take on many different shapes depending on how
one chooses to look at the data. There is no doubt a great deal we can learn about the different
enrollment trends at the high schools we serve and interesting patterns to derive from the
demographic analysis of the populations we encounter in our service areas.
What has been the biggest eye-opener from your experience thus far? Explain
your response two paragraph minimum.
I am not sure if there has been one big eye opening moment or several. Working with
Dr. Jones has obviously expanded my understanding of the issues and challenges faced in
working with students in the various areas of responsibilities relating to student affairs.
Although Dr. Jones and I have worked with each other for several years, we do not usually have
the same types of conversations. We generally bring our respective issues to meetings from our
unique vantage points, discuss them, and then go about our business. Our weekly discussions
about student affairs items have allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of topics in his area.
We end up discussing a broader range of topics than just the narrower focus of my practicum
assignment. There is a great deal that goes into creating a proper Enrollment Management Plan,
just like I have experienced in creating the previous Information Technology Strategic Plan. I
know this newly gained insight will help me make better decisions in my own area, as I better
understand the ramifications of these decisions. Likewise, I am sure it will help me create a
better Information Technology Strategic Plan in the coming months.

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The other area that has been an eye opener for me relates to the data I am seeing so far in
terms of high school enrollments and communities we serve. I am not sure why, but I had no
idea how many schools we actually serve in our eleven county service area. There are far more
high schools than I ever imagined. These are all possible student enrollments. Enrollment, in
the end, drives the financial side of our house and allows us to accomplish many tasks across
our institution to better serve students. Likewise, the numbers of potential students at each of
these schools is also staggering. There are many potential students lined up for graduation if
you look at the enrollment numbers for K-12. As an access institution, GHC needs to be ready
to serve these potential students should they choose us as we hope they do. I have just started
looking at some of the demographic data, but I think it is going to provide some interesting
statistics on the economic capabilities of the citizens we serve in Northwest Georgia. These and
other demographics will also likely be very shocking to see the circumstances of the people we
live and work alongside.
How is your and your mentors administrative philosophy the same? How is it
different? Explain your responses one paragraph minimum for each part.
For the most part, I think that Dr. Jones and I have similar philosophies on how to
administer and manage our respective areas. Overall, we believe in what we are doing and want
both our individual areas to achieve the highest level of effectiveness, but also the institution as
a whole to be as successful as possible. I believe this starts with a highly motivated leader, who
focuses their efforts on ensuring the areas of responsibility under them perform optimally and
that all activities are completed in a timely and effective manner. We both try to be these types
of leaders. We strive for our people working underneath us to also mirror these same
philosophies while realizing their full potentials as well. We provide opportunities for growth

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for our employees if they can also demonstrate these same principles for achievement and
service to the institution.
As for the areas that Dr. Jones and I differ in our administrative philosophies, these get
harder to identify. I certainly see more in common than I do that is different. Perhaps, I have
not had as many opportunities to witness enough differences in our daily strategies that I would
consider different. I think possibly we manage our people slightly different. I do not wish to be
a micro-manager, but I think maybe I do scrutinize my staff a little more to ensure they are
handling situations, conducting their day-to-day activities, and handling customers in a very
specific way. I do believe there is a correct way to do these tasks. I have been managing these
activities at GHC for over twenty-five years now and feel that we have a successful model and
strategy. I try to impart this knowledge to all IT employees when they begin working for me.
My top two managers that assist me in overseeing the responsibilities for our division have
helped to form these concepts over the years and work with me to ensure our people follow
these guidelines in conducting their work. Perhaps, this is indeed slightly different than Dr.
Jones may give some of his more autonomy over the work they perform.
Identify areas in which you wish you had more content knowledge or skills to better
perform within your practicum experience. Explain the areas and the reasons one
paragraph minimum.
I have worked on and created several different technology plans over my career. I
thought it would be a very similar experience in assisting Dr. Jones with this Enrollment
Management Plan. While the mechanics and overall structure may be very similar in
developing plans, my background knowledge and experience is lacking to the level I wish to be.
I am used to completely understanding my realm and being able to quickly see statistical

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patterns and understand technical issues that need addressing. In researching the areas required
in this plan, I am starting from the ground up. I am not familiar with the schools we serve, the
types of data I am encountering, and really what it all means. I have to ask Dr. Jones for more
insight than I would like. He has the background understanding, however. I would love to have
more knowledge so I could just conduct the research and write the sections of the plan
accordingly. I am confident that this process will provide me with a better understanding of the
students we are serving and give me a more robust understanding so I can not only make betterinformed decisions relating to my area of technology, but also allow me to better assist in other
areas of the institution, as a result of this experience.