The Student Development Office extends learning outside of the classroom by providing diverse opportunities for our student population to develop social, personal, and professional skills through involvement in clubs, the Associated Student Government, leadership programs, and other activities on campus. Our goal is to develop the whole student by providing meaningful experiences that empower students, create community, and provide new opportunities for students to be challenged and discover untapped potential within.
The Student Development Office is the go to for campus engagement in social and educational activities, programs, and services at Saddleback College. We are here to help you find areas that will allow you to grow as a leader, explore new interests, and help find your community. The Student Activities Office provides a variety of resources and information on areas such as: Campus Life Activities, Associated Student Government (ASG) and Student Clubs.
Learning Outcomes
As a part of a concentrated effort to build a coherent and robust student development program at Saddleback College — inclusive of leadership, personal, and professional development — the Student Office will formulate and assess student learning outcomes yearly. We believe that student learning outcomes provide the necessary framework by which our efforts, goals, mission, and objectives are made intelligible to all involved in the endeavor. Students will not just understand what the Student Development staff and advisors expect of them and their learning process, but also what to expect of the program and themselves. Student learning outcomes are therefore just as useful for the student participant as they are for programmatic review, evaluation, and improvement. To this end, each year the students involved in the programs associated with Student Development will also contribute to the formulation of the student learning outcomes. For 2010-2011 we’ve devised student learning outcomes categorized according three cornerstones that serve to build our programmatic foundation:
The Student Development Office considers self-awareness and personal development to provide the essential foundational elements for leadership skill-building and student success. Exploring self-awareness involves identifying and articulating various facets — cultural, social, and familial — that contribute to the formation of one’s identity. In addition, discovering ones strengths and learning how to use those attributes translates self-knowledge into leadership acumen, contributing to personal and professional success. Lastly, the development of self-awareness requires the student to better understand their personal talents, values, and interests, and further, to understand how these characteristics relate to effective leadership.
Students will:
- Develop and exhibit and accurate sense of self
- Develop and nurture a deep understanding of personal motivation
- Develop an understanding of and practice personal and professional responsibility
- Demonstrate knowledge of personal beliefs and values and a commitment to continuing personal reflection and reassessment
- Learn to balance confidence with humility
- Assert strengthened personal character and further, an enhanced ethical sense
- Applying the comprehensive set of skills and knowledge for life success (of self and others) gained from one's Saddleback College education
Guided by the Social Change Model of Leadership as defined by the Higher Education Research Institute’s 1996 publication entitled "A Social Change Model of Leadership Development: Guidebook Version III," the Student Development Office understands that effective leadership serves to emphasize the need to understand self and others in order to create community and make positive, lasting change. The central tenets of this model are inclusivity, an orientation to process, and work through collaboration. Students are therefore encouraged to develop mutually beneficial relationships through communication and cooperation with others, collaborate to achieve group goals, practice living and leading with integrity, and learn about issues of local and global significance in order to become active members of their communities.
Students will:
- Identify, understand, and apply contemporary theories of leadership to a wide range of situations and interactions
- Develop and articulate a personal philosophy of leadership
- Understand concepts of democratic leadership and processes
- Understand the relationship between curricular and co-curricular experiences as a determinate of student success
- Learn to evaluate and improve upon personal leadership strengths and weaknesses
- Help students understand the communication process, its benefits and challenges
- Practice and perform professional written and oral communication
- Take responsibility
- Think critically
- Practice creativity
- Collaborate: students will develop the strategies to work with others to achieve specific goals
- Learn to manage conflict: understand and appropriately apply the skills of problem solving, conflict management and resolution while allowing for healthy disagreement
- Learn to effectively lead others on a project or in an organization
- Explore, understand, and lead, guided by the values of self-awareness, equity, social justice, inclusiveness, empowerment, collaboration, citizenship, and service
- Learn how personal values connect to motivation thus serving to benefit teamwork
- Give voice to all involved, working to inspire a shared vision
- Contribute to an inclusive and engaging environment for a dynamic campus community
- Show a record of leadership experiences in preparation for future leadership opportunities
The Student Development Office understands diversity to be one of the greatest assets to any community. Fueling our collective creativity and ingenuity, our diverse society creates an energy of possibility as we negotiate to make positive change. We expect students to develop an understanding of how various aspects of diversity such as culture, ethnicity, sex, race, gender, religion, sexual identity, socioeconomic status, and ability all affect one's development and perspective as a leader. Furthermore, students will learn to appropriately challenge unfair, unjust or uncivil behavior Through experiences with organizations such as the ASG Diversity Student Council or events such as the ASG funded Anthropology Brown Bag Luncheon Series, students will learn to value others and build confidence as engaged citizens as they become proactive members of their communities.
Students will:
- Develop and articulate respect for the diversity of talents, ways of knowing and learning
- Appreciate the relationship between human diversity effective teambuilding
- Learn social responsibility
- Understand and appreciate frameworks for ethical decision-making
- Students will apply ethical theories to leadership situations
- Identify and understand the impact of culture on one’s leadership style
- Evaluate one’s growth as an interculturally competent leader
- Understand that innovation and collaboration are important to leadership
- Develop a sense of citizenship
- Prepare for community involvement
- Understand the relationship between transformational leadership and personal, community, national, and world change
Special thanks to the University of Minnesota and Clemson University for direction and guidance on current practices in student development programs.
Higher Education Research Institute. (1996). A Social Change Model of Leadership Development: Guidebook Version III. Los Angeles: The Regents of the University of California.
Resources
ASB STAMP: The ASB stamp offers students, faculty, and staff exclusive discounts on and off-campus, while supporting Student Life! Find out more by visiting our office in SSC 207. Students: if you didn't purchase the stamp during registration, you can purchase your ASB stamp from the Student Payment Office. E-mail the Student Payment Office at scpayment@saddleback.edu. Be sure to check out (and utilize) all the benefits!
CLUBS: Our goal is to connect students to campus organizations in an effort to foster a sense of community and facilitate the development of students academically, professionally and socially.
ASG: Associated Student Government is a student-run organization that develops and promotes campus life events and also advocates for the student population, with the goal of providing a better experience for students at Saddleback College.
HOUSING: Saddleback College Student Development does not provides housing postings online or on the Saddleback College campus. Community members may utilize the Public Posting Boards located around campus for their own housing listings. Flyers do not require approval. Please bring your own tacks or staples for posting.