HESA Program Mission, Core Values, and Learning Outcomes
Mission Statement
To develop practitioner scholars through academic and professional preparation whose commitment to reflection and social justice will transform higher education and student affairs in the spirit of The Vermont Connection.
Core Values
Academic and Professional Preparation
Through partnerships between faculty and student affairs professionals, we promote excellence through academic and professional rigor. We cultivate the knowledge and skills necessary for success in the profession through the synergy between classroom and experiential learning as conceptualized by philosopher and UVM alumnus John Dewey.
Social Justice
We are committed to pursuing social justice as both a process and a goal to dismantle individual, institutional, and societal oppression. Grounded in the ethos of HESA, UVM, and the profession, we strive to transform student affairs for more equitable and inclusive opportunities in higher education.
Reflection
We foster reflection of self, others, and contexts as a critical component of growth in professional practice. Through critical consciousness we strive to improve higher education and student affairs with an aim toward promoting individual, institutional, and societal change.
The Vermont Connection
The Vermont Connection is a collegial network of former and current students, faculty, and student affairs professionals with the shared vision of uplifting community through relationships. The spirit of The Vermont Connection weaves together the history, present, and future of UVM HESA.
Learning Outcomes
As reflected our mission statement and core values, the four program learning outcomes embrace the ACPA/NASPA professional competencies expected of emerging professionals in higher education and student affairs administration.
- Understand, analyze, and apply the evolving body of scholarship and knowledge that guides student affairs practice.
- Develop, analyze, and apply professional skills and values that guide student affairs practice.
- Recognize, analyze, and act upon individual, institutional, and societal inequities in the pursuit of social justice and inclusion.
- Synthesize knowledge, practice, and social justice and inclusion of self, others, and context.