This entry contains: My personal statement created for SDAD 5900: Capstone Seminar in 2017.
This entry demonstrates: My capacity to reflect and synthesize my personal and professional experiences. This mission statement addresses the values that undergird my practice, the salient identities inseparable from my lived experiences, and my aspirations for impacting the field of higher education.
This entry addresses learning outcome(s):
#2, understanding students and student issues, as I apply my values to the lens through which I work to understand students.
#3, exhibiting professional integrity and ethical leadership in professional practice, as the principles and professional competencies stated in my mission statement directly influence my ethical leadership.
#4, understanding and fostering diversity, justice and a sustainable world formed by a global perspective and Jesuit Catholic tradition, as my professional and personal identity is founded in the Jesuit educational values of diversity, inclusion, social justice, an ethic of care, and critical thought.
#8, communicating effectively in speech and writing, as I have synthesized the essence of my personal and professional mission into written word.
Driven by mission and empowered by impact, I am a person who chooses to see the world for all that it could be instead of how it’s always been. My identities, visible and invisible, contribute to my critical lens and guide my approach to everything. I ask questions. I chase vulnerability. I wonder with abandon. And, above all, I lean on my values.
I believe in inclusion, justice, and being a changemaker. These values shine through in both my personal and professional dimensions, meaning I bring my genuine self to all the work I do. I’ve found that working in higher education and student affairs brings these dimensions together in a way that stewards the impact I aspire to create for students and sparks the fulfillment I need to keep going. As a servant leader in this field, I exist to support students to reach their fullest potential and to challenge the idea of what a professional looks like. I’m dedicated to providing students with the tools they need for success while also stepping out of their way so they can grow.
When I center the voices of the marginalized in my practice, I’m radically shifting the way we work to include those for whom higher education was not originally intended. When I interrupt the status quo to propose an alternative that considers a more equitable outcome for everyone, I’m living into my commitment to justice and care for human dignity. I am the culmination of all my intersecting identities and varied experiences; my Latinx heritage, my queerness, my cisgender maleness, my past of socioeconomic instability, my bilingual ancestry, my Westernized upbringing, my broken and loving home. Simply by existing as I am, by bringing my authentic self to every meeting, consultation, and collaboration, I’m creating change on an institutional, cultural, and individual level. My border and passing identities have opened doors that are typically difficult for people like me to enter, and I aspire to push these doors open for others in the ways that I can. Each day is a challenge to give back and to use my identities as a tool to make a difference for those not always invited to the table.
It is my greatest hope that, by the end of my time in the profession and on this earth, that I leave both in a better place than when I found them.
MATT NAZARIO-MILLER 