MVE Reflection

Brian Velasquez

Professor Andrews

PSC 2301 C 01

April 20, 2017

Reflection on Mission, Values, and Engagement

    The core values that Notre Dame de Namur represents are the seven hallmarks created by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur to describe the community and the characteristics of what it means to be a student here in NDNU. Even if you are not religious, it reflects everyone’s personal values that they live by in their daily lives. The hallmarks of Notre Dame de Namur include:

• We proclaim by our lives even more than our words that God is good.
• We honor the dignity and sacredness of each person.
• We educate for and act on behalf of justice and peace in the world.
• We commit ourselves to community service.
• We embrace the gift of diversity.
• We create community among those with whom we work and with those we serve.
• We develop holistic learning communities which educate for life.

    Out of the seven, the one hallmark that pertains mostly to my belief is that “we educate for and act on behalf of justice and peace in the world.” That resonates to my personal beliefs because it ow I envision the world to be. Justice is to be fair and abide by the rules that we have accepted to be part of society. With peace we treat everybody with respect and recognize ourselves as one race, the human race. Despite our reality and cruelty that exist, we can still make a better place to live one step a time.  

    “To honor the dignity and sacredness of each person” can be easily applied with my citizen participate that I had a part of for this class. With Table of Plenty, I was able to look more in depth with the people around the community. The community that I served were no longer just low income families, minorities, or the homeless. Every single person who came had decency, were polite and humble. It became a place where all the societal pressure were forgotten and connected with one another through a plate full of food and a prayer. Organizations that help their local community gives you sense of the many different backgrounds that exist. A person’s identity has more meaning when you communicate with one another. My time at Table of Plenty has heighten the career path that I wished to take. In doing so, I will be able to help people who struggle with the law. It will be my way of giving back to the community once I become a lawyer. Teaching me to approach and become more friendly with other people.

    I virtual have no problems with the community here on the campus of Notre Dame de Namur. The problem I do face is my communication with many different people. Due to my highly distrust of others, it has hinder me to become more friendly and an avid participant in class discussions. I can hold a conversation with others and I don’t have a fear of public speaking. I mostly prefer to listen to the many different ethical values that every person has. In terms of sharing my ideas and values to others is not a problem within small groups. I am still used to values that I was taught before, which was to speak when it is your turn. This causes me to struggle when the class is structured to speak freely at any given period during class time. With Table of Plenty, it has taught me to be more open to communicate with the people at my table. Most of the time, the table I served has a language barrier. Many of them understand, but do not speak english. Despite this challenge, I was still able to understand what they like to drink, eat, and other services that would like me to fulfill to make their time at Table of Plenty to be pleasurable. My first time at Table of Plenty, I was very shy. I did not want to serve people because I had to speak with each guest. Overtime I gained confidence and was not afraid to interrupt a conversation to serve food. I had to be patience with myself and allow time to let me be more open to others. So how can I apply this experience in a classroom environment? I need to motivate myself to just talk and stop thinking constantly. Raise my hand to ensure that everyone knows that I would like to speak and share what I have to say. Especially with the career choice that I want, I need to communicate more frequently. I need to be able to have meaningful discussions with not just a small group, but with a greater amount of people.

    With the applied learning experience with classes that I have taken here in NDNU, I became more aware with the problems that we face in world, yet most of us tend to ignore issues until it is too late the address the problem. In terms of applying my knowledge out into the world, I have yet to approach any opportunity. I need to be more active in my communities. Most of classes only have benefitted myself, but I do wish to be able to teach and pass on the knowledge to others.

    I define diversity to be more open to the wide variety of backgrounds that may student have here in the campus of NDNU. Whether it’s their political preference, sexual orientation,  gender, ethnicity, religion and many other identities. With the open environment in NDNU, everyone embraces the many differences that make us unique from each other. There are certain ideas that many do not wish to talk about and it can be hard to get a voice out there to tell everyone what is going on. We just have to take baby steps into understanding the diversity of values that are constantly changing.

    I was able to create a sense of community with my professor during my time here in NDNU. Building relationships with instructors was something that I was never able to do since I was an independent study student for most of my education. Just having simple conversation and being recognized by other professors in new to me and makes me feel safe and more engaged in their teachings. As for students, the many that I grew close to was due to class engagements. Performing an activity with my fellow classmates break the barrier for me to become more open and have a decent conversation with them.

    With my citizen participation, I was able to strengthen my weakness by becoming more open to other individuals within my community. Just connecting with members of my community, students, and professors has boosted my confidence to be more trusting. The skills of communication will help me in the future as it will allow me to better articulate my ideas and values to a wider audience.