Strategic guidance: blazing a path to student employee excellence in leadership

Seeing the need for quality paraprofessional development, Northwest Missouri State University's Residential Life department created a curriculum based student staff development plan. Due to its success, Northwest's Information Systems department, who jointly supervise the PERT (Peer Educators in Residence for Technology) student staff with Residential Life, adopted the model in the fall of 2004. In fall 2007, the model was further refined to incorporate PERT specific needs. Under the model, PERTs receive training in technical and leadership skills as defined by the core staff development curriculum. The curriculum provides the knowledge for PERTs to deliver presentations, confront inappropriate behaviors, build relationships and become strong leaders. PERTs, who live and work within their residence halls, use their knowledge to facilitate technology training, confront computing policy violations and assist residents with computing problems. PERT supervisors build strong mentoring relationships with each individual student staff member to help hone skills needed for career success. The supervisors challenge the PERTs to push their skills to the next level and serve as mentors to fellow student staff members. Furthermore, PERTs must seek out and attend up to four academic, professional or personal development offerings by the university per year. Each semester, the PERTs are evaluated by supervisors from both departments against the curriculum by which they were trained. Returning staff, who receive low scores, are then required to repeat relevant sessions further refining their leadership skills. This paper will cover the curriculum and mentoring process Northwest utilizes to provide effective student staff professional development.