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Rights and Responsibilities

Reflection Paper

As part of your educational sanction(s), you have been assigned a Reflection Paper. Please be advised that your paper should be reflective and should not serve to justify your own actions or evaluate the actions of others. Your paper must be completed individually and be an original product. You should utilize appropriate language, grammar and spelling. This assignment must be typed and submitted to the Residential Life Conduct Office via email to: judicial@uw.edu by the date and time indicated on your outcome paperwork. You may submit the paper as either a PDF, Word Document, or pasted directly into the body of your email. Upon recieving the paper, the Conduct team will review the submission and you will receive confirmation of completion to your UW Email. 

Please make sure you are choosing the correct topic below as described in your outcome paperwork:

Decision Making

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about your decision-making process during your recent incident
  • Identify elements of decision makers, decision traps, and habits
  • Reflect on your responsibility related to decision making in the HFS community
  • Identify how you want to move forward with your decision making

Watch the video The Power of Decision Making. After watching this video please reflect on your decision–making process during the incident. Utilize the following questions as a guide for your response:

  1. What are some aspects or concepts you related to the most in the video? Why do you believe these resonated with you?
  2. Thinking about the incident you were involved in, what factors impacted your decision making? These factors may or may not have been mentioned in the video.
  3. What is the importance of decision making for you moving forward? What, if anything, do you need to change about the way you make decisions?

The essay should have a minimum of 400 words.

Values and Community Impact

 

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about your own values

  • Reflect on how your actions in the HFS community have aligned or not aligned with these values

  • Identify how you will enact your values moving forward

Watch the short video and complete the online values activity at Mind Tools. Once you have completed the activity by prioritizing your top-ten values, use the following questions as a guide for reflection:

  1. How was the process of selecting and prioritizing your top values? Was there anything surprising or not surprising?

  2. Thinking about your values, how do these values show up in your behavior in this incident? In your behavior in general?

  3. What are some differences or similarities between your values and the HFS community values? 

  4. How may differing values impact relationships or a community? 

  5. Thinking about the HFS community, did your involvement in the incident reflect the values of the community?

The essay should have a minimum of 400 words.

Marijuana Use

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about the information presented in the resource below

  • Reflect on your involvement in the incident leading up to this assignment

  • Understand the impact of the original incident

  • Reflect on your decision-making regarding marijuana consumption

Go to the LiveWell Office’s website and click on the button that says “start a new eCHECKUP TO GO”. Complete the entire online workshop and then take a screenshot of your completion certificate at the end. After completing this workshop, please reflect on your decisions and behavior regarding marijuana. Utilize the following questions as a guide for your response and make sure to answer each question in your paper.

  1. What did you think about the results of your assessment? (minimum 100 words)

  2. What were some things you learned as a result of completing the workshop? (minimum 100 words)

  3. Describe the impact that substance use may have on your career at UW and beyond. (minimum 100 words)

  4. Describe the impact that your behavior may have had on others in your community (i.e., neighbors, friends, family, staff)? (minimum 100 words)

  5. How will this experience (the originating incident, the conduct process, and the online workshop) impact your decisions regarding marijuana in the future? (minimum 100 words)

Alcohol Use

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about the information presented in the resource below

  • Reflect on your involvement in the incident leading up to this assignment

  • Understand the impact of the original incident

  • Reflect on your decision making regarding alcohol consumption

 Go to the LiveWell Office’s website [echeckup.sdsu.edu] and click on the button that says Start a new eCHECKUP TO GO. Complete the entire online workshop, including watching the videos, and then take a screenshot of your completion certificate at the end. After watching this workshop, please reflect on your decisions and behavior regarding alcohol. Utilize the following questions as a guide for your response and make sure to answer each question in your paper.

  1. What did you think about the results of your assessment? (minimum 100 words)

  2. What were some things you learned as a result of completing the workshop? (minimum 100 words)

  3. Describe the impact the originating incident had on you personally. (minimum 100 words)

  4. Describe the impact that your behavior may have had on others in your community (i.e., neighbors, friends, family, staff, emergency responders such as the UWPD or the Seattle Fire Department)? (minimum 100 words)

  5. How will this experience (the originating incident, the conduct process, and the online workshop) impact your decisions regarding alcohol in the future? Think about after you move-out of HFS housing as well.  (minimum 100 words)

Knowingly Present

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about the impact of decisions you made during a recent incident

  • Understand the social impacts and peer dynamics of decision making in the residence hall setting

  • Understand the housing agreement policies regarding substances

  • Identify potential impacts to future decision making

Please watch this video from Crash Course and answer the questions below. Utilize the following questions as a guide for your response and make sure to answer each question in your paper.

  1. The video discusses many social psychology terms including:

  • social influence

  • conformity

  • automatic mimicry

  • normative social influence 

  • social facilitation

  • social loafing 

  • deindividualization 

  • group polarization

  • group think 

      Define two of these terms in your own words and describe how they are connected        to the incident that you were involved in. (minimum 200 words)

  1. The housing agreement holds you to the policy of being Knowingly Present. What do you feel is the purpose of this policy? What about group dynamics in college makes adhering to this policy difficult? (minimum 200 words)

  2. Now that you have had time to reflect on this incident, if you were to be in a similar situation in the future, what would you do differently and how can you assert your individual needs in a group setting? (minimum 100 words)

Safety in a Residential Community

 

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about the impact of decisions you made during a recent incident

  • Reflect on your involvement in the incident leading up to this assignment

  • Understand the safety impact of the original incident

  • Reflect on responsibilities of residence hall community members in regard to safety

  • Identify potential impacts to future decision making

Utilize the following questions as a guide for your response and make sure to answer each question in your paper.

  1. What role does a safe environment have on a shared living community? How did your actions potentially impact the safety of others in your community?

  2. What is your responsibility as a community member to help maintain a safe environment in the residence halls?

  3. How do you feel your actions impacted your individual safety?

  4. What role do HFS policies play in creating a safe environment for residents in the community?

  5. How can an unsafe environment negatively impact the educational mission of the community?

  6. Is there anything that you may consider differently in the future if you were to be in a similar situation? What if you were in an off-campus community?

The essay should have a minimum of 500 words.

Fire Safety

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about fire safety

  • Identify common fire hazards and prevention measures

  • Understand the impacts of fire safety

  • Reflect on responsibilities of residence hall community members regarding fire safety

Conduct research regarding a minimum of two fires that have occurred in residence halls and/or apartment buildings in the United States within the last 20 years as well as general information about the dangers of residence hall fires. Consider visiting the UW Environmental Health and Safety website as a resource for general information: https://www.ehs.washington.edu/fire-life-safety. 

  1. Describe the circumstances that led to the fires in your research, the impact on the individuals directly and indirectly involved, and what preventative measures could have been taken. (minimum 300 words)

  2. What are typical household items that may be considered fire hazards? What preventative measures does the UW and HFS employ to prevent fires? (minimum 200 words)

  3. Regarding the incident that led to this assignment, what are key points that you have learned from your experience in this situation? What preventative measures could have been used to avoid the incident? (minimum 200 words)

Noise Policy

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in a conversation with a Resident Adviser (RA) to better understand how noise impacts your specific community and reflect on personal responsibility

  • Identify key elements of the RA’s role and how noise violations effect their daily work

  • Develop new techniques to monitor personal noise impact

  • Understand the residence halls policies about noise

You are required to meet with an RA in your building. You must schedule with that RA at least 48 hours in advance of the desired meeting time via email or by stopping by their room. This meeting should not last more than 10-15 minutes. You are responsible for showing up to the scheduled meeting on time. If you miss a meeting or are more than five minutes late you will be marked as a no-show, potentially resulting in an additional violation. At the meeting, you will discuss with the RA how noise impacts RA workloads and the campus community. You should also gather information related to the types of noise issues RAs face. You are responsible for brainstorming a minimum of five questions (see talking points below for topics to cover) and engaging respectively and constructively with the RA.

   Talking points:

  • How noise impacts the community

  • Interrupted sleep/study

  • Roommate conflicts

  • How noise impacts the workload of RAs on Duty

  • Writing IRs

  • Confronting incidents

  • Complaints from community members

  • Techniques of avoiding noise violations

  • Quick walk-through of the floor to demonstrate protocol for courtesy/quiet hours

  1. You had an informative conversation with your RA. Please describe the main points of this discussion and what you found most helpful from the meeting. (minimum 200 words)

  2. What values do you feel are represented in the policy statement regarding courtesy and quiet hours? (minimum 100 words)

  3. What techniques were discussed in the meeting and which will you use to prevent noise impacting your community in the future? (minimum 100 words)

Tobacco Use 

 

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Identify facts about tobacco/nicotine use and the impact of tobacco/nicotine on self and others  

  • Reflect on your own tobacco/nicotine usage in the context of larger health and social systems

  • Assess relationship with tobacco/nicotine and identify costs and benefits of usage 

Review The Truth website and select and read three–four facts listed.

Afterwards please respond to the following questions:

  1. What three to four facts did you select and what, if anything, was surprising about each?

  2. Reviewing each of the facts, how do you feel these are all related and what are key takeaways? 

  3. Reflecting on the facts about tobacco and the tobacco industry, how do you assess your own tobacco/nicotine use and what it means for you currently? In your opinion, what are the positive and negative impacts of your use?

  4. How does tobacco/nicotine use impact a shared living community? What are techniques that you can use to mitigate impact and comply with policy should you choose to engage in use? 

The reflection should have a minimum of 400 words.

Housing Agreement Review

 

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Become familiar with the UW HFS Housing Agreement 

  • Reflect on your responsibility related to decision making in the HFS community

  • Identify the importance of reading contracts 

Read through the UW HFS Housing Agreement and complete the worksheet based on the Housing Agreement that you signed upon move-in. Please fill out every question and e-mail your completed worksheet to judicial@uw.edu. If you are unable to complete the worksheet online as a PDF or have general technical issues, please provide your answers on a separate document or contact judicial@uw.edu for support. 

This worksheet is meant to be reflective. Each short answer question should contain at least five sentences.

Guest Responsibility

 

The purpose of this assignment is to:

  • Engage in purposeful thought about the impact of your recent incident

  • Reflect and understand your responsibility to your community in regard to your guest’s behavior

  • Understand your assertiveness in situations where you are not actively engaging in policy violation

  • Reflect on the responsibility HFS community members have to their own personal decisions and decisions of others

  • Identify how you want to move forward with your decision making

Complete the Assertiveness Inventory. After completing, reflect on your comfort with assertiveness in relation to the incident. Utilize the following questions as a guide for your response:

  1. What did you notice about yourself when completing the Assertiveness Inventory?

  2. What responsibility do you have to your community concerning how your guests behave while in the community?

  3. What purpose does guest responsibility have in HFS?

  4. Did you or did you not address your guest’s behavior in the moment? What factors lead to your decision and ability to advocate for yourself?

  5. How can you apply what you learned about yourself to future situations involving guests and advocating for your and their actions? 

The essay should have a minimum of 400 words.