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WORKPLACE EXPECTATIONS
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Thanks for
visiting the website of the Missouri Scholars Academy and for your
initial interest for a faculty or staff position with MSA.
The Missouri
Scholars Academy is a unique experience for faculty and staff as
well as for students, so we thought we'd spend a few moments here
explaining, not the details of each position's responsibilities,
but rather the more general expectations we all work under. We
believe that it is essential to the operation and value of the
program that we all try hard to live up to these expectations.
While prior
experience as a teacher or as a resident assistant or as an office
staff member at other organizations will be a useful spring board
for responsibilities with MSA, in fact MSA—like other Governor's
Schools—is in fact unique, both for Scholars and for faculty and
staff.
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| ENTHUSIASM |
| If
you are dedicated to the goals of MSA, you will naturally be
enthusiastic about it—we're not looking for fake
"spirit." But three weeks (three and a half, if you
count the final preparation period) is a long time, and fatigue
can make one grumpy. We fight against the grumpiness because it
makes the program run more smoothly and because it makes it more
likely that we will achieve our goals with the students. Of course
if you're not dedicated to the goals of MSA, then you'll find the
extraordinary energy and professionalism it requires to be really
unpleasant. If you're thinking of applying just to make some
money, you should definitely look elsewhere. But if you're like
the close to 400 folks who've been part of the MSA faculty and
staff since the inception of the program in 1985, you'll fully
realize that the investment of energy and professionalism will pay
rich dividends in whatever direction your life and career may
move. |
| JUDGMENT |
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We're responsible
for the welfare and security of each and every one of these 330
minors. The way you interact with them and the way you
characterize that interaction when you are not around them should
always show your understanding of those responsibilities. Many MSA
Scholars are extremely mature—emotionally and
intellectually—but they are nevertheless minors, and their
welfare is always our top priority.
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| INTEGRITY |
| Three
hundred thirty fifteen/sixteen year-olds—each of them watching
you do your job at some point. Sixty-five or so co-workers—each
of them depending on you and needing you to be in place, ready to
do your job. There's no alternative here. We have to uphold the
highest standards of honesty and integrity, on- and off-duty, as
role-models, co-workers, and servants of the State of Missouri. |
| RESPECT |
| Respect
for other individuals, cultures, backgrounds, educational levels,
and so forth, is simply absolutely required for anyone who wants
to be effective at MSA. |
| TEAMWORK |
| There's
no definition of what we do at MSA that does not involve working
together as a team. You should be willing not just to work along
side others, but to positively find ways to make your work
complement and enrich that of others. Teamwork means not thinking
of yourself as having one narrow set of duties. It means actively
pursuing ways of working together, it means listening to each
other with a willingness to adjust how you do your job, and it
means not thinking that your work is done when your official
duties for the day have been discharged. If you're looking for a
more individualistic, laissez-faire model, you are looking for a
different job. It means RAs understanding that faculty must spend
time thinking about curriculum and pedagogy if they're to be the
creative teachers MSA wants. It means facutly understanding that
the Residential Life experience of the Scholars tends to be what
they remember most long after the Academy ends. It means RAs and
faculty understanding that office staff, program staff, and others
who work behind the scenes will regularly need help if all the
details that makes MSA "work" are to come together. |
| SERVICE |
| This
program, at its most essential level, is a kind of service. To
work at MSA you need to have someone else's--the
students'--interests at the forefront of your motivations. If you
are in it for yourself, or if you are not first and foremost
interested in promoting the interests of this group of young
people, then this isn't for you. |
| CELEBRATION
AND ENCOURAGEMENT |
| MSA
invokes all of your energy, talents, patience, inter-personal
skills, and professionalism. When we see each other doing these
things well, we ought to make sure that we note it--lots of our
work will go unnoticed, but we try hard to encourage each other
when we see a job well-done. |
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