GRAPCEP's Commitment to Professionalism
Preparing students to become part of the academic and workplace professional culture in math and science has always been an emphasis in our school. For this reason, we have structured our expectations and practices around professional standards drawn from higher education, business, and industry as described below.
Defining Gracious Professionalism
Our working definition has been adapted from the founder of one of our affiliated programs, FIRST Robotics, Dr. Woodie Flowers:
Gracious Professionalism is a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community. With Gracious Professionalism, fierce competition and mutual gain are not separate notions. Gracious professionals learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness in the process. They avoid treating anyone like losers. No chest thumping tough talk, but no sticky-sweet platitudes either. Knowledge, competition, and empathy are comfortably blended. In the long run, Gracious Professionalism is part of pursuing a meaningful life. One can add to society and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing one has acted with integrity and sensitivity.
The Five Key Traits of Professionalism
One of the resources we use in our program is the short book Professionalism is for Everyone by James R. Ball. Through this book professionalism is refined down to five key traits for us to understand and develop:
· Character: having integrity, responsibility
· Attitude: possessing a servant’s mindset and being a positive contributor to teamwork
· Excellence: being committed to quality, setting high standards, not settling for mediocrity, and being intrinsically motivated to achieve
· Competency: working to attain a degree of expertise, and master the content for which you are responsible, while continuing to learn and improve
· Conduct: choosing to interact with one another in an appropriate way, being loyal and keeping confidence, acting with confidence, and having class
Putting Professionalism into Practice
In day to day life within the school, we will work to be professional in our personal and community conduct. As guidelines for that conduct we will use the following Ten Rules of Professionalism (Taken from Professionalism is for Everyone):
1. Make a commitment to be professional.
2. Do and say what you believe is the right thing to do or say.
3. Look and act professional.
4. Take pride in your work.
5. Learn your craft and teach it to others.
6. Be accountable and responsible for your actions.
7. Do not tolerate mediocrity.
8. Do whatever you need to do whenever you need to do it.
9. Do something useful to serve others.
10. Invest continually in your own professional development and growth.
Defining Gracious Professionalism
Our working definition has been adapted from the founder of one of our affiliated programs, FIRST Robotics, Dr. Woodie Flowers:
Gracious Professionalism is a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community. With Gracious Professionalism, fierce competition and mutual gain are not separate notions. Gracious professionals learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness in the process. They avoid treating anyone like losers. No chest thumping tough talk, but no sticky-sweet platitudes either. Knowledge, competition, and empathy are comfortably blended. In the long run, Gracious Professionalism is part of pursuing a meaningful life. One can add to society and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing one has acted with integrity and sensitivity.
The Five Key Traits of Professionalism
One of the resources we use in our program is the short book Professionalism is for Everyone by James R. Ball. Through this book professionalism is refined down to five key traits for us to understand and develop:
· Character: having integrity, responsibility
· Attitude: possessing a servant’s mindset and being a positive contributor to teamwork
· Excellence: being committed to quality, setting high standards, not settling for mediocrity, and being intrinsically motivated to achieve
· Competency: working to attain a degree of expertise, and master the content for which you are responsible, while continuing to learn and improve
· Conduct: choosing to interact with one another in an appropriate way, being loyal and keeping confidence, acting with confidence, and having class
Putting Professionalism into Practice
In day to day life within the school, we will work to be professional in our personal and community conduct. As guidelines for that conduct we will use the following Ten Rules of Professionalism (Taken from Professionalism is for Everyone):
1. Make a commitment to be professional.
2. Do and say what you believe is the right thing to do or say.
3. Look and act professional.
4. Take pride in your work.
5. Learn your craft and teach it to others.
6. Be accountable and responsible for your actions.
7. Do not tolerate mediocrity.
8. Do whatever you need to do whenever you need to do it.
9. Do something useful to serve others.
10. Invest continually in your own professional development and growth.