April 10th 2014 Portfolio Committee, Bopha Cheng Student Development Administration program Seattle University 901 12th

Ave, P.O. Box 222000 Seattle WA 98122 Dear committee members, This letter is written on behalf of Bopha Cheng, SU SDA masters student, as an appraisal of her professional promise in our field of student affairs. I have known Bopha for the last year as she has been hired on to work part-time on special initiatives for me directly out of my office. She has been working on projects particularly in retention and in specialized outreach. In my role as Vice President for Student Services, I had a need for someone who was highly skilled in the areas of communication, planning, and organization, but especially for someone who was able to integrate my direction and feedback with her own initiative and problem-solving and solution-seeking skills. As well, the person needed to be highly professional, navigate new relationships across the division with confidence and ease, and basically function at a very high level with the limited direction and time I am able to spend with her. I realize that his is a tall--and perhaps impossible--order, but I really needed to find that right person to get initiatives close to my heart off the ground. Bopha easily fulfilled all of these requirements with surprising ease, and as I got to know her better over the course of this year, I have realized that she possesses a skillset that bridges both practitioner skills and leadership skills. I'd like to detail her strengths in a few particular areas that best demonstrate her promise to our field. Bopha has the great ability to understand the "big picture" (a high level, system-wide viewpoint) as well as the on-the-ground details required to make any initiative successful. I consider this a rare and invaluable combination of traits for the work of student development administration. As a leader in our field, one must balance an understanding of institution-wide, systemic, and even societal factors and impacts while also maintaining a

keen understanding of how the operations and services in student affairs must be delivered. Bopha has demonstrated that she can operate on both planes interchangeably, which helps her not only to get the work done, but also to be able to work toward real change and improvement on behalf of all students and populations she is passionate about serving. Bopha has also brought to her work a focus on assessment and ongoing evaluation. In all of the projects and efforts she has undertaken she brings a healthy level of curiosity and research interest to a topic, and as she works through development and implementation, she seeks input, feedback, and advice along the way. Even when she has launched a successful effort--as she has most recently with developing an annual schedule of weekly email successthemed communications to students, she works to identify how to formally assess the effectiveness of the work and present that information for the department and leadership to consider and act on. In addition to these well-developed skills, Bopha also possesses top-notch writing and interpersonal communication skills. Though these are skills that every student affairs professional needs to possess, Bopha can write well and distill a wealth of information in deliverables and reports that are easily understood by many audiences. She also writes very well for student audiences. She has composed dozens of well-received student communications that are succinct, well-edited, and compelling. What provides a great backdrop to her many skills is Bopha's personal and professional style. She is approachable, communicative, warm, collaborative, and direct. She quickly acclimates to a new environment, develops meaningful and substantive rapport with her colleagues, works to learn and respect what they all do, and to identify how to apply and contribute her skills, her work and her influence in a way to improve the collective effectiveness. Her easy personal style makes her a natural in many student affairs functions. As Bopha continues to develop, her leadership stands firmly on a wealth of technical skills and a great combination of personal characteristics. Her promise in our field of student affairs is great, and her combination of experience, her developed skills, and what she has learned in the SU SDA program have paved her pathway to a very effective and rewarding career. I look forward to working with her again in the future! Sincerely,

Rosie Rimando-Chareunsap, Ed.D. Vice President, Student Services South Seattle Community College