Professional Portfolio

This assignment requires you to gather a compilation of papers and projects from this course and previous courses and add them to your Professional Portfolio. The portfolio is designed to help you compile all you have learned throughout your undergraduate studies with the best examples of your work to represent what you are capable of doing when you graduate the program. This assignment also gives you an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned as a student of criminal justice, and to prepare to actualize post-graduation goals. It will serve as a resource as you navigate the world of prospective employers and graduate admissions committees. The student portfolio is also a measure of effectiveness for the Argosy University program in criminal justice. The Professional Portfolio includes two main sections. A Professional Profile section that is completed by all students with either an Employment focus or a Graduate School focus, depending on your post-baccalaureate plans. You worked on this section in Modules 1 and 2. The second section holds your Professional Work Samples demonstrating your abilities, skills, and competencies across a range of tasks and objectives.

The Professional Profile section summarizes your career planning and professional goals. You have already compiled the documents for this section in Modules 1 and 2 of this course. It contains the following documents:

• A Cover Letter as a way to introduce yourself to a potential employer. This includes details about yourself and why you feel you are qualified for the position (Employment).

Or

• A Personal Statement describing your immediate and long-term career goals, including an explanation of why these goals are appropriate in terms of your knowledge, skills, personal characteristics, values, and experiences (Graduate School).

Note: The personal statement is attached to the Curriculum Vitae (Graduate School), and the Cover Letter is attached to the Resume (Employment), so take the time to be creative and not repeat yourself.

• A Resume with list of References that is current, accurate, and professional in appearance (Employment).

OR

• A Curriculum Vitae with list of References that is current, accurate and professional in appearance. (Graduate School)

• Optional: A copy of your Transcript(s)

The Professional Work Samples section demonstrates your performance and mastery of Argosy University’s program outcomes/competencies for the Criminal Justice major.

You will work on this section of the portfolio for this module’s assignment. Select 3–5 documents to serve as samples of your best work in the program. Together, they should illustrate your mastery of all the 7 program outcomes listed below. Examples of the type of work that would illustrate each outcome are provided below, as well. These documents should be samples of your work that you completed in previous courses as an undergraduate student.

These outcomes are listed below, along with the assignments that could be included to demonstrate mastery of the outcome:

• Theoretical Foundations: Assignments, papers, or projects from courses that demonstrate your ability to explain fundamental concepts related to the criminal justice system, and to interpret the historical foundations and contemporary theories associated with the causes of crime, systems of social control, law enforcement, judicial process, and correctional philosophies.
• Problem Solving Principles: Assignments or projects that apply principles of scientific methodology in order to solve varied and complex problems in the field of criminal justice.
• Ethics: Papers that demonstrate your understanding and/or analysis of how one should ethically apply laws, policies, procedures, and operational techniques to the investigation, detection, apprehension, adjudication, and rehabilitation or punishment of criminal offenders.
• Research and Analysis: Assignments or projects that demonstrate your ability to use basic research methods for gathering, analyzing, and interpreting statistical data associated with criminal activity, law enforcement, the judicial process, and corrections.
• Communication (written and oral): Papers, presentation outlines, or slideshows that demonstrate your written and oral communication skills.
• Information Literacy: Assignments, papers, or projects from courses that demonstrate your ability to use information to enhance operational performance, aid in strategic planning, predict crime trends, and promote personal safety.
• Diversity and Interpersonal Effectiveness: Assignments, papers, or projects from courses that demonstrate your ability to analyze and apply skills of interpersonal effectiveness in a criminal justice setting using observation, active listening, and questioning; and your ability to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a diverse society and manage social problems and interpersonal conflict with due respect for race, ethnicity, gender, religion, culture, economic status, and lifestyle.

Once you have assembled your work samples, you will write a 700–1000-word narrative to serve as a preface to the Professional Work Samples section. This narrative should consist of a clear and thoughtful analysis of how each work sample reveals your strengths and areas for improvement, according to each of the seven areas addressed in the program outcomes/competencies (listed above). Make sure you also address how you intend to strengthen your competencies in all areas as you graduate onto the next step of your professional career. On which areas will you focus most and why?

This preface should also include an evaluation of the Criminal Justice program as well as suggestions for the program that will enable it to help future Criminal Justice majors develop these strengths and overcome these weaknesses in the future.

Enter each of these components (Professional Profile, Professional Work Samples, with self- evaluation) into the Professional Profile Template. Post your Professional Portfolio by Wednesday, March 11, 2015