Portfolios for learning and more brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. Host Kristina Hoeppner talks with portfolio practitioners, researchers, learning designers, students, and others about their portfolio story.
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Solena Ornelas, MA, started her college career at Dominican University of California, earning her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Music. She then continued on to New York University to pursue a Master of Arts in Art Politics, and is now a civil servant as congressional staffer.
In this interview Solena outlines how she started with her portfolio and developed it over time, and what the main uses are for her: goal setting and showcasing her accomplishments as a multi-talented performance artist, activist, academic, and civil servant.
This episode kicks of a mini-series with five portfolio authors from Dominican University of California whom I was privileged to meet in preparation for and during the first AAEEBL ePortfolio Retreat that was held at Dominican on 18 October 2024.
Production information Production: Catalyst IT Host: Kristina Hoeppner Artwork: Evonne Cheung Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Introduction
When were you introduced to portfolios and what did your portfolio journey look like?
What support did you receive?
What are the benefits of creating a portfolio?
What are your future plans for your portfolio?
Q&A: 3 words to describe portfolio work
Q&A: A tip for learning designers and educators
Q&A: A tip for portfolio authors
Kristina Hoeppner:
Welcome to'Create. Share. Engage.' This is the podcast about portfolios for learning and more for educators, learning designers, and managers keen on integrating portfolios with their education and professional development practices. 'Create. Share. Engage.' is brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. My name is Kristina Hoeppner. Today I'm speaking with Solena Ornelas She's a graduate of Dominican University of California, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Music, and New York University, where she earned her Master of Arts in Art Politics. Christina Mayes, the Manager of the Fletcher Jones Digital Portfolio Lab at Dominican and one of this year's new AAEEBL Digital Ethics Task Force members, recommended I have a chat with her former student Solena. Welcome to the podcast!
Solena Ornelas:
Thank you, Kristina. I'm happy to be here.
Kristina Hoeppner:
I've already mentioned that you have a Bachelor of Arts from Dominican University of California and also now a Master's of Arts in Art Politics from NYU. Can you please tell me a little bit more about yourself? What do you do?
Solena Ornelas:
I am a performance artist, an activist, and an academic. My goal is to be a political science researcher, but I currently work in civil service. I am a congressional staffer for a senior ranking member in the 118th Congress, and I look forward to continuing that work, working for constituents, but also at the same time, continuing my work as a conceptual artist in New York.
Kristina Hoeppner:
That is quite a lot of things, which we can also see actually on your portfolio because you have outlined all of your different areas of interests there very well, and I'll make sure to link to that. Solena, thank you so much for sharing how multi-interested you are in so many different things, and that, of course, for me, begs the question, because I know what political science is, I know what music is, but I've never put them together in a master's programme yet. And you studied Art Politics. What does that actually entail, and how do you continue with your research in that area?
Solena Ornelas:
I was prompted by a video I saw of Nina Simone speaking at one of her concerts where an audience member asked her, "Why do you feel the need to advocate for individuals at the margins who are historically marginalised?" And she said, plainly, "I'm a woman of colour. I have no other choice." And so that led me down this path of how am I going to actively highlight marginalised individual story through my work as an artist? Through that, I was prompted to compose pieces that highlighted historically marginalised folks stories, and then in my master's programme at NYU, my research particularly focused on political performance. So how are black political figures, particularly in the global west, performing because of differing factors, mainly being white supremacy, and how are black political figures in the global west made to perform? And I found that art and politics is never disjointed and that the political time always informs the art we're making. That's how I was able to conjoin the two.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Thank you for making that connection clearer. Solena, since Christina introduced me to you, I learned that you started creating your first portfolio at Dominican University of California on the other end of the country in the United States. When was that? When did you start working with portfolios?
Solena Ornelas:
I first began my portfolio in the fall of 2020. I was a freshman in college, and I started at Dominican during the height of the pandemic. So my portfolio was started completely online. At Dominican, you had to take an introductory course when you entered college that was called 'Mastering College' at the time. The advisor that you were paired with in 'Mastering College' had you complete a number of tasks, one of them being beginning the portfolio. What's really interesting when you first begin the portfolio at Dominican, it's more so goal setting. So it's not necessarily showcasing the work you've already done. It's setting yourself up to what you would like to achieve throughout your time at Dominican.
Kristina Hoeppner:
So pretty much everybody at Dominican then would have had a portfolio starting in their freshman year.
Solena Ornelas:
Yes, that's correct.
Kristina Hoeppner:
That is so absolutely fantastic. That portfolio then that you started, did you keep up with it throughout the four years, or did you then enter different phases of creating different portfolios? What did your portfolio journey look like?
Solena Ornelas:
That's a really interesting question, and I think the answer would vary based on the student that you ask at Dominican. For me, I was really focused on setting up achievable goals in my portfolio. So with that being said, every single year I was a student at Dominican, I would look back and see how I was progressing. However, I know some other students would place their portfolio to the side their sophomore, junior years, and revisit during their senior year and check mark if they had achieved some of those goals they had initially set during their freshman year. For me as a music student, I was always interested in keeping up my portfolio on the repertoire I was getting done, the classes I was getting done as well because I would oftentimes use my portfolio as a way to showcase my work. If I was auditioning for an orchestra, or if I wanted to go into an ensemble, I would show 'Professor, oh, these are the ensembles I already have done. This is what my repertoire looks like as well.'
Kristina Hoeppner:
At that time then, while you were actively building your portfolio, was that then already public to everybody, or did you create different portfolios for the audience with whom you wanted to share something specifically?
Solena Ornelas:
My portfolio has always been public, and I've always made sure to decipher the work that I wanted to showcase, and I never necessarily changed the way I present myself to a particular audience just because I feel as though who I am is ultimately multi-hyphenate as a researcher, performance artist, and also civil servant. One of those categories never outweighs the other. If I was presenting my portfolio to someone in the music space, I didn't necessarily just put music on my portfolio, always had every single category.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Which I think also makes sense because you have that dual major in these two very distinct areas, and so, of course, you always live on that intersection there.
Solena Ornelas:
Yeah, that's correct.
Kristina Hoeppner:
What kind of support did you receive from the Dominican team? You did mention that it was part of a course that you went through and then also you kept up with your portfolio throughout the years. What did that look like?
Solena Ornelas:
Initially at Dominican, you were matched with an integrative coach who assists you in your transition in to college. My integrative coach at Dominican was very helpful in laying out how a portfolio could look, the different options for setting up a portfolio, and she made sure to set up a specific time which each student in the class. So that was very helpful because she not only asked questions about my professional goals, but also personal goals as well. Why am I pursuing what I'm pursuing, political science and music, that allowed me to uncover some of the portions you see on my portfolio today where I define myself as a first-generation student and a civil servant and performance artist. Those all go back to the initial conversation I had with my integrative coach on why I am interested in music and political science.
Kristina Hoeppner:
From what I'm hearing, Solena, is that you have been going through quite a bit of an iterative cycle there with your portfolio. You've looked at it, you've revisited it, you've reflected on what you have done, you've done that across the different years that you were at university. Is that understanding of mine correct?
Solena Ornelas:
That's completely correct. It's a really gratifying process to be able to look back at your work and see how much you've grown personally and professionally. So as I mentioned before, the first year you set up your digital portfolio, it's really goal setting. What are some of the goals I want to achieve throughout my collegiate career? By your senior year, in your senior seminar course, which I took with Alison Howard, who is also a great mentor and someone who helped build my portfolio into what it is today, we really got to look back and say, 'Hey, did I meet these goals? Or what do I want to do next to help me grow personally and professionally?' And so by my senior year, I was able to really just be proud of myself at all the work I had done musically, but then also say,'Hey, what else have I done throughout my college career that I can add to this?' Maybe I was a resident advisor that I could add. Or maybe the fact that I was a resident advisor doesn't necessarily fit into my career goals moving forward. And so Alison was a really great help in helping me decipher what different parts of myself and different parts of my collegiate experience I should add on to my digital portfolio. So by the time I was in grad school at NYU, I really had a good foundational building block of this is the research I'm interested in. How can I continue to build onto that? This is who I am as a musician. How can I continue to build onto that? And really build a portfolio that is streamlined, and I say streamlined because I think that even though, as we were talking about before, music and political science seemingly are completely different things, for me, they're integrated, and I hope, through my digital portfolio, it's telling a story, and I'm only able to tell a story because of the foundational work done throughout the years.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Your portfolio does make that very clear of who you are, and by having all of these aspects of you in there, we see you as a whole person. Solena, did you keep the old versions of your portfolio then or have you always iterated over one portfolio and only have that current version?
Solena Ornelas:
I was just thinking about that the other day that I wish I had kept digital versions of my portfolio every time I had updated it, but unfortunately, no, I just have the current version that's grown and grown over the years.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Maybe that's something to pay more attention to in the portfolio world to make that looking back even a bit easier for people who are interested in that. Solena, you mentioned that you've worked with your integrative coach in the first year, when you were introduced to Dominican and received support in starting your portfolio, and also of how to be a college student. And then we jumped to the end, where you worked with Alison. Have you also shared your portfolio with other students?
Solena Ornelas:
We did engage in a peer review cycle both, when we had initially set up our portfolios my freshman year during 'Mastering college,' we had taken a look at everyone's via Zoom because that was still the era where we were taking Zoom classes. And then my senior year of university as well, in Alison's 'Senior seminar' course, we also did a peer review cycle, which I found particularly helpful because I was receiving feedback from my peers who are similar generation, so we kind of have a different perception of technology and media-based platforms as well that I found helpful. So there was a wide range of opinions on 'Hey, why did you choose to use that picture for this specific topic? Does it tie in nicely with what you're trying to communicate?' Just getting feedback from not only advisors, but also peers who are going through the same exact process as you is so helpful because they're probably asking the question because they want to know for themselves.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Since we've started on the benefits of portfolios for students, where do you see the benefits that you had in creating a portfolio, engaging in that reflective process, and working also on it continuously throughout your university career?
Solena Ornelas:
During undergrad, the portfolio process was particularly helpful in helping me see what I need to spend more time doing, whether that be internships, more research experiences, or being more involved in student led organisations on campus because it really allows you to have your collegiate experience in a tangible way. Even though it's a meta based platform, it's very tangible. You can clearly see that if you have no internship experience, or if you, for a musician, haven't had enough performance experiences, That was helpful throughout my collegiate experience because I got to really look at what I needed to pay more attention to, what I needed to get out of college as well, and it's much more hands on and also more fun to create than just a résumé. When I was applying to grad school, it was particularly helpful as well because I submitted my portfolio alongside my application documents, which for a conceptual artist is such a benefit because it's difficult for us to communicate something that's oftentimes incommunicable on a piece of paper, and so to be able to do that on a digital portfolio, I think it's just a benefit for individuals who are not easily confined by one media.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Is there anything else where you see that it's useful, not just for you as a musician, because we know that artists in particular benefit from portfolios because you can showcase what you do, what you like, and how you work, and that gives the recipient a better idea if they like that style of music or style of painting or style of architecture, but has the portfolio also helped you in your congressional career after university now? Do you see any benefits for students keeping up with their portfolios post graduation?
Solena Ornelas:
I think so. I'm going to answer this question specifically tailored to my research experience. So my undergraduate thesis explored how congressional members framed the issue of gun violence. Within the examples and within the research methods, I explored a lot of rhetoric that was used particularly by congressional black caucus members who are active in the caucus and hold leadership positions. Now fast forward, two years later, I recently just attended the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. I had the opportunity to meet most of the Congressional Black Caucus active congressional members, and so what I added that onto my portfolio because it was able to create a very linear, upward path in my research experiences and also tactile congressional experiences as well, in terms of writing about something in a very conceptual way, and then also being able to have this hands on experience where I'm actually meeting and having conversations with these congressional members. That way, that was very helpful because I was able to see how these two things that seemingly are different aren't necessarily different, and how can I tie that in future research experiences as well. I think that also does a good job at asserting to the audience, whether that may be a review panel, if I'm submitting an application for a fellowship or a grant, that I have experiences, both conceptually in research certainly, but also in a tactile way, and that they tie into one another nicely as well.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Basically, also, from what I think I'm hearing, is that you could hone your reflective skills quite a bit through having been able to create a portfolio, having been introduced to the portfolio early on in your college experience because now you can benefit from all of those thinking processes in your work.
Solena Ornelas:
Exactly?
Kristina Hoeppner:
Do you then, actually, also planning on keeping up with your portfolio?
Solena Ornelas:
Yes, I would love to keep up with my portfolio. My goal and my biggest dream is to earn my PhD, and so I'm currently applying to PhD programmes. It's something that I like to keep up with as well because I don't necessarily have published works in journals, and so to be able to showcase multiple works that are intricately aligned with each other is something that's important to me to showcase to whatever audience I'm showcasing that to. Digital portfolio is a really good way to do that as well. I also have included a link to my digital portfolio on my résumé. Whether or not they look at it, that's up to them, and I'm not necessarily sure it's appropriate for every single job application, but it's certainly an option. And I think for multi-hyphenate individuals who are interested in multiple pathways and do not want themselves to be flattened, it's a good way to communicate yourself.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Because it really also tells that story about who you are and not just that one section that we often see in a CV.
Solena Ornelas:
Exactly.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Solena, that already now takes us to the last three questions. So the first one is, which words or short phrases do you use to describe portfolio work?
Solena Ornelas:
I would say it's meticulous, also fun. I would describe a portfolio as fun because it's almost like a professional social media account, and you get to tailor it to a very specific audience and almost kind of manipulate the way in which people perceive your work. So that's the way I would describe that.
Kristina Hoeppner:
So we have meticulous and fun, and what was the third one if you had the third one?
Solena Ornelas:
Multi-hyphenate.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Thank you for those. Now Solena, what tip do you have for learning designers or instructors who create portfolio activities for students or maybe even professionals at some point?
Solena Ornelas:
When a student is initially creating a digital portfolio, I think it's important that they include every single aspect of themselves, specifically if they're early on in their college career or early on in professional development as well, because one interest can turn into a larger one, and later on, that might be a larger portion of their digital portfolio.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Thank you. That's a wonderful piece of advice to really show the person as a whole person, tell that entire learner story there.
Solena Ornelas:
When I was a senior in Alison Howard's'Senior seminar' course, I had a portion on my digital portfolio that she blatantly said, "Well, maybe a year ago, that would have looked great, but now, I think, you've outgrown that." So adding it on, you could always take it off later, but never just leave an experience off of your digital portfolio to begin with.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Yeah, it's that curation element that portfolios also have in there, which I think we've also seen in your portfolio, how you explained it, how you went from the first iteration to the next, and then to the one that we are seeing online now. And now the last question, what advice do you have for students or for portfolio authors in general of any age?
Solena Ornelas:
The advice I would have is tell your story authentically, the way that you would want people to perceive you, but also something that feels true to you. So the way in which I approach my digital portfolio is very similar to a research paper. I start off with an introduction and then present that theoretical framework then that informs my work, so maybe authors, but also I allude to radical hope. So there's different ways in which I approach my digital portfolio that aren't necessarily traditional, but very true to who I am and very true to my work. I make concessions where concessions need to be made, but I never sacrifice my authenticity, but it still remains professional, and that would be the same advice I would give to other students.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Thank you so much for that wonderful piece of advice to bring in your authentic self and also how you want to be perceived. Solena, it's been an absolute pleasure to have had the chance to interview you tonight in your time zone, and I wish you all the best for your PhD applications that you can pursue the studies that you want to do in your area, and therefore also contribute to the research in order to benefit many community members. Thank you so much.
Solena Ornelas:
Thank you for having me on tonight.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Now over to our listeners. What do you want to try in your own portfolio practice? This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' with Solena Ornelas, the first of five interviews with students and staff from Dominican University of California. Head to our website, podcast.mahara.org, where you can find resources and the transcript for this episode. This podcast is produced by Catalyst IT, and I'm your host, Kristina Hoeppner, Project Lead and Product Manager of the portfolio platform Mahara. Our next episode will air in two weeks, and you'll learn more about how deeply rooted portfolio practice has become at Dominican. I hope you'll listen again and tell a colleague about our podcast so they can subscribe. Until then create, share, and engage.
