Ananda Valenzuela

Ananda Gale Valenzuela spent four amazing years at Hampshire College studying organizational development and institutional ethnography.

Born in Boulder, Colorado, she spent her formative years in San Juan, Puerto Rico, until she moved to Golden, Colorado for high school, where she stayed, other than a year-long stint as an exchange student in Nagano, Japan. Two days after graduating from Hampshire, she began working at Third Sector New England, a nonprofit capacity-building firm based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Contract
My Division III will consist of several interrelated projects. In Fall 2010, I will undertake a two-month internship at Third Sector New England, which will count as an Advanced Learning Activity. It will also play a major role in the development of my main Spring project, where I intend to do an organizational development consulting project with an organization. My other Advanced Learning Activity will be a studio ceramics course.

In my internship, I will be engaging in observant participation, in hopes of analyzing the manner in which this organizational development consulting team aids nonprofits in a variety of capacity-building projects. I will go into the field with consultants and take extensive ethnographic field notes. These field notes will document the consulting projects, in order to analyze the project development and follow-through, consultant-consultee relationship, interpersonal interactions, and perceived/actual effectiveness of the interventions. In addition, within the office itself I will study the organizational structure, work culture, and individual consultants’ roles within the organization. To this end, I will engage in open-ended interviews with the individual consultants that delve more deeply into their personal views and perceptions of the work that they do.

I will also be working on a variety of projects within the organization. I will be analyzing round-table feedback from nonprofit leaders regarding leadership, in order to see if there are any gaps in current leadership training practices. In doing so, I will be engaging with larger questions regarding the nature of leadership and the skill set necessary to be an effective leader. I will also aid consultants in the creation of reports and presentations. By drafting an organizational assessment draft, I will learn how to analyze and translate a vast range of qualitative and quantitative data into a format that aids an organization in strategic decision-making.

Overall, I hope to walk away from the internship with an in-depth understanding of the work done by organizational development consultants, and the confidence to develop and engage in my own consulting project. Portfolio contents from the internship should include ethnographic field notes, co-written reports drafted for the organization, and ethnographic writing.

In the Spring, I intend to undertake an organizational development consulting project with a nonprofit. I will work as a solo consultant doing an organizational assessment with recommendations for restructuring, and will develop an organizational transition methodology built upon what I learned at my fall internship. In order to do the assessment, I will interview about twenty stakeholders, and work closely with a committee of Board and staff members. The assessment report, which will go back to the organization, will serve as the main vehicle for communicating my recommendations. In order to delve deeper into the theory and methodology of my consulting project, I will then annotate the report for my committee, analyzing how I came to those conclusions. After delivering the report to the organization, I will engage in conversations about potential changes to the organization and facilitate a decision-making process, so that by the time I leave on April 1st, they will have decided upon a plan of action and taken the first steps towards restructuring. The writing I do for my committee will thread together consulting work and literature within the field of organizational development.

Overall, my writing will be reflexive, focusing on process and methodology, and will address the larger theoretical questions that guide my on-the-ground work. In doing so, I will engage with literature that supports and/or challenges my assumptions and conclusions.

Spring 2010

 * Strategies for Institutional Change at UMass
 * Sustainability and Social Responsibility at UMass, as well as related Honors Colloquium
 * Organizational Research Independent Study officially with Colin Twitchell, also working closely with Kim Chang and Bob Crego
 * From Teaching to Learning with Herb Bernstein

JanTerm 2010

 * Co-facilitating Grant-Writing Workshop EPEC course
 * Intensive EPC meetings

Fall 2009

 * Strategic Public Management (PUBP&amp;ADM 602) at UMass
 * Ways of Knowing in the Social Sciences
 * Economics of Cyberspace (ECON 349) at Mt. Holyoke
 * Digitising Hampshire III, Co-facilitator

Summer 2009

 * Identities, Cultures, Texts in East-Central Europe: Prague and Krakow
 * Marhaba: Volunteers in the Middle East - Cairo

Spring 2009

 * Business and Its Environment (MGT 365) at Umass - I had to drop this course due to illness
 * Digitising Hampshire II - I co-teach this course
 * Exploring Social Entrepreneurship Application at Hampshire College II - incomplete due to illness
 * Internet Marketing (MKTG 455) at Umass

JanTerm 2009

 * Blacksmithing, reading, exploring, applying for cool stuff

Fall 2008

 * - I co-teach this course
 * Exploring Social Entrepreneurship Application at Hampshire College
 * Constructing the Appropriate City: Competing Urban Visions
 * Programming Web Pages for Poets, Artists, and Scientists
 * Marketing 412 (Marketing Research) at UMass

Other Things That Matter to Me

 * Hampedia Project Signer S08-S09
 * Hampedia Board of Trustees Chair
 * Hampedia Management Board Head of Education and Outreach
 * FiCom Director




 * Re-Rad Signer F07-S09
 * Co-founder and CFO, Emogination Research, Inc
 * Social Entrepreneurship Aid and Resource Center at Hampshire Co-founder and Signer F08-S09
 * Board of Trustees Student Trustee-Elect
 * Board of Trustees Enrollment Committee Member
 * Board of Trustees Development Committee Member
 * Educational Policy Committee Student Member, F07-S09, S10
 * The Logo Subcommittee Member S08-S09
 * Calendar Subcommittee Member F08-S09
 * School of Social Science Student Member
 * SS Student Coordinator
 * SS Student Group Signer F08-S09
 * SS Policy Committee
 * Magic Draft Signer S08-S09
 * Chocolate Club Signer S09
 * Asian Media Member
 * Excalibur Member
 * New Leaf Member
 * EarthAction webmaster and technology consultant, and Alliance for Renewable Energy webmaster and Steering Committee member, and 2020 Action Core Group Member

Studies
Spring 2008


 * Social Entrepreneurship
 * Computing Concepts
 * Bamboo, Hemp, and Organic Cotton Clothing: Environmental Impact and Market Viability Independent Study

JanTerm 2008


 * Battleships, Pomegranates, and Hedgehogs: A Century of Russian Film

Fall 2007


 * Globalization and Africa
 * Sustainable Living
 * Making of a Modern Asia
 * Japanese 11 at Amherst College

Other Things That Matter to Me

 * Hampedia Project Signer
 * Hampedia Board of Trustees Member
 * Hampedia Management Board Head of Education and Outreach
 * Re-Rad Signer
 * Educational Policy Committee Student Member
 * Division III Exceptions Committee
 * School of Social Science Student Member
 * 2007-2008 Dean of Students Search Student Member
 * Magic Draft Signer
 * Asian Media Member
 * Excalibur Member
 * New Leaf Member
 * EarthAction webmaster and technology consultant