Leadership Exchange - Summer 2010

CAPSTONE
What Is It That You Do?

BY GWENDOLYN JORDAN DUNGY Executive Director, NASPA

Ibegan mulling over ideas for this article during Holy Week on the Christian calendar and Passover week on the Jewish calendar. As I imagined families gathering around the dinner table, whether for Easter, Seder, or just a simple meal together, I could hear the question
all too familiar to those of us in student affairs: “What is it
that you do again?”
If we can’t clearly explain our work, how can we help those
outside the field understand its importance?

Anyone doing a search of the web to learn more about student affairs would likely happen upon the Wikipedia entry describing the field as “responsible for academic advising and support services delivery.” Many of us use variations on this service-based definition, but as I consider the future of student affairs and where and how practitioners fit into the changing landscape of postsecondary education and the global community, I wonder if this is the best definition for our times.

We cannot continue to follow the model of student affairs as simply encompassing “everything that happens outside the classroom” at a time when society is breaking down educational and workplace barriers and embracing the concept of lifelong learning. Our goal, both inside and outside the classroom, is to prepare students to lead lives of purpose. As student affairs professionals, we are educators of the whole student and, as such, we continue to advocate for an integrated campuswide approach to learning.

While we have pushed for such an approach for decades, we do not have decades to meet the challenges currently facing higher education. In fact, we have less than one decade to work toward President Barack Obama’s goal of having “the best educated, most competitive workforce in the world” by 2020.

The role of student affairs is particularly important as we prepare students for the workforce of the future. According to a January 2010 report from the Association of American Colleges and Universities, employers want higher education to focus more on “soft skills” such as written and oral communication, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and ethical decision-making. Neither academic nor student affairs can accomplish these outcomes without the other and without the engagement of students.

To that end, NASPA is collaborating with other higher education associations to identify evidence-based practices that improve persistence and completion for all students. Representing NASPA, I chair a working group of the American Council on Education-Washington Higher Education Secretariat on persistence and completion. We divided the working group into three sub-groups: policy;

pitfalls to practice; and professional development. Some of the initial thinking from each sub-group follows:

➤ Policy. Higher education must reaffirm its commitment to low-income, first-generation, and disadvantaged student access, particularly through support of foundational programs such as Pell and TRIO.

➤ Pitfalls to practice. Faculty engagement with students inside and outside the classroom is important for student success and must not be sacrificed to economic and other pressures to teach more or larger classes, engage in more scholarship, or generate grant revenue when these activities come at the expense of student engagement.

➤ Professional development. Institutions should be encouraged through accrediting agencies, governing bodies, and other such entities to adopt reflection tools to demonstrate how well their practices are meeting intended learning outcomes.

Student affairs professionals should have these kinds of discussions about the future of higher education in every possible venue. Then we can tell our families and others that we are educators providing students with essential foundational skills for the workplace. We can tell them that we are helping students to persist in their education and to learn what is expected to complete a degree. We can tell them that we are contributing to what and how students learn by engaging and challenging them.

In the end, it is not an “aha” moment that validates our contribution to higher education; it is about focusing on the larger mission of helping students develop the skills and attributes that will enable them to pursue lives of purpose. This mission is shared by all educators.

The struggle may be difficult, as the complexity of college and university structures often makes it challenging to bring resources to bear on common goals, but we must continue to work toward an integrated campuswide approach to educating the whole student. LE