CAPSTONE
Defining the Profession
BY GWENDOLYN JORDAN DUNGY
Executive Director, NASPA
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Your parents or someone older and wiser may have told you this when, as a child, your feelings were bruised by name calling. For student affairs, it is not the name we are called, it is the fear that we will not be called “professionals.” I am not speaking of profession in the general sense that relates to an occupation, but in the more restrictive sense that relates to a field requiring the mastery of specialized knowledge.
According to Richard Barker in his July 2010 Harvard
Business Review article, “No, Management is Not a
Profession,” professional associations must define a discrete
body of knowledge and establish the field’s boundaries based
on a consensus on what the knowledge should include.
Defined competencies are a starting point for baseline knowledge. Associations for student affairs are to be commended
for their work in defining general competencies, but this very
work on competencies without overall consensus may be
another reason that some will claim student affairs does not fit
the criteria of a profession.
that particular teachings or experiences result in the acquisition of an identifiable learning outcome. Not only do the skills
to facilitate learning vary among faculty members and student
affairs staff, but learners bring different levels of knowledge to
the task. Learners have varying intellectual capabilities; preferred styles of learning; and a range of experiences that have
the potential to promote or decrease the intended learning.
However learning is acquired, the expectation for account-
ability for learning continues to increase. It is imperative that
we insist on a baseline of knowledge and skills among our
colleagues in student affairs. It is imperative that we observe,
Still, like managers, our roles in
student affairs are “inherently general,
variable, and indefinable.” In arguing
that management is not a profession,
Barker notes that “integration is at the
heart of why business education should
differ from professional education,” and
that business schools should “understand
themselves as learning environments,
where individuals develop attributes,
rather than as teaching environments, where students are
presented with a body of functional and technical content.”
This same case can be made for the work of student affairs
and classroom faculty respectively. An integrated vision and
connection with student learning is the foundation of stu-
dent affairs work, as noted in Learning Reconsidered (ACPA/
NASPA, 2004).
There need be no argument about whether student affairs is
a profession. The work of student affairs extends beyond the
narrow definition of a profession, and it is work for which we
should be proud and ready to explicate. The missions of colleges and universities, and the responsibilities of many of our
colleagues, draw on the skills of both managers and educators.
Many of us in student affairs wear both hats. Whatever hat
one prefers, the connections and the outcomes matter most.
The words can never hurt us. LE
The work of student affairs
extends beyond the narrow
definition of a profession, and it
is work for which we should be
proud and ready to explicate.
Like specialized professions, student affairs has an assumed
general code of conduct. Unlike other professions, student
affairs does not have a monopoly on membership that enables
us to restrict entry and force exit. Instead, our work may be
more in line with Barker’s description: “The manager’s contri-
bution is inherently difficult to measure and has indetermin-
able impact on a variety of outcomes.”
If, in fact, our work in student affairs has “indeterminable
impact on outcomes,” and, in fact, the outcomes for student
learning have been identified and are used by colleges and
universities around the world, whether we are called profes-
sionals is not what matters. What matters is how our work
contributes to the fulfillment of our various institutional
missions. Given the nature of learning, it is not likely that
anyone—faculty members or student affairs staff—can draw a
straight line or definitively provide cause-and-effect evidence
