Introduction
Each profession has a history to refer to. In student affairs, just like other professions, we do have a collective sense of how the profession came to be what it is now- our values, customs traditions, and beliefs. This history defines us and reveals our identity, serves as an anchor, provides direction (Hamrick, Evans & Schuh, 2002). The contemporary context of higher education and student affairs has influenced my understanding of historical events and by the meaning, I attach to them- an appreciation of history and context helps me understand the ideas, values, and events that shape the practice.
In my many years of academic pursuance, I have noticed student affairs in various institutions of higher learning appear to be organizationally separated from other units, such as academic and departmental affairs, within the same institution. However, in practice, this organizational separation appears to occur mainly in papers, with many issues related to students, transverse more often than not across the typically many units of these institutions. According to Winston, Creamer & Miller, cited in Hirt (2006), the best and the most effective institutions fully integrate student, academic, and business affairs in a manner that focuses all resources on a primary goal of higher education – student learning and personal development- and involves every organizational unit fully in the achievement of its mission (p.318).
The ability to get things done well and being successful depends on the effectiveness of the leadership, not the organization (Hirt, 2006). The expansion of the post-secondary system, increasing evidence of the market and non-market effects of education, the generally rapidly changing world, and the increasing complexity of education have created a phenomenon where the principles and beliefs anchored in the work of student affairs educators are seen as the principles to be redefined to suit the contemporary situation (Janosik, 2003; Hirt, 2006). However, it must be noted that the rapid change in education has even increased the need for the adoption of these principles and beliefs. Young, 1996, cited in Janosik (2003) identified the core values of the profession as individuation, community, equity, and justice. Notably, these values have been rooted in the history of the profession and continue to inform the practice to date.
According to Miller & Winston (1991), effective leadership of student affairs personnel relies upon his or her ability to communicate core values in various institutional contexts. In this perspective, the role of educator presumes that these values are accurately applied in the educator’s relationship with students, programs available as well as role modeling (Miller & Winston, 1991). As an educator, leader and administrator, I would like to project this paper on the basis of the profession’s core values, my personal values and competencies necessary for success in the profession.
Student Affairs Professional as an Educator
Recently, the student learning imperative published a document that represents adaptation for student affairs practice, focusing specifically on the outcomes of students affairs programs and services on student learning and personal development Syvertsen & Stout (2009). Significantly, this document presented the idea that the work of the student affairs practitioners is principally educational in nature. It is, in fact, devoted precisely toward the same goals as their faculty colleagues- promoting learning and personality or self-development using instructional tactics (Syvertsen & Stout, 2009).
The educational philosophy that underpins this domain is pragmatic, or an educational philosophy that links individuals, knowledge, and action (Miller & Winston, 1991). This philosophy was even seen in the American Council on Education, 1937, and emphasizes the development of the whole person rather than the intellectual aspect alone (Miller & Winston, 1991). Pragmatism rests, in part, on-premises of respect for the uniqueness of the individual and beliefs that experience is the principal source of knowledge (Miller & Winston, 1991; Sandeen, 1991). Historically, such philosophical commitments lead naturally to a commitment to student self-direction as a major responsibility of student affairs administrators. Learning communities may serve as examples of such environments and commitment to learning through self-initiated activities that promote the construction of meaning by the participants (Sandeen, 1991).
To begin with, it is critical to underscore what basics in higher education are important so as to enable us to describe the relationship of student affairs to those functions. The principal purpose of education is to enable individual development in the context of creating and maintaining a community rooted in democracy (Komives & Woodard, 2003). Prominent educational philosophers and reformers have articulated this particular view of education as the bedrock of community development. According to John Goodlad, cited in Winston, Creamer & Miller (2001), higher education is concerned with two purposes: providing the means for achieving individual goals related to self and ensuring that individual development occurs in a context that promotes and sustains a democratic society. Goodland pointed out that there is considerable tension between these two purposes, but for education to fulfill its key purpose in society, one purpose cannot be promoted without the other (Winston, Creamer & Miller, 2001). For these reasons, education, and thus the administrative function, is part of a moral endeavor (Winston, Creamer & Miller, 2001). Education is moral because it is intimately concerned with both the individual and the community. Notably, this focus is different from moralistic or self-righteous behavior; rather it recognizes that all education is moral in that it focuses on these two inextricable intertwined purposes. To imagine it otherwise is to be thinking of something else, according to Goodlad (Winston, Creamer & Miller, 2001).
In practice, a professional student affairs professional is an educator in that he or she must ensure an educative role; to ensure that the university functions are actively engaged in an attempt to promote both individual and community development. The skills and knowledge required are teaching-oriented Sandeen (1991). According to Sandeen (1991), the professional must first be an expert on higher education and must demonstrate keen insight into the campus cultures and work to transmit this knowledge to all staff members of the organization.
Chickering & Gamson, 1991, cited in Komives & Woodard (2003) identified seven principles of good practices for teachers, which apply equally well to student affairs educators: (a) encourage active learning, (d) encourage cooperation among students, (c) encourage active learning, (d) give prompt feedback, (e) emphasize time on task, (e) communicate higher expectations, and (g) respect diverse talents (p.213). In fact, teaching always incorporates the transmission of knowledge and increasingly includes the making of personally relevant meaning and the generation of knowledge (Komives & Woodard, 2003). The latter is referred to as constructing knowledge and occurs in settings that enable students to engage in active, cooperative, and collaborative learning. These active forms of teaching are especially well suited to student affairs practice and may employ such tactics as case study methods, role-playing, simulations, computer-based instruction, debates, and peer teaching (Komives & Woodard, 2003).
Student Affairs Administrator as a Leader
In practice, student affairs administrators are institutional leasers designate by virtue of their formal placement in the organizational structure (Sandeen, 1991). At the same time, they serve to create as well as sustain visions for the campus community and act to shape institutional environments to achieve these visions (Sandeen, 1991). This contemporary view is shared by many educational scholars. For instance, Caple & Newton cited in Miller & Winston (1991) state that administrators should view leadership as the application of self-organization theory. In this particular approach to leadership, student affairs practitioners focus their efforts on processes that create experiences for learners and act as catalysts for change rather than as maintainers of change (Miller & Winston, 1991). The two authors also outlined seven prepositions for effective leadership that evolved from their historical examination of the history of leadership theory and its practice in higher education. Their proposals indicate that a leader:
- Should be aware of his or her role and responsibility within a system and of the connections that relate and affect this position;
- Should be in a position to articulate and act consistently with a clear set of values;
- Demonstrates respect for people through actions that value human dignity; is a model of others;
- Should be knowledgeable enough on how to assert direct or indirect influence and when to distribute power;
- Should be aware of the special nature of the system in which she or he is embedded and how this system relates energy with its environment;
- Need to have the ability to make transitions to higher levels of order and inspire people to achieve similar levels of functioning (Miller & Winston, 1991).
Basically, it can be hypothesized that these propositions represent actions that can be applauded for their guidelines on effective leadership. This is because they recognize the contextual nature of leading; suggesting that leaders inspire followers to achieve a desirable new state or condition by shaping the environment for learning (Sandeen, 1991; Miller & Winston, 1991; Komives & Woodard, 2003). This shaping process occurs by building a shared vision, empowering people, inspiring commitment, and enabling good decisions to be made through designing the learning process (Sandeen, 1991).
Some scholars have described leadership by its related properties. Komives & Woodard (2003) stated that “leadership is a relational process of people together attempting to accomplish change or make a difference to benefit the common good” (p.68). In practice, relational leadership requires that the leader be self-aware, be open to different differences and values in all perspectives, and practice listening skills, coalitions building, and effective civil discourse (Komives & Woodard, 2003). This model of relational leadership incorporates being inclusive of diverse people and their views, empowering all those who are involved, being purposeful to commitments and collaboration to achieve common objectives, being ethical in all conducts, and approaching all tasks from a process-oriented perspective (Komives & Woodard, 2003; Boyle, Taylor & Neece, 2009). The skills of effective leaders are similar to the competencies, behaviors, and beliefs that are linked to the post-industrial forms of leadership (Boyle, Taylor & Neece, 2009).
Student Affairs Professional as an Administrator
Faculty are hired to teach, hence they develop a particular culture around this activity that reflects shared experience in analytical and disciplinary discourse (Andres, 2005). In fact, administrative roles from the traditional perspective have seen many scholars argue that academic freedom, tenure and professional autonomy are attributes that are guided by administrative skills (Hamrick, vans & Schuh, 2002; Andres, 2005). Andres (2005) clearly states that institutional type has salience not only in organizational functioning but also in governance, where public institutions are more closely tied to a state policy of economic and social development and private institutions are wedded to alumni, philanthropic, and private sector interests, and many other.
Traditionally, administration in universities or colleges is viewed in line with what some scholars have described as exchange perspective, collective behaviors and actions that are based upon exchange among individuals, motivated largely by self-interest (McClellan & Stringer, 2009). In other words, individuals do hand together for common interests, forming coalitions, and forms of bargaining and negotiation follow (McClellan & Stringer, 2009). In the higher education perspective, it involves rationalizing union-management relationships; faculty and administration-board relationships; relationships with colleges or universities among faculties, administrators, and staff (Janosik, 2003).
How do student affairs practitioners respond to administrative duties? Arguably, the present trajectory of institutional actions is directed and influenced by forces, including state governments, accreditation agencies, private sector interests, and the federal governments and multinational corporations (Hirt, 2006). Traditionally institutional actions have a tendency to become isomorphic as universities and colleges faced with similar external pressure imitate each other in how they respond to the highlighted influences (Hirt, 2006). In this sense, pressures build up as competition for external resources (revenue) increases among institutions (McClellan & Stringer, 2009; Hirt, 2006). This subsequently makes these institutions look for an external marketplace in order to have resources to keep operating successfully, hence acting as a private sector. Likewise, student’s demand for personal benefits, such as more convenient access to courses and better services on campus may escalate (Hirt, 2006). As such, the administrator should look more like service sector enterprises. The administrative services in the students affairs require that the institution functions as business functions, by ensuring that students find their way to particular programs and are maintained as satisfied customers (Hirt, 2006).
Conclusion
A lot of work has been done on student affairs professional practice at different types of colleges and universities. This paper has therefore highlighted several common practices that have taken place and what entails the contemporary student affairs profession. It is structured from the perspective of student affairs professional as an educator, a leader and as an administrator.
Student affairs professional as an educator requires that individual goals are achieved, through self-development in line with the democratic society. Through this, he or she takes the educational role of promoting individual student’s performance and community welfare. The skills and knowledge required are teaching-oriented; hence the professional is required to first be an expert on higher education and must demonstrate keen insight into the campus cultures and work to transmit this knowledge to all staff members of the organization. The professional as a leader is viewed in the perspective of creating for learners and opportunity for bringing change within the institutions, offering leadership guidelines for the institutional success. The professional as an administrator reconciles the needed resources for institutional success. This is because the institutions are tied to external influences such as government, board of governors, private interest groups, alumni organizations, etc.
Reference List
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