Is Student Affairs Relevant for the 21st Century? Tony W. Cawthon ...

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the magnitude of these trends will solidify irreparable changes in our mission to the detriment of our students and institutions. What I find compelling and heartening are the self-studies and critiques that challenge us in an attempt to influence the evolution of higher education’s mission toward a student-centered, learning focus. Recent higher education manifestos - Greater Expectations (2002), Learning Reconsidered (Keeling, 2004), Learning Reconsidered 2 (Keeling, 2006), and Liberal Education and America’s Promise (AAC&U, 2007) - produced a road map of campus-wide integrative learning outcomes and partnerships designed to guide the higher education into the 21 st century. The implied distrust and assumed need for accountability communicated in the Spellings Report (2006) reinforces for us the need to commit and validate the quality of our work - currently indicated by retention and degree attainment rates, but soon likely will be measured by effectiveness, impact, and learning - through assessment, which if taken constructively will only make us stronger. The latest report, A Crucible Moment (AAC&U, 2012), makes the argument that these outcomes we are aspiring to, civic engagement in particular, have gravitas for the country and are requisite components of a quality education. Possibly most promising for the future of student affairs is the growing learning dialogue that reaffirms that there is a place for all institutional players in achieving this vision. AAC&U’s LEAP, Core Commitments (personal and social responsibility) and Civic Engagement initiatives established cross-discipline and administration implementation committees fostering a seamless learning environment through dialogue across the different academic cultures. As a result of these initiatives, faculty and administrators are engaged in basic and applied research examining constructs that are typically relegated to the student affairs research agenda, institutions are beginning to map student affairs learning outcomes and experiences to the institution’s general 10
education requirements, and more sophisticated tools are being generated to assess progress toward these goals. This metacurricular approach is creating genuinely comprehensive campus- wide integrative learning. This repeated drum beat for purposeful quality collegiate learning experiences and outcomes is exerting an influence on the work of higher education and hopefully balance the forces buffeting student affairs’ mission. Expectations change over the span of a decade or two, while missions evolve over a much greater period of time and typically with clarity of purpose. Therefore, it is my contention that the most pressing question is whether student affairs leadership will choose to make philosophically- and empirically-informed macro decisions (macro) or evolve through micro- decisions responding to challenge as each arises without intentionality or direction. Losing sight of our core values, philosophy and purpose threaten that vision of the future more than any other reality of higher education today. Organizational efficiency is taking precedence over a commitment to the development of the holistic student (SPPV). The attention being paid to retention and graduation rates, instead of learning effectiveness, is further evidence of this shift. Divisions of Student Affairs prioritizing organizational or academic administrative concerns are not sustainable. When the move toward the primacy of administration takes hold in a student affairs division or function, the division becomes indistinguishable from the administrative division or units on campus. The next reasonable step would be for these functions to be (and possibly should be) organizationally aligned with those units/divisions and led by content experts (i.e., MBAs, JDs) not student affairs professionals. The educational service contributions of our work will continue, if not in our functional areas, then in academic offices across the institution. These organizational models are increasingly present today. What will be lost if these organizational trends continue without a 11
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Page 5 and 6: under attack in recent years. Recen
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Page 21 and 22: References ACPA & NASPA, Task Force
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Is Student Affairs Relevant for the 21st Century? Tony W. Cawthon ...

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