Making Change Happen in Student Affairs E-Book

Margaret J. Barr

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 346

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Change is inevitable. Managing change is a choice. Authored by three esteemed leaders in the field of student affairs, Making Change Happen in Student Affairs: Challenges and Strategies for Professionals is a thought-provoking and pragmatic guide to the increasingly complex challenges and expectations that administrators face from both students and the public. Whether it's pressure to provide better programs and services with fewer resources, or difficulties grappling with economic challenges and technological change, the book teaches how to become an effective leader and skillful strategist in order to respond to a rapidly changing landscape. Readers will learn to change their thinking about how they approach challenges by reframing their purpose, role, and function as leaders. Each chapter includes specific concepts and tools that can be used to tackle the most complex campus issues and develop effective plans of action. You'll learn how to: * Manage financial resources and supervise staff effectively * Advocate for specific students while still recognizing diversity and maintaining service to all * Adapt to institutional culture, ethics, values, and changes in leadership * Use technology as a tool to affect change on campus By applying shared foundations, ethical principles, a rich knowledge base, and experience, student affairs professionals can develop powerful strategies to confront and resolve vexing problems. With extensive examples and case studies that cover a wide array of issues, this book is an essential read for those looking to make a real difference in the lives of their students and the health of their institutions.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Chapter 1: Using Foundational Documents and Ethics in Our Work

Our Foundational Documents

Our Ethical Responsibilities

Case Studies

Conclusion

Reflection Questions

Chapter 2: Applying Theory, Literature, and Data to Practice

Uses of Theory, Literature, and Data

Looking within the Discipline

Looking Across Disciplines

Looking Across the Map

Theory: Not Just for Graduate School Any More

Reading Is Fundamental—Writing, Too

Collecting, Understanding, and Using Data

Recognizing and Unpacking Boxes

Case Studies

Conclusion

Reflective Questions

Chapter 3: Using Resources to Effect Change

Challenges in Securing and Using Resources

Applying Insights from Organizational Change Literature

Case Studies

Conclusion

Reflection Questions

Chapter 4: Utilizing Technology in Search of Success

Everything All the Time

The State of Student Affairs and Technological Innovation

A Simple Question

Beware the Junkyard of Next Big Things

Case Studies

Conclusion

Reflective Questions

Chapter 5: Advocating for Some Students While Serving All Students

Understanding How American Higher Education Became Diverse

What Strategies Can Assist in Dealing with Diversity?

Case Studies

Conclusion

Reflective Questions

Chapter 6: Fulfilling Our Responsibilities as Educators

Teaching and Learning in Historical and Contemporary Contexts of Student Affairs

What Learning Looks Like

Learning Organizations

Competencies of Teaching and Learning

Purposefulness

Teachable Moments

Case Studies

Conclusion

Reflective Questions

Chapter 7: Reframing Our Professional Practice as Institutional Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Change Agents

Some Roles Student Affairs Leaders Have Assumed

New Roles: Institutional Leader, Entrepreneur, and Change Agent

Preparing for a Reframed Change Agent Role

Case Studies

Conclusion

Reflection Questions

Chapter 8: Looking Toward the Future

Strategies That Enhance the Success of Change in Higher Education

What Will the Future Bring?

Conclusion

References

Back-of-Book Advertisements

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Table 6.1

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Chapter 1

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Making Change Happen in Student Affairs

Challenges and Strategies for Professionals

Margaret J. Barr

George S. McClellan

Arthur Sandeen

Cover design by Wiley

Cover image: ©totallyPic | Thinksstock

Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Preface

McClellan and Stringer observe, “Change has arguably served as the metatheme for student affairs since the 1960s” (2009, p. 623). They go on to suggest several needed changes in student affairs professional practice in the future. One of their suggested changes is “an energetic focus on student learning as the essential component of student affairs practice, dissolving barriers between student affairs and academic colleagues on many campuses, and emerging models of both organization and practice” (p. 623). Another is recognition and appropriate adaptation of student affairs programs and services to “the centrality of technology in their [students'] lives, higher numbers of students with serious mental health concerns, increasingly diverse student populations, and the need to redefine traditional notions of what ‘student development’ entails, both in theory and in practice” (pp. 623–624). Like McClellan and Stringer, the authors of Envisioning the Future of Student Affairs, a report from a task force jointly commissioned by the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), note that change in student affairs is situated within the broader context of continuing change in the broader contexts of higher education and society. “As in all fields of higher education in the United States, student affairs has been influenced by shifting social, economic, and political trends in its ever changing environment” (ACPA and NASPA, 2010b). Our goal in writing this book is to present a set of concepts or strategies student affairs professionals working in a continuously changing environment might use in addressing the challenges and opportunities they face on their campuses in their field.

We have identified seven concepts or strategies to include in our discussion. They are using foundational documents and ethics; applying theory, literature, and data to practice; managing resources; utilizing technology; advocating for students; fulfilling our responsibilities as educators; and reframing our professional practice. These concepts or strategies are addressed in the first seven chapters of the book. The eighth and final chapter offers concluding thoughts.

Each chapter offers what we hope will be helpful information, illustrative case studies (adapted from actual events at campuses around the country) with discussion, and reflective questions we hope will guide our readers in considering their own work.

The concepts and strategies were chosen based on our experiences as professionals and scholars in student affairs. We also chose them because we believe they are relatively timeless, meaning that they have served and will continue to serve student affairs professionals well even as the circumstances and contexts of our professional practice shift. These are not the only seven concepts or strategies that can or should be used; they are the seven that we find enduring, powerful, and useful.

This book reflects our collective thinking regarding leading change, but one or another of us served as primary author for each chapter. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are differences in style and voice between the chapters. Given our feeling that this book is a somewhat personal reflection of our experiences and perspectives, we have chosen to honor those individual distinctions rather than trying to blend them as one might in a work intended to reflect a more neutral or impersonal narrative.

Our audience for this work includes student affairs professionals at all points of the career span. This includes senior student affairs officers, mid-managers, and entry-level professionals. It may also be useful to presidents, provosts, and others who supervise student affairs divisions without an extensive background in the field. Another audience will be graduate students, particularly those who are finishing their formal coursework and preparing to take positions of leadership in student affairs. Naturally we hope the book will be seen as useful to faculty in graduate preparation programs both as it relates to their efforts in preparing practitioners and in their role as scholars contributing to the study of higher education.

Why this book? There are a number of resources available to student affairs professionals, graduate student faculty, and others in higher education related to management issues in our profession. Most of the literature, however, focuses on the issues and not on specific strategies that might be used by the active student affairs professional seeking to solve ongoing issues and problems. It is our hope that our work here will help fill this void and will provide a valuable resource for colleagues. As was the case in our earlier collaboration, “it would be presumptuous of us to claim that we have the answers” (Sandeen and Barr, 2006, p. xii). Our attempt here is not to be proscriptive with regard to addressing particular issues or opportunities but instead to describe strategies for analysis from multiple perspectives as a way of developing a plan of action that is timely and focused on the unique characteristics of the institution where the professional works.

Why now? The challenges and opportunities available to those lucky enough to serve students in higher education are remarkable. Simply put, we believe there has never been a more exciting or interesting time in which to be a student affairs professional. This volume is a call to action on the part of our colleagues to apply what we as a profession know from our shared foundations, from theory, and from practice to confronting and solving the problems facing higher education and our students.

Acknowledgments

Margaret (Peggy) Barr thanks her friends and colleagues at Northwestern University, Texas Christian University, and Northern Illinois University, who helped her learn each day as she served as a vice president. She also would like to thank those who have supported her through both good and challenging times, including Sheila Driscoll, Sharon Justice, Carolyn Krulee, John Dunkle, Mickie Emmett, and Denise Rode. She also appreciates the support of her family, which has grown smaller in recent years but nevertheless is close across the generations. Finally, she thanks both Art Sandeen and George McClellan for being good professional partners in this enterprise and excellent friends.

George McClellan thanks his students and colleagues at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne for the challenge, inspiration, and support they so generously share with him. Particular thanks to Chancellor Vicky Carwein, Danita Davis, and Chad Richmond for their support. He is grateful for the gift of friendship from Peggy Barr, Ken Christmon, Mary Jo Gonzales, Steve Grud, Jason Laker, and Joe Minonne, who help him up on the tough days, help him celebrate on the good days, and try to help him be humble most days. Finally, he is honored to have been invited to serve as coauthor with two people—Peggy Barr and Art Sandeen—who have helped shaped him as a student affairs professional and scholar and who have had a significant, positive influence on the field we love.

Art Sandeen is indebted to his friends and colleagues in NASPA, who have taught him so much about student affairs for many years. He also thanks the students at the four universities with which he has been affiliated: Miami University (O); Michigan State University, Iowa State University, and The University of Florida. His belief in higher education's transformative ability is now being happily affirmed by the current enrollment of his grandchildren. He wishes them well. He expresses his thanks to John Lombardi, Robert A. Bryan, and W. Robert Parks for their encouragement and lessons in leadership.

We are all grateful to David Brightman, Aneesa Davenport, Alison Knowles, and Erin Null, from Jossey-Bass. All authors hope to be lucky enough to have an amazing editorial team like you. We are thankful that we actually do.

About the Authors

Margaret J. Barr served as vice president for student affairs at Northwestern University from 1992 until she retired in 2000. She currently is professor emeritus in the School of Education and Social Policy at that institution. She also served as vice chancellor for student affairs at Texas Christian University (1985–1992) and vice president for student affairs at Northern Illinois University (1982–1985). Prior to becoming a senior student affairs officer she held positions as assistant vice president for student affairs at Northern Illinois University (1980–1982), associate dean of students at the University of Texas at Austin (1979–1980), and assistant dean of students at the University of Texas at Austin (1971–1979), and various student affairs positions at Trenton State College and the State University of New York at Binghamton.