After almost two semesters as a graduate student at the University of Vermont, I decided that I wanted to do more in my second year of graduate school. It was through conversations with my colleagues that I determined that stepping out of my comfort zone of student affairs and looking into academic affairs would help develop me as not only a student affairs professional but as an educator as well. During the fall semester of 2016, I participated in an independent study where I served as a Teaching Assistant for a university diversity requirement course titled “The Political Economy of Race”. For this course I worked directly with a faculty member in the Department of Economics to cultivate a holistic classroom experience for the students in the course. Throughout the course of the semester, I was able to witness many different dynamics that were helpful to not only the students but to the professionals in the room as well. Upon completing the semester, I determined that I wanted to do more research and explore the benefits of collaborative partnerships between faculty and staff on college campuses; my focus for this research was to be around partnerships between professionals in student affairs and academic affairs. Although there has not been a lot of research around this particular topic in Higher Education, it is beginning to be studied as colleges and universities are expected to produce more valuable experiences for students. Through both research and experiential learning, I have found that there are benefits to collaborative partnerships between academic and student affairs in Higher Education as well as drawbacks to these partnerships. I have also made recommendations for future collaborative projects between faculty and staff as well as recommendations for future research in this area. Overall, there is value in the collaboration of student and academic affairs; however, it is the duty of Higher Education professionals to understand that value and work more collaboratively to ensure that students are served holistically.

After almost two semesters as a graduate student at the University of Vermont, I decided that I wanted to do more in my second year of graduate school. It was through conversations with my colleagues that I determined that stepping out of my comfort zone of student affairs and looking into academic affairs would help develop me as not only a student affairs professional but as an educator as well. During the fall semester of 2016, I participated in an independent study where I served as a Teaching Assistant for a university diversity requirement course titled “The Political Economy of Race”. For this course I worked directly with a faculty member in the Department of Economics to cultivate a holistic classroom experience for the students in the course. Throughout the course of the semester, I was able to witness many different dynamics that were helpful to not only the students but to the professionals in the room as well. Upon completing the semester, I determined that I wanted to do more research and explore the benefits of collaborative partnerships between faculty and staff on college campuses; my focus for this research was to be around partnerships between professionals in student affairs and academic affairs. Although there has not been a lot of research around this particular topic in Higher Education, it is beginning to be studied as colleges and universities are expected to produce more valuable experiences for students. Through both research and experiential learning, I have found that there are benefits to collaborative partnerships between academic and student affairs in Higher Education as well as drawbacks to these partnerships. I have also made recommendations for future collaborative projects between faculty and staff as well as recommendations for future research in this area. Overall, there is value in the collaboration of student and academic affairs; however, it is the duty of Higher Education professionals to understand that value and work more collaboratively to ensure that students are served holistically.

Thesis advisor: Karen Arnold / Student affairs models exist on every United States college and university campus and serve as an integral part of the undergraduate student experience. However, very little research has been conducted on students in Higher Education Administration doctoral programs and the preparation of Senior Student Affairs Officers (SSAOs) for leadership in student affairs. This study investigated the perceptions of mentoring relationships between faculty mentors and doctoral student protégés and the socialization of these students into becoming senior leaders in student affairs. Kram's (1985) theory, which identifies the psychosocial and career aspects of mentoring in organizational development, serves as the lens to examine these relationships. The participants in this study consisted of five faculty mentors and eight of their former students who are now current Senior Student Affairs Officers. Results included four major themes, identified by both the mentors and the SSAOs, comprising the major aspects of the mentoring relationships. In addition, the faculty mentors felt that they did not particularly prepare students for these senior level positions, as there were no specific or intentional discussions about the role itself. However, the former students believed their doctoral mentoring was good preparation for the SSAO role, as they learned about university structures, governance, political climates and other aspects of senior leadership. Given these findings, it is recommended that there be a stronger emphasis be placed upon the SSAO socialization component of the doctoral program. Recommendations such as the addition of "mentors of practice," a student apprenticeship component similar to Arts & Sciences doctoral programs, and an increased faculty awareness of their impact upon students as mentors are suggested to enhance the doctoral student experience. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

The problem of this study was to analyze faculty perceptions of the performance of current institutional governing boards in academic affairs, and the alternate patterns of faculty participation in governance in Texas senior colleges and universities. The purposes of the study were (1) to determine the current faculty perceptions of the importance and effectiveness of governing boards in academic boards in academic affairs, (2) to discover the level of satisfaction and knowledge of faculty of governing boards in their handling of academic affairs, and (3) to determine the faculty perceptions of the potential alternative patterns of governance in academic affairs.

February 2003 was the inauguration of the Foundations of Excellence project with an open invitation to chief academic officers at approximately 900 of both the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the Council for Independent Colleges (CIC) member institutions. The Policy Center on the First Year of College, under the direction of the Executive Director, John N. Gardner, invited the various campuses to develop standards and guidelines for the first year, which were termed as Foundational Dimensions or simply Dimensions. As a result, over 200 member institutions agreed to participate in the project by establishing campus-wide task forces to look at the initial list of six Dimensions developed by the Policy Center and Penn State research partners. These Dimensions were designed to be essential characteristics of institutional effectiveness in promoting the learning and success of every first-year student. This is a case study of one of the founding institutions of the Foundations of Excellence endeavor, Public State University (PSU). In particular, this study utilizes the Foundations of Excellence Dimensions Statements as a basis to assess Public State University’s first-year experience collaboration efforts. Furthermore, this research is specifically grounded in the 2nd Dimensions Statement of the Foundations of Excellence, looking at what the Public State University first-year experience program looks like through academic affairs and student affairs collaborative partnerships. This study specifically examines PSU’s established partnerships within the First Year Orientation and Advising Committee (FYOAC) and the University College Advisory Council (UCAC) and determines what participants mean by collaboration. Through the use of a rubric, the analysis of the data resulted in a significant finding in reference to collaboration literature. The findings indicated that the literature on academic and student affairs collaboration should include information on institutional culture and investigate whether the underpinnings of institutional culture are actually social systems that are inextricably tied to their external environments, which in turn have a direct impact on foundational benchmarks on collaboration for First-Year Experience programs. Implications of this study’s results are addressed, limitations of this study are discussed, and recommendations for future research are given.

No description available.

According to Inkelas et al. (2008), Living Learning Programs (LLPs) that are collaboratively led by academic affairs and student affairs units tend to have a significant impact on student learning, when compared to students who participate in LLPs that are operated by one unit (Inkelas et al., 2008). Despite evidence that co-authored LLPs are beneficial to enhancing the LLP student experience, there is little to no research that explores how administrators facilitate collaboration between the units used to co-author the LLP student experience. For this reason, the focus of this study was to explore how administrators facilitate collaboration between academic affairs and students affairs units in the context of LLPs. A sequential explanatory mixed methods approach revealed that collaboration between both units is facilitated through a series of four factors; (a) Mutually supportive relationships, (b) LLP coordinators, (c) collaborative networks and (d) mechanisms for collaboration. In addition, LLP administrators throughout the study demonstrated a high effort of collaboration on co-curricular programming and slightly less of an effort to collaborate on items related to curricular or judicial engagement of LLP students.

abstract: This study explored the phenomenon of student affairs professionals working at Arizona State University who shifted from a student affairs unit to perform similar work in an academic unit. The conceptual framework for this exploration was social identity theory (Tajfel, 1974), which asserts that individuals develop a self-concept or image that derives, in part, from her/his membership in a group or groups. This qualitative study utilized in-person interviews to capture raw data from four purposeful participants, and a software package (NVivo 9) aided in the grounded theory approach to data analysis (Charmaz, 2006). The study found that participants placed a high value on the college-centric approach to their student affairs work, but they still identified as student affairs professionals working inside the academic unit. Findings are useful to: supervisors who have an interest in the professional development and personal well-being of staff; faculty and administrators of master's and doctoral degree programs designed to prepare student affairs professionals; associations that serve student affairs professionals; higher education leaders engaged in organizational change; and higher education administrators interested in the roles of individual biases and values in organizations. This study will interest student affairs professionals making the shift from a student affairs unit to an academic unit, and it will inform the researcher's own practice and career development through his investigation of his own organization. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2012

No description available.

No description available.