Adding Spirituality, Religious Diversity, and Interfaith Engagement to Student Affairs Courses

Gaduate school curricula provide the baseline knowledge for profes-sionals in the field of higher education and student affairs (HESA). Before beginning their careers, student affairs practitioners build their core competencies around a variety of relevant topics including, quite significantly, college student identity and diversity. ACPA–College Student Educators International (2018) offers an online syllabus clearinghouse as an open-access resource for faculty seeking to develop courses in HESA programs. Although 20 of the 29 clearinghouse syllabi that align with the courses discussed in this chapter mention religion, spirituality, or related top-ics, the type of inclusion ranges dramatically from a substantive element of a course, including readings, assignments, and discussions, to a mere mention of religion as one in a list of elements of student or campus diversity...https://scholarworks.wm.edu/educationbookchapters/1050/thumbnail.jp

The Competency-Based Movement in Student Affairs: Implications for Curriculum and Professional Development

Post Print version of an article that appeared in Journal of College Student Development Volume 57 Issue 5 pages 573-589.This paper examines the limitations and possibilities of the emerging competency-based movement in Student Affairs. Utilizing complexity theory and postmodern educational theory as guiding frameworks, examination of the competency-based movement will raise questions about over-application of competencies in graduate preparation programs and continuing professional development, particularly in relation to complexity reduction. Following this discussion, possibilities of utilizing the Student Affairs Competencies to increase complexity and create postmodern curricula will be examined.Educatio

Love at the Center: Envisioning What Higher Education Could Be

Extending from a larger autoethnographic project, this scholarly personal narrative will portray one program director’s vision for the field of higher education. ACPA’s Strategic Imperative for Higher Education framework calls upon practitioners and scholars to start from a place of love. The field of higher education and student affairs was built on operating with an ethic of care. The pressures of a neo-liberal society work to dehumanize members of the field, turning us into cogs in a machine rather than human beings filled with hopes and dreams. This scholarly personal narrative, based on reflections and experiences as instructor and administrator, will present a new mode of operation for practitioners and faculty, rooted in humanity, centered in love and joy, to achieve a collective wholeness and healing for our field

Onboarding Employees Through Shared Values

How employees are on-boarded and welcomed into their new positions sets the tone for the culture of a place, the people, and the values of a new institution and can have a significant impact on employees sense of belonging. At Ohio University, the Division of Student Affairs employs approximately 400 staff and annually welcomes around 40-50 new employees a year, 25 of which are College Student Personnel (CSP) graduate students. New employees are welcomed with an ethic of care through a five day onboarding process rooted in Bolman and Deal’s human resource frame. This process includes departmental specific welcomes and trainings, along with division-wide team building, sexual misconduct training, social justice training, and suicide prevention training. This session outlined the correlation with Bolman and Deal’s human resource frame and NASPA/ ACPA competencies as well as lessons learned from implementing such a process, specifically include how these trainings intersect with the learning and development of new professionals

The Lead, January 2022

The Lead is an electronic newsletter produced by the Lindenwood College of Education & Human Services

Implementing Universal Instructional Design In Postsecondary Courses And Curricula

This paper provides an introduction to Universal Instructional Design, an adaptation of the architectural concept of universal design, and discusses the benefits of this model as an inclusive approach to higher education. Electronic links to free resources are provided in the reference list

Mindfulness as a Pedagogy of Supervision: Reclaiming Learning in Supervised Practices in Student Affairs

As graduate students prepare to enter the student affairs profession, supervision serves as a critical component of their overall self-development. However, for a number of reasons (e.g., the fast-paced nature of higher education, time constraints, etc.), supervision in the context of internships often centers solely on productivity and task-oriented activities. While worthy and necessary, these can neglect a central component of supervised practices: learning. This article seeks to reorient aspiring and seasoned student affairs professionals (supervisees and supervisors) toward certain pedagogy of supervision that makes room for mindfulness, which can bolster the quality of these learning experiences

Developing Faculty-Staff Collaborations to Foster a Culture of Environmental Justice

As science and society better understand the challenges of global climate change, colleges and universities must prepare students to be environmentally just actors. To prepare tomorrow’s leaders, today’s educators must foster a culture of environmental justice on college campuses through independent efforts and collaborations between faculty and staff. This article examines the potential for student and academic affairs to collaborate to enhance students’ learning about environmental justice through liberal arts education. The author also provides examples of pro-environmental work done in student and academic affairs and introduces opportunities for collaboration between staff and faculty

Lessons from Women Leaders: The Impact of Professional Development

Professional development is learner-centered, where the responsibility to engage in further educational experiences belongs to the individual and is a critical way to prepare for career advancement. In higher education, cisgender women do not hold the majority of chief student affairs officers (CSAO) positions, which is unexpected given their representation in entry and mid-level positions (Shea Gasser, 2014). This article reviews a grounded theory study conducted to better understand the phenomenon of professional development experiences of women CSAOs and how professional development impacts career ascension of women in student affairs