Like most people who end up working in Student Affairs, I didn’t imagine my career when I was a child. I wasn’t even aware that Student Affairs was a career. And, once I chose it as a career, I realized that many people still think it isn’t one.
Texas A & M’s Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development has a great humor page, where I found the Top 10 reasons you became a Student Affairs professional, and I particularly connected with #3 . . .
“You enjoy the challenge of trying to tell people what you do for a living.”
The last time I think my parents really understood what I did for a living, I was a resident assistant. And for many of my friends and acquaintances, that is pretty much what they thought I did, up until I left my last formal position in Student Affairs (Assistant Director of Residence Life at Penn State University.) I was in college for a living, and I settled roommate problems and busted people for drinking. (Which many acquiantainces thought was irony in action, on both counts, but that is a story for another day.)
Academics and “serious” professionals don’t know what to make of us, either. For example, Wikipedia’s current entry for Student Affairs has a section on criticism of the field which reads, in part…
“The field of Student Affairs has been criticized for its emphasis on formal, professional training, calling into question whether the field is theoretical or practical. Complicating this criticism is the question of the role of student development theories in student affairs practice. It is claimed that student development theories are used to “proactively identify and address student needs, design programs, develop policies, and create healthy…environments that encourage positive growth in students.”
“Yet, often student affairs practices often bear little resemblance or connection to student development theories. As Paul Bloland (1979) wrote in an article in the NASPA Journal, “We have cultivated an expertise that was not requested, is not sought out, and for which there is little recognition or demand. Many entry-level and (many) seasoned professionals know little of student development theory and practice and, in fact, do not really need such expertise to meet the role expectations of their supervisors or, in too many instances, their institutions.”
Yet, for almost 20 years now, I have planned my life around the idea that Student Affairs is a career. In 2009, I left a stable job to venture out on my own, and establish a career coaching practice dedicated to helping others pursue their passions for working with students and find their own niche in Student Affairs. My perspective is that Student Affairs is actually a calling, within which you will find many career tracks. And it isn’t for everybody. I actually think it is the responsibility of those in the field to both recruit people with potential, and to “counsel out” out those who don’t have the passion and the fortitude to do the work. It’s no kindness to someone to show only the benefits, and none of the sacrifices, that go along with the profession.
In his song “Mr. Bad Example,” Warren Zevon recalled many career exploits of the song’s protagonist, and like those who work in Student Affairs, the protagonist clearly wore many hats, including the following…
“…worked in hair replacements, swindling the bald, where very few are chosen, and fewer still are called.”
The same could be said about Student Affairs. Very few are chosen, and fewer still are called. And I don’t think that a love of student development theory is required for success. I don’t care much about academics, or about student development theory, but I do know that Student Affairs is a calling, and that you can make a great career in it, if you are passionate about working with young people, and believe that helping people find their way is a worthy pursuit, you may be cut of the right material. But only if you have the strength of will and character to ignore the assaults on your dignity, your professional worth and your profession. They come with this line of work. The only thing that is truly important is that you know who you are and what you are about. If you are meant to serve students, you will. It’s just a matter of time. And in many cases, of strategy. If it’s meant to be, you will find your way. Just know, in the meantime, that many are in your corner, and have been in your place, before you. And we are here to help.
October is Careers in Student Affairs month. In honor of this, I am offering a coaching package for new professionals, to help them get off to a good start. It includes the following:
A professionally written resume, geared toward your preferred target positions ($85 value)
Access to an online job search group, with activities, lessons, and a private discussion board): $50 value
Purchased separately, this package would be $355, but this deal gives you nearly 30% off! For only $250, you get all of the above, including 6 months of access to the group, and any additional workshops or activities added to the job search group.
I’m opening this deal up only to new professionals (either those finishing school and looking for their first job, or with less than 5 years of professional experience). Availability is limited, and this special will not be repeated.
Does your role require direct service to students? If so, explain.
Yes, serving as an advisor to SGA, Allocations and various student focused committees.
How many persons in your department hold an equivalent rank? One.
How many people do you supervise? Are they Full-Time or Part-Time? Professional Staff, Trades/Custodial Staff, or StudentStaff? (Please list numbers for each.)
Directly – 2 Directors
Indirectly:
Full time – Masters level –10
Full time administrative – 5
Full time maintenance – 5
Grad students -5
Undergraduate students – 50+
What is the title of the person your report to? What is the title of that person’s immediate superior? Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, and he reports to the Chancellor.
What is your typical day like? Your typical week?
That is hard to say because each day is different based on the time of year with the ebb and flow of the academic year.
What do you spend the majority of your time doing in your current role?
Clearly most of the time is in different meetings and following up on individual concerns, discipline or projects.
What did you think you would be doing more, when you applied for the job?
I’m not sure what I thought I would spend more time doing, but I have spent more time working on enrollment management type conversations, and how all we do engages us in the recruitment and retention of students.
What survival skill is most important in your current role?
Creating relationships with trusted colleagues is clearly the most important – and those colleagues may not be on your campus. As you move “up” you are more and more isolated on your campus. Having colleagues that you can connect with to bounce ideas, seek input and advice is critical. I have found that through my involvement with NASPA.
Do you serve on committees within your department? Division? University-Wide? What roles do you play on these committees?
ZIPCar and Transportation Launch Team (Chair)
Veterans Services Development Committee
Collected Rules and Regulations Review Committee
Academic Program Review Committee
New Student Convocation (Chair)
Divisional Customer Service Training Program (Chair)
Campus Safety Messaging Committee (Chair)
Case Management Team (Member)
Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Divisional Assessment Committee
LGBTQIA Partnership Committee (Chair)
Violence Prevention Task Force (member)
What advice do you have for persons seeking this type of position?
The piece that has been hard for me, but most important is to take your time. Many of us want Dean, VP roles, but the tradeoffs and politics need to be weighed as you move up – particularly as you balance life & job. That said, I do think there are a few things to remember that I will tell anyone that will listen.
If you say you are going to do something, do it. New and even seasoned professionals that forget or fail to follow through on commitments can quickly be chalked up to someone you can’t count on.
If you know something can’t be done in the time given, make sure you are honest in your statements. But again, if you say you can get it done, do it.
Do the things no one else wants to do. With a smile.
Don’t have one year of experience 5+ times, work to diversify your work to get a true 5+ years of experience.
Look for ways to volunteer and get involved with different offices on campus. Help with Bid Day, Orientation etc. Those are tangible experiences that you can use to guide your career path later.
Get involved with a regional or national organization. Whether reviewing proposals for a conference, volunteering at the conference, begin to build your network of friends and colleagues.
Don’t forget how small our profession is. If you grotesquely burn a bridge in one place, it is very hard to truly start over, unless you are willing to reflect, learn and share about that experience.
Learn technology. Twitter, web, etc. We don’t need more technophobes and serving our students will require it.
Engage authentically in diversity training at all opportunities. The more we know about ourselves, the better we are able to serve all of our students.
Read, Read, Read. The student development theories that we learned in grad school are great, but things are changing rapidly and the research is trying to catch up. Keep abreast of new ideas and concepts as it relates to retention and matriculation of students and bring those ideas (with appropriate citations/credit) to the table.
On today’s podcast, I’ll have an interview with Sarah Craddock, an Academic Advisor for Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University. We will talk about different aspects of her job and how her education and experience prepared her for it.
Sarah also shares some insights on how her experience in Residence Life was perceived during the interview process, what her work entails, and different roles she plays in working with faculty and other staff at Colorado State.
This podcast is part of a new series about Career Tracks in Higher Education that will be running periodically on Higher Ed Career Coach, to help graduate students and new professionals understand different roles across academia, so they can gauge opportunities during their job search. Listen in Friday July 20, at 11 am ET. Call in to share your thoughts and questions.
Also, updates on news in the higher ed world, including the recent happenings at Penn State in relation to the Jerry Sandusky Scandal, and some updates on upcoming features and programs at HigherEdCareerCoach.Com.
Next week, I’ll be running a guest post from Eric Grospitch, Ed.D., the Assistant Dean of Students for the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at the University of MIssouri-Kansas City. A couple of other guest posts are pending, but I’d like to have a lot of variety, so that readers can get some ideas about how roles may differ, depending on size of university, university type, and different organizational structures.
If you are interested in sharing perspectives about your job, check out the outline for the guest posts and submit your guest post via the guest post submission form or via e-mail to sean@higheredcareercoach.com. Guest bloggers will be invited to give interviews for the podcast (either live or pre-recorded, depending on availability.)
If you have suggestions for future posts, contact Sean.
[THIS ARTICLE LINKED TO AN INFOGRAPHIC AT A WEBSITE THAT IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE. THE INFORMATION BELOW WAS UP TO DATE WHEN THE ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED.]
The Infographic of the Week this week comes from FindOnlineEducation.Com, and gives an interesting overview and some facts about the growth of online education.
Some key information featured in the infographic:
Online education represented 5.6% of enrollment in the United States in 1995 and now represents 27.5%
The overseas market in online education is expected to grow by 50% by 2014.
Online education is currently a $73.8 billion enterprise but is expected to grow to $220 billion by 2017.
Predictions
The growth of online education programs will have a great impact on career tracks in higher education. While it remains to be seen how this will actually play out, I think that the trend toward online education will mean the following for higher education professionals:
Comfort with technology will continue to be a key differentiator between candidates. With so many baby boomers and early Gen X-ers re-entering the job market or finding themselves “re-careering,” they will increasingly need to adapt to new technology. If this does not happen, we will see even further growth of millennial representation in key support roles.
There will be an increase in advising and admissions positions, and over time, a decrease in residence life and student activities staff on campus. This will require candidates to increasingly demonstrate their knowledge of curriculum development, information systems and databases.
Advising from a distance will require comfort with virtual teams, online project management systems, webinar/webmeeting technology, and cloud-based data storage and file-sharing.
What Do You Think?
What trends do you see higher education professionals dealing with, as online education programs continue to grow? What key skills do you think will be required? And how can we train people for the challenges that come with this new educational environment?
There are so many different career tracks in Higher Ed, and so many different titles and combinations of responsibilities, that it can be hard for graduate students and new professionals to figure out where a position falls in an organization, to understand what the day-to-day experience might be in a particular job, and to key in on skills and interests that will help them make good arguments for a particular kind of job.
In response, Higher Ed Career Coach is introducing a new guest post series where experienced professionals will share more about their jobs, the skills and experiences that helped them get those jobs, and what they really spend their time doing.
In order to have some uniformity to the series, guest posts in the Career Tracks in Higher Education series must answer a common set of questions. The article should be at least 500 words, and when published, will have a headline in the following format:
Career Tracks in Higher Education: [Area]
For example: Career Tracks in Higher Education: Judicial Affairs
You are welcome to suggest any subtitle you like. Articles longer than 750 words may be published as two or more separate posts. If your article is published, you may also be invited to be a guest on the Higher Ed Career Coach show to discuss your article and your career.
8. Number of Years of Full-Time Experience You Had When You Started This Position:
9. What was the minimum education required for your current position?
10. How many years of experience were required for your current position?
11. What are your major responsibilities in your current position?
12. Does your role require direct service to students? If so, explain.
13. How many persons in your department hold an equivalent rank?
14. How many people do you supervise? Are they Full-Time or Part-Time? Professional Staff, Trades/Custodial Staff, or Student Staff? (Please list numbers for each.
15. What is the title of the person your report to? What is the title of that person’s immediate superior?
16. What is your typical day like? Your typical week?
17. What do you spend the majority of your time doing in your current role?
18. What did you think you would be doing more, when you applied for the job?
19. What survival skill is most important in your current role?
20. Do you serve on committees within your department? Division? University-Wide? What roles do you play on these committees?
21. What advice do you have for persons seeking this type of position?
I spent 14 years of my life working at Penn State, 12 for the Office of Residence Life, and 2 for the Smeal College of Business. It was my home and I am still proud of my former colleagues, my old students, and of the many good things that Penn State has contributed to the world. So this week, I am heartsick, angry, shocked, disappointed and like many, I am not sure what to do with all the various thoughts and feelings.
There are no easy answers, but something good must come of this, so this week, I am doing a two-hour podcast on the topic, and hopefully taking calls and comments about the situation.
While sharing your thoughts and feelings are part of this, I am hoping to hear some thoughts on how this case can provide lessons and ways to improve the handling of similar incidents in the future.
Please listen live from 11 am until 1 pm ET this Friday, and call in to (347) 989-0055 to share your thoughts and advice.
Work with Sean. I help higher ed professionals take control of their careers with tailored services including resume and CV development, LinkedIn profile optimization and networking strategy, interview coaching, and one-on-one career guidance.
Like most people who end up working in Student Affairs, I didn’t imagine my career when I was a child. I wasn’t even aware that Student Affairs was a career. And, once I chose it as a career, I realized that many people still think it isn’t one.
