THE ROLE OF THE STUDENT SERVICES PRACTITIONERS IN STUDENT
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Thelora Reynolds
Director, Student Service, UWI, Mona
Astin (1996) comments:-
“If we stop for a moment to consider what the most critical problems of our society really are at least as “effective” as they are “cognitive”: racial tension, crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school drop-outs, disengagement from politics, and a growing unwillingness among the public to support governmental efforts to alleviate some of these problems.
....If higher education is really about cognitive and effective outcomes such as leadership, self understanding, and citizenship, then student affairs has a central part in educating the students.“(P6)
The Student Learning Imperative (1994), states that student affairs professionals are educators who share responsibility with faculty, academic administrators, other staff and students themselves for creating the conditions under which students are likely to expend time and energy on educationally purposeful services. The document further states that learning and personal development are the primary goals of student affairs.
However, very little research has been conducted on the direct effect of student services practitioners on student learning and development. The indirect influence is noted through the positive effects of out-of-classroom activities in areas such as residence halls, peer groups, interaction with faculty outside of the class room, career counseling, to name a few. The named areas fall under the purview of the student services practitioners and the impact these activities will have on student learning and development depends to a large extent on the experiences that are created by the practitioners.
Rhoads and Black (1995) recorded three waves of direct influence of student services practitioners on student learning and development. The first wave was grounded in the theory of ‘In Loco Parentis'. (Rudolph, 1962; Veysey, (1965). Upcraft and Moore (1990) states that the early colonial colleges believed they had a responsibility to act on behalf of parents, for the good of the students. Students were considered children and the institution their ‘Parents'. Thoads and Black described this early relationship between student services staff and students as ‘unidirectional', where staff created rules, provided direction and established consequences for students' behaviour.
In the context of ‘in loco Parantis', the student services practitioner's role involved both the giving of knowledge and taking of responsibility for the students' use of knowledge (Muller, 1961).
The second wave of direct influence of student affairs, as outlined by Rhoads and Black (1995), was shaped by developmental theory The Ski dents Personnel Point of View' (1937), directed student services practitioners to respond t student as a whole person, attend to individual differences and work with students at their level of development. Sanford (1967) encouraged student affairs staff to construct campus commune ties that offer the proper mix of ‘challenges and support'.
The third wave of direct influence, (Rhoads and Black 1995), is linked to critical theory (Benhabib, 1986; Kellner, 1989, Agger 1991 The critical theorists posit that social and cultural groups compete to make legitimate their own version of social reality. The challenge for student services personnel is to identify and dismantle the cultural conditions that hinder the democratic process from operating. According to Rhoads and Black, student affairs practitioners, as trans formative educators, may affect student learning and development by performing the following seven roles.
1. Structuring the college/university community by not only creating the out-of-classroom learning opportunity but engaging faculty and staff in campus change.
2. Building empowering social and cultural settings, not only emphasizing the individual development, but also focusing on the social and cultural context in which student development is presumed to occur.
3. Contributing to the development of campus communities based on the ethic of care and a commitment to democracy
• Creating conditions in which diverse students, faculty and staff can participate fully in campus decision-making. Student services professionals must challenge organizational gate-keepers to create structures and opportunities so that varied constituencies have representation.
5. Representing cultural differences and encouraging others to do the same. Student services practitioners must protect the rights and liberties of marginalized members of the academic community.
6. Treating students as equals in the struggle to create a more just academic community and society.
7. Embracing conflict as an opportunity to transform the academic community, instead of viewing conflict as a threat to organizational harmony.
The indirect influence of student services practitioners on student learning and development has been extensively researched and reported on by Astin (1993b). His longitudinal data-base of 217 institutions reveals that the strongest single source of influence on cognitive and affective development is the students' peer group. He points out that most peer groups operate primarily outside of the formal classroom and that much of out-of-classroom life falls under the purview of student services. Love (1995) explored the impact of student affairs practitioners on student outcomes. He recommends that consideration be given to the influence of student affairs professionals who work wit students outside the classroom when exploring the impact of out-of-classroom experiences on students.
Astin (1993) looked at the impact of career counseling on student learning and development. He found that receiving career counseling was positively correlated with an increase in critical thinking, analytic and problem solving skills, leadership ability, preparation for graduate or [professional school, job related skills and overall academic development. Carrol (1988) found that counselors were more important than faculty in the retention of undergraduate students in one historically black college. As early as 1970, Hedlund and Jones identified the importance of student services staff in the retention of students in the institution. They reported that at the two-year college level, those institutions with a high level of student personnel staff graduate 50% or more of their students in two years. On the other hand, only 20% of the institutions with a low ratio of student personnel staff graduated 50% or more of the students in two years.
The effectiveness of student services in meeting the challenges inherent in defining their roles as educators will depend to a large extent on the skills and competences that the practitioner possesses. In other words, effectiveness will depend on the preparedness of the practitioner.
Increasingly, the student services literature draws attention to what can be considered core competencies; for professionalism, efficiency and effective-ness. Saunders and Cooper (1999) surveyed Chief Student Services Officers (CSAOs), to examine how they rate core competencies for middle management level in student affairs The study indicated that
personnel management and leadership skills such as resolving interpersonal problems and conflicts. building effective work teams, collaborating with others implementing effective decisions, persuading others and understanding organizational behaviour were most consistent at that level. The lowest ratings in the study were given to areas such as research, evaluation, professional development and fiscal management.
Saunders and Cooper (1999) recorded that items involving writing articles for publication, developing procedures for research studies, maintaining scholarly background in one's discipline and using standardized instruments were seen as less important than items that emphasized interpersonal skills.
The low ratings given to scholarly work are inconsistent with the education agenda that is prescribed for student services by authors such as King and Kitchener (1994), Kegan (1994) and King and Magolda (1996).
Fey and Carpenter (1996) tried to determine the skills middle managers themselves thought were essential for effective professional practice in student affairs. They found that the middle managers sampled supported the views of the CSAOs in Saunders and Cooper's investigation.
Gordon, Strode and Mann (1993) investigated how CSOs rate various skills when hiring a middle manager. The findings supported Fey and Carpenter's (1996) and Saunders and Cooper's (1999) results~ interpersonal skills, leadership, student contact and communication were rated most important. Personnel and skills in fiscal management were found to be slightly less important in informing hiring decisions, but professional development, research and evaluation were considered essential.
Pope and Reynolds (1997), conceptualized the core abilities necessary for student services work as the following seven competencies:
1) Administrative and management skills.
2) Theory and application.
3) Ethical and legal experiences
4) Teaching and training
5) Assessment and evaluation
6) Helping and interpersonal skills
7) Multicultural awareness.
The ordering in the sequences is not important. Pope and Reynolds (1997) commented that some professionals would develop more expertise in a particular area beyond basic and expected competencies. Experience gained from working with student services practitioners support the comment.
The literature suggests that there is a lack of consensus with respect to the ranking of the basic competencies required for effective student services practices. One could view the establishment of the Commission of Professional Development (1998), and the Council for the Advancement of Standards (1986, 1992), as attempts to address this lack of consensus.
Komives (1990) sums up the literature on core competencies for student services succinctly in the following quotation:
“Whether in practice or in preparation, in the broadest view, one needs to be, to some extent, both a scholar (one interested in advancing knowledge, promoting inquiry, understanding findings, learning and sharing new strategies and approaches) and a Practitioner (implementing interventions effectively, being oriented to quality services and education, effectively applying theory and research in practice)”. (p. 170)
The literature points to a still evolving ethos of how student services practitioners should perceive then roles as they work with students who are learning and developing on college/university campuses The necessary perception must be grounded in the knowledge of the theories of student development, a constant assessment of the campus environments natural and synthetic physical features, its population, its organizational structure and culture, and the knowledge of the factors that facilitates or impede the establishment of a democratic community Of equal importance is the knowledge of the core competencies that are necessary to manage student services effectively.
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