It is time for the field of student affairs to put aside its four-decade preoccupation with professional status and recognize that its identity as a field is essentially an administrative convenience linked by an allegiance to a common philosophical perspective on its work and by nature of its clientele and the milieu in which it is practiced.…

This digest focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the student affairs profession in higher education. The strengths of student affairs include diversity and involvement. Student affairs staff are trained in many different disciplines and are located throughout the campus. The diversity of student affairs professionals is seen as the thread…

For student affairs, a professional field heretofore dominated by the positivistic design structure imposed by quantitative research methodology and traditional graduate research courses, an increased utilization of an alternative methodology, the qualitative, would lead to a greatly expanded range of researchable questions. The use of qualitative…

With the rapidly changing population demographics of the United States and significant growth of diverse multicultural groups, schools and professionals are being challenged on how to provide the best comprehensive educational and support services to their increasingly diverse student population. The changes between 1980 and 1990 have been…

Student development has become a buzz word within the student affairs profession and the concept of student development has become the guiding paradigm of the student affairs profession. Unfortunately, this embracing of student development lacked the necessary critique or debate essential to academics. This digest provides an abstract of a major…

The efforts of student affairs aimed at improving quality of life, integrating new student groups, and attracting and retaining students are becoming critical to colleges and universities. Student affairs organizations can respond to the changing conditions and take a leadership role in new institutional strategies; they can become…

Although the role of the student development professional has changed along with the mission of the community colleges, the models providing a theoretical framework for the profession have remained relatively unchanged. In 1937, the American Council on Education published a statement which declared that student development professionals were to…

The efforts of college student affairs professionals aimed at improving student life, integrating new student groups, and attracting and retaining students are becoming critical to institutions attempting to maintain enrollments of qualified students, ensure academic achievement, place graduates, and develop supportive alumni. Changes in student…