week 1 education

Throughout the history of many institutions, "an unhealthy separation between academic and student affairs had developed and needed to be addressed" (Kezar, as cited in McClellan & Stringer, 2009, p. 406). In your role as a higher education professional, you will have the unique opportunity to bridge the gap between academics and student affairs to significantly improve student learning. For your Course Project, you will prepare a proposal for a new student support program at your institution that blends academic and support services to foster student learning and development. The project will have several components: collecting background information to analyze prospective new programs, identifying outcomes and sources of evidence, conducting a literature review, analyzing the resource implications, and providing rationale for your proposed plan.

Collect Background Information—Week 1 Before you design and develop your new student support program at your own institution, you will have the opportunity to analyze the programs offered by other institutions to facilitate student learning and development (e.g., new student orientation, first-year experience, academic advising services, tutoring services, learning communities, and capstone experiences). In Week 1 of this course, you will conduct research on three or four institutions and the types of programs they have available for students. You will complete an analysis of the programs to help you determine which type of program you might want to adopt at your own institution.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE SUPPORTING AND ENHANCING STUDENT LEARNING THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS WITH ACADEMIC COLLEAGUES

Adrianna Kezar

Partnering with academic colleagues might have been considered a Controversial and difficult activity in the past, but it has now become relatively commonplace on college campuses across the country (Kezar, 2001 ). In 1999 , Kuh noted that, historically, collaboration has been more espoused than enacted. However, the landscape has changed, and national surveys have documented that partnerships between academic and student affairs are happending at thousands of varying institutions and across institutional types and sectors (Kezar, Hirsch, and Burack, 2001 ; and Kolins, 1999 ). A sea change has occurred during the past decade, in large measure a result of national conversation begun by the American College Personal Association (ACPA) and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). The dialogue became more active in 1994 with the publication of The Student Learning Imperative (American College Personal Association [ACPA]), in which student affairs professionals were challenged to create a seamless learning environment by bridging organizational boundaries and forging collaborative partnerships with faculty and other educators to enhance learning. The report writers noted that students perceived their educational process as a set of disjointed, unconnected experiences. The authors of the Imperative were responding to research on learning that demonstrated that student’s cognitive and psychosocial learning is intertwined, in contrast to our organizational structures, which are fragmented. Furthermore, the report’s authors were concerned with criticism by higher education leaders such as Ernest Boyer ( 1987 ) and reports such as An American Imperative (Wingspread Group on Higher Education, 1993 ). These criticisms suggested higher education had lost its sense of community and whole- ness, and the fragmented experience was hurting students. An unhealthy separation between academic and student affairs had developed and needed to be addressed. Perhaps the most well-known document articulating the benefits and need for collaboration is Powerful Partnerships: A Shared Responsibility for Learning (American Association for Higher Education [AAHE], ACPA, and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators [NASPA] 1998 ). The report makes the case that “ only when everyone on campus — particularly academic and student affairs staff — shares responsibility for student learning will we be able to make significant progress for improving it. ” The Powerful Partnership authors also note that “ only by acting cooperatively in the context of common goals, as the most innovative institutions have done, will our accumulated under- standing about learning be put to best use ” (p. 1). Learning Reconsidered: A Campus - Wide Focus on the Student Experience (Keeling, 2004) also identified partnerships as critical for developing integrated or trans- formative learning necessary within our current society. As the report boldly states, “ No single arena of experience is solely responsible for producing these college outcomes. All areas of college engagement provide opportunities for student learning and development” (p. 30). What is exciting to the profession of student affairs is that the field has moved from describing the importance of partnerships and discussions of obstacles (which dominated the discourse of the 1980s and 1990s) to examining the best strategies for developing partnerships and understanding some of the best models for collaboration. This chapter synthesizes the literature and research about partnerships spawned by The Student Learning Imperative. The chapter is aimed at helping practitioners by shedding light on barriers, benefits, strategies, and promising practices for partnerships. It begins with four reflections that set a foundation to understand the current context around collaboration. The refl ections are followed by action steps on ways to create and sustain collaborative partnerships. Before getting started, it is important to consider definitions. People use the words collaboration, partnerships, cooperation, and coordination interchangeably. There is a distinction that is important to keep in mind. Coordination or cooperative arrangements typically involve sharing information or working on tasks together but usually do not fundamentally alter the work itself (Hagadoorn, 1993 ; Lockwood, 1996 ). On the other hand, partnership or collaboration involves joint goals, a reliance on each other to accomplish those goals, joint planning, and often power sharing. In order to be considered collaboration, it is key that there be an interactive process (relationship over time) and that groups develop shared rules, norms, and structures, which often become their first work together. When practitioners talk about partnerships, they are usually referring to either coordination or collaboration. This process usually begins with coordination and then, if it makes sense, there is an effort to move toward collaboration. These terms are used generically in the chapter, as practitioners typically do; this distinction is made within the research literature.

Student Support Programs at Other Institutions Template

Directions: Use this template to describe the programs and services available for students at three or four different institutions. Be sure to describe programs from each of the following: public four-year, private four-year, community college.

Type of Institution
Description of Programs or Services Offered
Providers of Services
Target Population

Student Support Programs at Other Institutions Template

Directions: Use this template to describe the programs and services available for students at three or four different institutions. Be sure to describe programs from each of the following: public four-year, private four-year, community college.

Type of Institution
Description of Programs or Services Offered
Providers of Services
Target Population

Student Support Programs at Other Institutions Template

Directions: Use this template to describe the programs and services available for students at three or four different institutions. Be sure to describe programs from each of the following: public four-year, private four-year, community college.

Type of Institution
Description of Programs or Services Offered
Providers of Services
Target Population