Students featuring Student Affairs Professionals: The Power of Collaboration

When we look up the word featuring, or feature, it is defined as “a significant characteristic of or take an important part in”. Artists are famous for featuring another artist on a song or record. The artist, who originally has more rights to the song, can invite and collaborate with other artists even if the other artist is more talented or has more resources. I think there are some contrasting parallels I can draw from this. Students today are faced with challenges in higher education. To be fair, challenges in higher education have always existed; hence, the conception of student affairs. However, certain attention to resolve these challenges received more attention than others, and mostly because in the beginning of higher education, only certain groups were allowed access to higher education.  

But let’s fast forward to the present. Today, associations such as American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) have listed the many recent challenges facing higher education to be mental health, sexual assault on campus, student debt, alcohol and drugs, race and equity, and most recently, the massive state budget cuts as barriers to overcome. More specifically these challenges are institutions being understaffed and lacking the resources to assist students with mental challenges. Furthermore, campuses have largely ignored huge warning signs of sexual assaults, particularly pertaining to policy reform and institutional culture regarding sexual assault. Other concerns are with financial aid literacy and the responsibility the institution has to not only recruit a variety of students, but also to provide realistic information on the affordability of college. Additionally, institutions inequitable distribution of funding creates concerns for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Institutions should not only be concerned with recruiting diverse students from various race/ethnic, socioeconomic, sexual orientation and other non-dominant backgrounds, but also with providing funding to assist these students to increase their chances of degree completion. Race and equity continue to be pushed by students who feel they are not being heard, and they feel their demands are being ignored. Campus activism has forced college administrators to reevaluate what inclusivity really means, yet policies and institutional culture struggle to reflect the students’ voices. Lastly, many institutions have to adjust to the lack of funding from their state, which will negatively impact prospective and current students the most. Let’s also keep in mind that each campus is different, so another set of issues may look different across institutions of higher education. Whatever the challenge is, student affairs professionals naturally look at them through the lens of how are students impacted. More importantly, we must acknowledge that students of various identities will be impacted very differently. I am not stating that others outside of our profession do not look at how students will be impacted, but we as student affairs professionals intentionally are more student-centered because of the nature of our work.

I remember when I first started in student affairs; I was energized, new, and eager to change students’ lives for the better. As many of my colleagues have told me, they, too, pursue a career in student affairs because someone in student affairs or a college administrator provided guidance and helped me get to the finish line. I imagine some of us have experienced similar situations that our students are going through today as we mentor future generations. So, it’s natural that we want what’s best for our students. But are really doing that? For me, I ask myself that question frequently.

One day a student walked into my office, sat down, and cried. I did all the things I knew to do. I grabbed some tissue, pulled up a chair next to the student, and asked all the right questions: What’s wrong; what happened; how can I help; is there anything I can do? It’s that instinct of I will do whatever I can to help this student sobbing in my office. I said all the cliché things like It’s going to get better; Sometimes bad things happens to good people, etc. I even had the resources available for any situation. The student stopped crying, said thank you and left. Now for a minute, I felt like, this is why I am in student affairs. I just helped a student and provided resources.  But a few minutes had passed… and I realized I did everything but listen …I mean I listened to the student when they talked, but did I really listen? I felt so consumed with trying to fix the problem, rather than hearing the problem.  I learned a few lessons that day. I will not go into all of them, but one of the lessons I learned was that students do not always come to our offices and cry or tell you the problem; in fact, many students do not come to our offices. But if you listen and pay attention, students are telling us that the issues in higher education have been there for quite some time. Perhaps it shouldn’t take the academy or institutions itself to officially call it “an issue” when students have been telling us the entire time.

This can be challenging as a professional, especially as a new professional, when dealing with challenges. Naturally, we guard things we can control, but remain silent on things we believe are beyond our control.  Again, no simple task, as we have to navigate difficult terrains of college campuses, which are just microcosms of our greater societal problems. However, part of unlearning is listening and actively doing the opposite of what you are accustomed to doing, and not just to be different, but to disrupt the dominant narrative of responding to students rather than listening and collaborating with students. How much more would we as student affairs professionals accomplish if we collaborated with students rather than just responding or attempting to fix them? This is not about pacifying students, or being politically correct (although I have issues with that terminology) –this is about involving students. What I do know is challenges will always exist, and sadly, some of these challenges will exist more and more harshly impact some students more than others. I may not have a simple answer to how do we help students effectively when issues continue to bring about unique challenges; however, I do know that without intentional collaboration with these students, we may very well be contributing to the issues ourselves as student affairs professionals. These issues are not going to resolve themselves; in fact, doing nothing contributes to the issues worsening.  But there’s an old saying that’s relevant:  “Two minds are greater than one.” Let’s just make sure at least one of those minds is a student.

Rodney Bates received his B.A. in Psychology in May 2002, and M.Ed. in Education in May 2008, both from the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. Bates currently works in Housing and Food Services as a Center Coordinator in Residence Life. Bates is seeking his Ph.D. in Educational and Leadership Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma where his focus is on Black males’ experiences at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI).  Bates is the current Oklahoma Membership Coordinator for NASPA Region IV-West.