Ephraim Gurney\'s Shoes: You Have Just Been

¶ … Ephraim Gurney's shoes: you have just been appointed as the first student affairs professional by your university president. Your president wants you to handle student discipline and other duties that will allow faculty to free up their time for research. In a sense, you have an opportunity to define your role: what will it look like? What are your key functions? Provide evidence-based rationale to support your answer.

The student affairs office should handle all types of student advocacy, life, and wellness (Hattas, 1989). This will incorporate a lot of different departments that will fall under the general umbrella of student affairs. From the time that a student first starts thinking about joining the university until they have either gotten their degree or for some other reason leave, the office of student affairs makes sure that the individual has the resources to succeed. Admissions is the first student affairs department that they will probably utilize, and, for many students, the second is financial aid (UC Santa Cruz, 2011). During the matriculation process, a student may be involved in athletics, require academic advising services, be a member of a Greek organization, or that person may just need some spiritual or secular guidance. All of these programs are a part of the student affairs office that I would be setting up (Ludeman, 2001).

The key function of the director of student affairs is to make sure that the individuals who attend the university have the best possible experience (Hattas, 1989). To do this the director has to be constantly updated on both the changing face of education and the changing temper of the students that attend the institution (MacKinnon, 2004). The director should have people in place who are experts in the different fields (advising, athletics, careers, fund raising, etc.) for which they are responsible, so that the director can concentrate on organization (MacKinnon, 2004).

2. What are our roots as student affairs professionals? How do our roots define our profession? Has student affairs as a profession remained true to its roots? What do our roots mean for us in our roles as student affairs professionals?

Student affairs can be traced back to men and women who were plucked from their strictly academic roles to manage the lives of the students (Gerda, 2006). At first they were given titles such as the Dean of Women or the Dean of Men and many lived in the dormitories with their charges. Or, at the very least, they were close enough that they could be called upon quickly to handle disputes. They did not have the far-reaching responsibilities that student affairs directors have now because there were separate departments for the different activities which now fall within the bounds of student affairs.

One of the most interesting aspects of student affairs history is that was not a theory of education which was tried out on campus after it was theorized (Gerda, 2006). The profession came from the need that school chancellors and presidents saw. Therefore, the theory of student affairs came along after the profession had already been established.

Student affairs has stayed true to its roots because it was a profession which was established to advocate for all students and to make their transition from lower education to higher, and then higher education to the workforce easier (Oliaro & Gordon, 1996). Because this is a profession which has a century and a half of history, it is possible to look back and see what worked, and, when there are issues, revisit some of the first tenets of the profession to see how they worked and why. Because there is such a large body of experience in the profession it is easier to fulfill all of the roles that are required of the student affairs professional.

3. What is student affairs' role in advocating for all student populations and addressing issues of access, inequality, and unethical behavior?