Divide Breaching the Student Affairs-Faculty

Divide

Breaching the Student Affairs-Faculty Divide

According to Magdola (1999), active learning is one of the more important institutions in a college education. Active learning means that students are able to bring together the aspects of their personal and academic lives. Magdola (1999) writes, "To make effective arguments, decisions, and judgments, a student must reflect on her own and others' views and integrate them into informed perspectives and understandings" (pg. 23). Thus, it is the job of the student affairs personnel to engage in a discourse with teaching faculty regarding active learning. However, Magdola (1999) also writes that entering such a discussion can be challenging. Indeed, the divide between teaching faculty and student affairs personnel is something of popular lore. While this divide exists, addressing why it is there and what can be done about it is up to speculation.

Although Dalton (1999) writes that "recent national reports on education and society have been highly critical of the neglect of values in undergraduate education and have called for renewed attention to the central role of character and civic education in colleges and universities" (pg. 45), it is probable that teaching faculty are more focused on their specialization than seeking to develop students as a whole or focusing on non-academic growth. This is not to say that teaching faculty are unconcerned about student achievement, but rather it is probable that they see this as the job of student affairs personnel, while their job is to focus on the development of the students as scholars. When teaching faculty engage with student affairs personnel on such relevant issues as academic integrity. Such models can occur when both faculty and student affairs personnel are aware of the active learning component and the personal group of a student as an integral part of the university's goals and models of student achievement.