New Realities in the Management of Student Affairs: Emerging Specialist Roles and Structures for Changing Times

Student affairs organizations are at a crossroad. They are faced with increasing challenges in terms of expanding enrollment; a concomitant increase in needs for services, and often more complex services; changing demographics in terms of diversity of background, and a growing cohort of non-traditional and first-generation students; the shifting and demanding nature of responsibilities; and increased expectations related to programs and services from the greater campus community, parents, and external constituents. The challenges facing student affairs organizations are intensified by the accelerating speed of advancements in technology, globalization, innovations and student consumerism. At the same time, student affairs organizations face the reality of dramatically shrinking resources, and a strain on the ability to increase tuition and fees. This work is intended to share new ideas regarding organizational design and restructuring of roles and responsibilities to enable student affairs organizations to respond to these challenges and demands more effectively. It explores emerging approaches to organizational design occurring within the profession, to identify their advantages and disadvantages and to discuss how they might assist student affairs organizations in their restructuring efforts. This book presents a description and discussion of a number of new roles and provides insights into how they are being designed and staffed to enhance efficient use of human resources in both large and smaller student affairs organizations. It discusses examples of how to address emerging needs in light of limited resources and explores the use of cross-training and ongoing collaboratively designed staff development as tools to assist in addressing and managing these changes. Overall the work is intended to explore a number of dimensions of change and present them as models that might assist student affairs leaders and practitioners to more effectively understand and manage the change that is occurring in their organizations and to borrow effective ideas and solutions from others within the profession.