Student
Development:
Past and
Future
CSSA Summer Institute
Linda Reisser, Ed. D.
Dean of Student Development
July 24, 2014
Questions
• What does it mean to belong to a profession called
“student development?”
• What is “student development?”
• How did the profession evolve?
• Where are we now?
• Where are we going?
Developmental Stages
Colleges and Universities
820
1825
Stage 1
1901
Stage 2
2014
Stage 3
How did the profession evolve?
Colleges and Universities
820
1825
Stage 1
1901
Stage 2
2014
Stage 3
Student Development Professionals
1870
1937
2014
Stage 1
Stage 2
What’s a “Professional?”
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
High level of competence, knowledge
Commitment to ongoing learning
History
Basis in theory and research
Body of knowledge; literature; foundation
documents
Core values; recognized set of ethics
Principles of good practice
Standards for assessment
Professional organizations
Common language
Principles of Good Practice in Student Affairs
(National ACPA/NASPA Study Group, 1997)
Good practice in student affairs:
1. Engages students in active learning.
2. Helps students develop coherent values and ethical standards.
3. Sets and communicates high expectations for student learning.
4. Uses systematic inquiry to improve student and institutional performance.
5. Uses resources effectively to achieve institutional missions and goals.
6. Forges educational partnerships that advance student learning.
7. Builds supportive and inclusive communities.
What is “student development?”
•
•
•
higher level of competence and knowledge
more complexity
more integration of learning and
experience
• transformation of consciousness
• more self-awareness and self-esteem
• building strengths
• actualizing potential
Theory and Research
• Cognitive Theories
 William Perry - intellectual development
 Lawrence Kohlberg - ethical development.
 Carol Gilligan challenged Kohlberg’s model with research on
women’s moral development (1982)
 Mary Belenky et al. - Women’s Ways of Knowing (1987)
• Typology theories
 Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator
 Holland’s career aptitudes
 Kolb’s Learning Styles
• Psychosocial Theories
 Chickering’s seven vectors
1969 - Education and Identity
published
• By Arthur Chickering (Goddard College)
• assessed students in 13 liberal arts colleges
• used the Omnibus Personality Inventory, faculty
evaluations, student self-assessments, and observation
• identified 7 vectors—directions in which students tended
to move while in college
• encouraged colleges to be intentional about fostering
development
1993 - Revision
Chickering’s Seven Vectors
1. Developing competence
2. Managing emotions
3. Moving through autonomy toward
interdependence
1. Developing mature interpersonal
relationships
1. Establishing identity
2. Developing purpose
3. Developing integrity
How does student development happen?
Nevitt Sanford
The American College
(1962)
CHALLENGE +
SUPPORT =
GROWTH
Virginia Satir – Model of Transitions
How does professional or institutional
development happen?
Driving Forces:
Restraining Forces:
Readiness
Culture shift
Champion/catalyst
Necessity
Crisis
Mandate
Inertia
Resistance
Denial
Lack of resources
Lack of leadership
Lack of institutional will
How did the profession evolve?
Colleges and Universities
820
1825
Stage 1
1901
Stage 2
2014
Stage 3
Student Development Professionals
1870
1937
2014
Stage 1
Stage 2
Higher Ed. Origins – 820 A.D.
Charlemagne realized that the Holy Roman Empire
needed educated leaders.
He ordered cathedrals and monasteries to provide free
schools to “every boy who had the intelligence and the
perseverance to follow a demanding course of study.”
1020 A.D. - Monastic schools
were expanding throughout Europe.
By 1220 - Two universities had been
established at Paris and Bologna.
Paris
Bologna
By 1320, there were 20 universities in Europe.
The Latin
word for
“union” =
universitas.
“Bachelors” followed “Masters”
Latin-speaking
instructors
competed with
each other for
students, in
Europe.
Some English scholars had left Paris, and
moved to Oxford and Cambridge.
Religious orders opened
houses for students.
1264 - Merton College founded
at Oxford
Walter de Merton, a chancellor of England and Bishop of
Rochester, used revenues from his manor houses to fund
a scholarly community, as many private benefactors did.
Oxford Colleges
Merton College became
the model for colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge.
Cambridge
The Curriculum:
The Seven Liberal Arts
The Trivium
Grammar
 reading, writing, and
speaking Latin
Rhetoric
 public speaking &
literature
Logic
 demonstrating the
validity of
propositions
The Quadrivium
Arithmetic
- basis for quantitative reasoning
Geometry
- for architecture, surveying, and
calculating measurements
Astronomy
- for calculating the date of Easter,
predicting eclipses, and marking the
passing of the seasons
Music
- for worship, chanting
Degree Requirements
Bachelor or Arts – 6 years
Master of Arts – 7 years
Doctor of Law, Medicine, or Theology – 12 years
By 1620, there were many rules about student
conduct problems, enforced by the faculty.
Prohibited:
 hunting wild animals with
hounds
 walking publicly in boots
 growing curls
 playing football
 fencing, rope-dancing, or
“stage-playing”
Conduct Reports
Account of a visitor to Magdalen
College in 1507:
“Stokes was unchaste with the
wife of a tailor.”
“Stokysley baptized a cat and
practiced witchcraft.”
“Gregory climbed the great gate
by the tower and brought a
Stranger into the College.”
“Kendall wears a gown not sewn
together in front.”
Laud’s Code - 1636
The Archbishop of Canterbury and
Chancellor of Oxford, organized “the
jumbled mass of rules and statutes by
which Oxford confusedly governed itself.”
Among other things, it barred students
from:
 “idling about”
 going anywhere where wine or the
“Nicotian herb” was sold
 visiting houses where harlots were kept
English Model Imported to the
American Colonies
1620 - Pilgrims land in
America. Puritans valued
literacy.
Colonial colleges followed
English models:
Harvard - 1636
William and Mary - 1693
Yale - 1701
In 1720 America . . .
Very few students went to college.
Crafts and trades, and farming and business could be learned through
imitation or apprenticeships.
This was also true for the new professions, like law and medicine.
Only theology demanded further schooling.
Education was not compulsory, except in New England.
Admissions Requirements for Yale:
- examination by the President and
tutors at Yale
-”read, construe, and parse
Tully, Virgil, and the
Greek Testament”
- write Latin prose
- understand Arithmetic, and
- “bring sufficient testimony
of his Blameless and
Inoffensive Life.”
Like the English colleges. . .
• “Staff” lived with the students and
enforced the rules.
• Bachelors were taught by masters.
• Colleges were small communities, in
pastoral, semi-monastic settings.
• Tutors served “in loco parentis.”
• There was one curriculum:
The Seven Liberal Arts:
Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric,
Music, Arithmetic, Geometry,
Astronomy
The Three Philosophies:
Moral, Metaphysical, and Natural
The Two Tongues:
Greek and Hebrew
Colonial Student Development
- intellectual competence
(reading the classics,
disputation, rhetoric)
- managing emotions
(controlling adolescent
impulses)
- autonomy from parents;
navigating the college
- purpose and identity
(Congregational minister)
Stage 2 - 1820 - 1901
1825
Thomas Jefferson
founded the
University of Virginia
 shift toward statesupported
 secular and
nondenominational
 more advanced
instruction
 choice of majors
Between 1825 and 1862
• More support for public funding
of education
• Public high schools
• Oberlin admitted AfricanAmericans in 1835
and women in 1838
• Western frontier movement
• Labor movement
• Movements toward reform,
egalitarianism
• More pluralistic society
• More kinds of colleges
Conflicting Priorities
• small and elitist vs. large and
egalitarian
• liberal arts/classical
curriculum vs. many options
• faculty focus on character
formation vs. teaching in their
discipline
• holistic approach vs. focus on
intellectual (and vocational)
competence
1862 - Morrill Land Grant Act
• growing demand for
education beyond high
school
• federal funding for large
state universities
• many states established
big universities
• agricultural and
mechanical courses as
well as liberal arts
Faculty roles changing
 academic disciplines developing
 scholarship becoming more objective
 more graduate work at German
research universities
 faculty wanted to do research
 faculty did not want to:
• live with the students
• deal with conduct problems
• Influence what students did
outside of classes
Student Development - Stage 1
First dean position created at Harvard in 1870
Students developed their own
social and intellectual activities






Greek societies
athletics
drama and music groups
publications
debating teams
literary societies
Deans and Advisors were hired
Turning point: 1901
• First public junior college in Joliet, Illinois
 High schools added two more years, broadened mission, added
vocational programs, adult basic skills, continuing education, and
community service
Student Development Stage 2 – 1937
- “The Student Personnel Point of View”
• published by the American Council on Education
 identified 23 student services roles
 asked colleges to foster not only students’ intellectual achievement,
but also their:







emotional make-up
physical condition
social relationships
vocational aptitudes and skills
moral and religious values
economic resources
aesthetic appreciations
After World War II
• GI Bill
• rapid growth of community
colleges
• more specialists in student
services
• skills and knowledge defined
for each function
• graduate programs
• professional associations
• social scientists studied college
student behavior
• research and theory on student
development
The Future of Student Development?
Late Stage 3 Characteristics
Colleges and Universities
820
1825
Stage 1
1901
Stage 2
2014
Stage 3
“Open Door” or Revolving Door?
- Focus on access
- Funding tied to enrollment
- Enrollments increase
many are underprepared
academically, financially, etc.
- Low rates of student success
- Tolerance of achievement gaps
Complete College America
For every 10 freshmen seeking an Associate’s degree:
 Five require remediation
 Fewer than one graduate in three years
 Between 1970 and 2009, undergraduate enrollment in the
United States more than doubled, while the completion rate
has been virtually unchanged
http://www.completecollege.org/
Graduation Rates
Achievement Gaps
51
“Balkanization”
Individual faculty prerogative
- classes multiply
Fragmented course-taking
Culture of isolation
Boutique programs
Culture of anecdote
Reclaiming the American Dream: A Report from the
21st Century Commission on the Future of Community
Colleges – 2011 AACC
Winds of Change
• Students changing
 Demographics
 Conduct/students of concern
• Environment changing




Middle class declining
Political pressure
Increasing regulation
Concern about student debt
• Technology changing
 Online learning/MOOCs
 New ways to access information
Driving Forces
• Federal and state focus on
student success
• Accreditation – revised
standards
• Foundations investing in
completion
•
Performance-based funding
coming
On overload?
• Compassion fatigue?
• Innovation fatigue?
• More demands?
• More stress?
How do we navigate?
Use Student Development as compass.
- understand who our students are
- be intentional about how we deliver
services,
and how we promote student success
- continue to build supportive and
inclusive communities
Use AACC’s maps.
Sail through barriers.
Bridge across silos with communication
Learn new tools and models
Pilot something scalable
American Association of Community Colleges
Reclaiming the American Dream: A Report from
the 21st Century Commission on the Future of
Community Colleges – 2011 AACC
Destinations
From focus on student access to a focus on access and student
success.
From funding tied to enrollment to funding tied to enrollment,
institutional performance, and student success.
From low rates of student success to high rates of student
success.
From tolerance of achievement gaps to commitment to eradicating
achievement gaps.
Reclaiming the American Dream: A Report from the 21st Century
Commission on the Future of Community Colleges – 2011 AACC
From “Balkanization” to evidence-based,
systemic approach
From individual faculty prerogative to collective responsibility for
student success.
From fragmented course-taking to clear, coherent educational
pathways.
From culture of isolation to a culture of collaboration.
From culture of anecdote to a culture of evidence.
From boutique programs to effective education at scale.
Reclaiming the American Dream: A Report from the 21st Century
Commission on the Future of Community Colleges – 2011 AACC
Applications?
CSSA WEBSITE - http://oregoncssa.org/
Share examples . . .
- building bridges, breaking silos,
connecting and collaborating?
- gathering data to assess the
effectiveness of your services?
- initiate something that might
increase students’ completion of
courses, credits, and credentials?
.