Archive for the ‘NASPA’ tag
Student Affairs + Jobs + RSS + Email
Conducting a successful student affairs job search requires patience, networking, and technology. That’s right, technology. One particular tech tool that is extremely useful for conducting a search is RSS. Job postings delivered to your feed reader via RSS means that new job announcements are efficiently delivered to your virtual doorstep.
If you aren’t familiar with using RSS, please watch this video for more information:
If you need an RSS feed reader, I would highly recommend using Google Reader:
There are a few student affairs websites that offer job postings via RSS feeds, including:
Remember to look for the RSS symbol – 
– or for a link to RSS data. Ideally, all student affairs job sites will offer RSS feeds in the near future as this makes conducting a search ultra-convenient.
An alternative to RSS feeds for job postings is the “Email Alert.” Several sites offer email alerts based on a variety of search queries. ACPA, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Placement Exchange, and the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium all offer student affairs job search updates via email alerts.
In addition to the RSS and Email solutions mentioned above, most student affairs associations / higher education news sites offer job listings on their websites. Here are direct links to the student affairs job listings for the following associations / resource sites.
Student Affairs jobs via professional associations:
- American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO)
- American College Personnel Association (ACPA)
- Association of College Unions International (ACUI)
- Association for Student Conduct Administration (ASCA)
- Consortium of Higher Education Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Professionals
- National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)
- National Academic Advising Association (NACADA)
- National Association of College Auxiliary Services (NACAS)
- National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)
- NAFSA: Association of International Educators
- National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
- The Placement Exchange (NASPA, ACUHO-I, NACA, NODA, ASCA and AFA)
Student Affairs jobs via higher education publications / job sites:
ACPA + Twitter on the BreakDrink podcast
The main topic for today’s BreakDrink podcast was the potential unification of ACPA and NASPA. ACPA President, Dr. Tom Jackson, Jr. was on the podcast to talk about his thought’s regarding the unification process.
I had asked a question on the BreakDrink blog in preparation for today’s conversation. Jeff Jackson, host of the show, asked my question about how/if Dr. Jackson had plans for using Twitter at next month’s ACPA Annual Convention. I decided to call in to the show and was able to use the Skype link on Blog Talk Radio to call into the show.
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I begin talking about the Social Media session that I’m co-presenting at ACPA 2010, Twitter, #ACPA10, the ACPA 2010 TweetUp, and #SAChat at about 28:25 in the podcast.
Please follow @ACPAPrez. Dr. Jackson readily agreed to use Twitter during the ACPA Annual Convention and I think that it would be great if he had a huge following of Student Affairs Twitterati.
ACPA + NASPA + Student Affairs Technology
ACPA recently sent out an email announcement calling for applications for the ACPA Technology Advisory Committee:
The ACPA Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) is a member-driven advisory committee charged by the Executive Director of ACPA with developing the association’s long term Information Technology strategic plan and evaluating and recommending technology initiatives aimed at furthering the association’s strategic initiatives. In addition, the TAC is tasked with evaluating large-scale IT project requests to determine their applicability to long- and short-term association goals and, when necessary, to priority rank IT initiatives.
The TAC description made me feel quite hopeful about the state of student affairs technology…and then I read the following:
“You don’t have to be a technology expert to apply. We are looking for committed ACPA members with an interest in technology who are not afraid to voice their thoughts.”
Why, oh why, does membership in the TAC, which will drive the long term information technology strategic plan for ACPA, not require that someone be a technology expert? How can you evaluate IT projects, further strategic initiatives, and recommend technologies if you are not an expert? Is ACPA saying that there are not student affairs practitioners who are technology experts?
Not to be outdone by the ACPA Technology Advisory Committee notice, NASPA Tech Tools recently posted a word-for-word copy of a 2 month-old article about Google Wave from the Chronicle of Higher Education without really attributing the article. The NASPA Tech Tools site was created to “bridge the gap between student affairs and technology.” Unfortunately, it seems like a chasm at the moment…
What is going on with the state of student affairs and technology? 3 years have passed since I last wrote about ACPA, NASPA, and technology and it’s hard to tell if anything substantial has happened.
Higher Education Administrator
Apparently I have one of the best jobs in the United States. According to U.S. News and World Report, one of the best careers in 2009 is “higher education administrator“.
The article starts off innocently enough:
If you liked attending college, chances are you’ll like working there, too.
Check. I enjoyed attending college and I enjoy working in higher education.
Compared with most office environments, college surroundings are beautiful, the atmosphere intellectually stimulating, and the work hours more forgiving.
The environment at institutions of higher education is indeed a beautiful place, both aesthetically and intellectually. However, I’m not sure if Mr. Nemko has ever worked an all night event at a student union or staffed a summer orientation program. The work hours of higher education administrators are more like a rollercoaster. Sometimes we work a 9 to 5. Sometimes we’re upside down and moving at 60 miles an hour while trying to facilitate a program with over 200 students on an early Saturday morning.
And things really lighten up in the summer.
Once again, summer isn’t really “light”. A lot of higher education administrators are at their busiest during the summer sessions.
For better or worse, there are lots of management jobs on campus because university bureaucracies tend to be large, from student affairs to academic affairs, admission to alumni affairs, physical plant to student health service.
Umm. Large support structures exist because we have a lot of students at our institutions. It takes a lot of people to create a university community.
One downside: Office politics can be brutal. Political correctness also bothers some people, who feel that holding liberal views is a litmus test for getting hired or promoted.
I’ve often found it disappointing that people label justice, equity and dignity as “political correctness.” I’d rather work with people who are not racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist, etc. What’s so brutal about that?
Smart Specialties – Student Affairs/Student Life. The work is unusually pleasant
That’s an interesting combination: unusual and pleasant. Maybe Student Affairs work is just pleasant and because a lot of jobs are not, they define what is and is not pleasant. Maybe unpleasant jobs should be the ones that are unusual and not the norm…?
Learn more: NAPSA Student Affairs Careers Page
Apparently news editor is not one of the best careers of 2009. It’s N-A-S-P-A.
The article currently has 19 comments. They are actually more interesting to read than the actual article…
NASPA’s Walled Garden
NASPA, the largest association for student affairs practitioners, released a re-designed website last week. The major feature of the new site is a custom, members-only, social networking site. The new, NASPA members-only site is a walled garden.
Only NASPA members can access the site’s features. It’s sort of like iStudentAffairs, except that it isn’t. iStudentAffairs runs off of Ning, an open-source social networking platform. iStudentAffairs is therefore a familiar interface to anyone who has ever used a Ning-based site.
NASPA’s WG is sort of like iStudentAffairs except that it uses tables, has an extremely clunky interface (everything feels like it’s slower than it should be), lacks alt attributes on images, and you have to be a member of NASPA. I’m not very excited about NASPA’s new site. I had really high hopes… iStudentAffairs might not be the busiest student affairs practitioner portal, but it’s definitely the easiest to use, the most current-thinking, and the only open model on the net.
Apparently, as the above screen grab shows, the newly re-designed NASPA template also does not like Firefox 3 on a Mac as the nav bar rollovers are breaking.
Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go
Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go
“They should have explained the basic concepts at the beginning (e.g.: podcasts, blogs, wikis, etc.).”
“Be less technical.”
“Helping me to boldly go where I’ve never been before.”
One of these statements is not like the other two. I’m sure you can guess which one gives me hope as a student affairs techie that we as a profession have not lost our willingness to learn, to explore and to stay positive about new technologies. This article represents a call to action for student affairs practitioners. The microblogging site, Twitter, has a feature that lets you “nudge” someone that you are following. This is me providing a gentle nudge to my fellow higher education administrators. I hope that you nudge me back. Let’s push the envelope. Let’s shift our professional paradigms. Let’s make technology (and learning about new technologies) a part of our daily practices.
NASPA National Conference
The NASPA National Conference is finally coming back to the west coast! Woohoo! Washington DC was nice, Orlando was saved by Al Gore’s keynote, and I didn’t make it to Boston due to a lack of funds.
The 2009 NASPA National Conference is going to be held in Seattle, Washington. This is fantastic news for west coast student affairs practitioners who may have wanted to travel east but were unable to afford the costs of traveling across the country. I’ve actually never been to Seattle. Methinks that a trip prior to 2009 is in order.
Note: NASPA is the acronym for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. Most of the higher education association acronyms sound like a sneeze. NASPA, ACUHO-I, NACADA, ACPA, ASJA et. al. Their names make me want to say “gesundheit“.
NASPA + Abercrombie & Fitch
Update: NASPA seems to have received the message from its members that a partnership with Abercrombie & Fitch was a bad idea.
After the announcement last week about a partnership with Abercrombie & Fitch, we heard from a number of members who objected to NASPA partnering with this particular corporation. It’s important to know and to inform your constituencies that your voices have been heard. NASPA will not be going forward with the partnership. No agreements have been signed and no funds have been received. While the original decision to enter into the partnership was based on numerous conversations with the management of A&F and with many NASPA members and
leaders, based on additional information we received in regard to the business practices of A&F and the reaction of several members, I felt that it was in the best interest of NASPA not to move forward with an agreement. But most importantly, in walking away from the potential partnership, I respect the KC chairs and other leaders who, while perhaps uncomfortable with the partnership, wanted to support their professional association. I regret that they and other leaders received the brunt of some of the more vocal objections from some of our members.Before the potential for this partnership was realized, the NASPA Board, at its July meeting, established a task force to review sponsorships for the associations. Any guidelines developed by this task force will be shared broadly with the NASPA membership.
We, in the NASPA office, want to note that in order to keep costs down for our members, we will need to continue to look for corporate sponsorships. However, we will work within guidelines established by a committee of the Board that will help us avoid situations such as we encountered with the potential A & F partnership.
NASPA remains committed to the values of diversity and inclusion. We continue to hear and respond to the concerns of our members. NASPA _is_its members and we thank you all for your support.
Apparently NASPA is for sale to the highest bidder. NASPA is one of two higher education associations for Student Affairs professionals. It was recently announced that NASPA was partnering with Abercrombie & Fitch. Specifically, A&F would be providing monetary support for the NASPA Multicultural Institute (a conference on social justice issues for student affairs practitioners.). I am stupefied by NASPA’s decision to take money from Abercrombie & Fitch. The Diversity link at the bottom of the A&F homepage focuses on the diversity (in this case, race and ethnicity) of A&F’s employees. My question to NASPA and A&F is what about the marketing of A&F products. The only people of color on the A&F site (that I see while currently browsing their site) are on the Diversity page!
A&F’s advertising (via the web and in store) is about as diverse as a klan newsletter. It appears to me that NASPA (and several other well-known and respected associations) are for sale to the highest bidder. I think that the A&F PR machine is donating large amounts of money in an effort to deflect criticism of their sales and marketing scheme. Increasing the number of employees of color from zero to more than zero does increase the diversity (see the percentage in the press release below) of the A&F workforce, but it does little to eliminate an institutionalized discriminatory corporate culture that utilizes white supremacy and sexual objectification to sell a product.
The official release from NASPA is after the jump.
Blogs and Student Learning
Here are the PowerPoint slides from the “Blogs and Student Learning: Making Meaning and Connections through Graduate Student Portfolios” (PDF/2.3 MB) presentation that I co-presented with JW at the NASPA Western Regional Conference.
The presentation evaluation is located at ericstoller.com/blog/evaluation.
Blogfolio at the NASPA Western Regional
JW and I will be presenting “Blogs and Student Learning: Making Meaning and Connections through Graduate Student Portfolios” at the 2006 NASPA Western Regional Conference in San Francisco next month. We’ll be using my “blogfolio” as an example of how blogs can be used in higher education graduate programs to facilitate learning in multiple contexts.
The conference will be at the Crowne Plaza Hotel near Union Square. I’m excited about presenting with JW. She’s been a terrific advisor and mentor to me. I wonder if she’ll mind if I place a sign that says “Eric Stoller, available for hire” on my chest… I could become a freelance student affairs techie and create blogs for colleges and universities…
Program Abstract:
Participants are invited to engage in dialogue about the use of blogs (web logs) as a unique student learning experience. Presenters will briefly discuss the phenomenon of blogs and then share examples of student blogs created as the capstone experience within Oregon State University’s student affairs master’s program. Presenters will facilitate conversation around the challenges and opportunities in using blogs and ways in which student affairs professionals may utilize blogs beyond the classroom to serve students better.
According to a program reviewer:
This well-prepared proposal effectively conveys the presenters’ knowledge, practices, and enthusiasm. The presentation has the tremendous potential of starting a blogging epidemic among faculty members and student affairs practitioners who strive to improve student learning.
I’ve never started an epidemic before. No pressure…
