The Curricular Approach to Student Affairs: A Revolutionary Shift for Learning Beyond the Classroom

The curricular approach aligns the mission, goals, outcomes, and practices of a student affairs division, unit, or other unit that works to educate students beyond the classroom with those of the institution, and organizes intentional and developmentally sequenced strategies to facilitate student learning. In this book, the authors explain how to implement a curricular approach for educating students beyond the classroom. The book is based on more than a decade of implementing curricular approaches on multiple campuses, contributing to the scholarship on the curricular approach, and helping many campuses design, implement, and assess their student learning efforts. The curricular approach is rooted in scholarship and the connections between what we know about learning, assessment, pedagogy, and student success. For many who have been socialized in a more traditional programming approach, it may feel revolutionary. Yet, it is also obvious because it is straightforward and simple.

Kathleen G. Kerr serves as the associate vice president for Student Life at the University of Delaware (UD). Kerr provides leadership to enhance the operations, programs, and services for Residence Life and Housing (RLH), the Office of Orientation and Transition Programs, the university student centers, fraternity and sorority leadership and learning, student wellness and health promotion, the Center for Counseling and Student Development, and Student Health Services. She is also an assistant professor in UD’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences.

Keith Edwards helps individuals, organizations, and communities to realize their fullest potential as a speaker, consultant, and coach. He has spoken and consulted at more than 200 colleges and universities, presented more than 200 programs at national conferences, and written more than 20 articles or book chapters on sexual violence prevention, men’s identity, curricular approaches, and social justice education. He is cohost of Student Affairs Live on the Higher Ed Live network. Edwards coedited the book Addressing Sexual Violence in Higher Education.

Jim Tweedy is the director of Residence Life and Housing at the University of Delaware and focuses his professional energies on exploring the connections between residence life staff inputs into the student experience and the resulting student learning and development gains. He is the coauthor of “Beyond Seat Time” and “Satisfaction and Shifting to Curricular Approaches to Learning Beyond the Classroom,” published in About Campus. Tweedy also codeveloped the first ACPA Residential Curriculum Institute and continues to serve on the institute faculty regularly.

Hilary L. Lichterman serves as the associate director of Residence Life at the University of South Carolina. She is co-author of The Curricular Approach to Residential Education: Lessons for Student Affairs Practice (2019). Lichterman has presented at numerous local, regional, and national conferences, maintains involvement in ACPA and ACUHO-I, and has conducted on-site consultations and external reviews on the curricular approach in student affairs and housing and residence life with five campuses.

Amanda Knerr serves as the executive director of Residential Life and Housing at Indiana State University. She cochaired the ACPA Residential Curriculum Institute in 2015 and 2016. Knerr has served as faculty for the institute from 2010–2019. She has also participated in a variety of ACPA leadership roles including chair of the Commission for Assessment and Evaluation and invited faculty for the ACPA Student Affairs Assessment Institute.