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

Student affairs organizations are at a crossroads. They face expanding enrollments; a concomitant increase need for often more complex services; changing demographics; a growing cohort of non-traditional and first-generation students; shifting and more demanding responsibilities; and increased expectations from the greater campus community, parents, and external constituents. These challenges are intensified by the accelerating speed of advancements in technology, globalization, innovation, and student consumerism; and by the long-term reality of shrinking resources, and limitations on the ability to increase tuition and fees.

This book shares alternative ideas about organizational design, and about ways to restructure roles and responsibilities to enable student affairs organizations to respond to these challenges and demands more effectively at a time of reduced resources.

It also addresses the many emerging roles that student affairs organizations are increasingly being expected to address – such as IT, fund raising and development, external communications, human resources management and professional development, as well as research and assessment – and describes approaches developed by a variety of institutions.

The contributors also pay attention to the solutions appropriate for smaller institutions, and for community colleges. They explore the various dimensions of change and offer frameworks to help student affairs leaders and practitioners to more effectively understand and manage the changes they are confronting; and describe ideas and solutions adopted by others within the profession.
within the profession.

Ashley Tull serves as the Director of Assessment and Strategic Initiatives for the Division of Student Affairs at SMU. He most recently served as Assistant Vice President for Student Life Studies at Tarleton State University and has held previous administration and teaching roles at the University of Texas at Arlington, University of Arkansas–Fayetteville, Florida State University, Georgia Highlands College, and Middle Georgia State College. Tull earned a bachelor of science with honors in social and rehabilitation services and a master’s of education in college student personnel services from the University of Southern Mississippi. He received a graduate certificate in human resource development and a doctorate of education in higher education administration from Florida State University, where he was a Hardee Scholar. Tull has edited two previous books; Becoming Socialized in Student Affairs: A Guide for New Professionals and Their Supervisors, with Joan Hirt and Sue Saunders; and New Realities in the Management of Student Affairs: Emerging Specialist Roles and Structures for Changing Times, with Linda Kuk. Tull serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of College Student Development, Community College Review, Journal of Community College Research and Practice, College Student Affairs Journal, and the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. His research has been published in the College Student Affairs Journal, NASPA Journal , the Journal of College and Character, Research in the Schools and the Journal of College Student Development.

Linda Kuk currently serves as the Program Chair for the Higher Education Leadership Program in the School of Education at Colorado State University and is an Associate Professor of Education. Within her work she continues to prepare leaders for roles in Higher Education Institutions. Prior to her return to the faculty in 2006, she served as the Vice President of Student Affairs at Colorado State University, her alma mater.

During her administrative career in Student Affairs she served as a Vice President for Student Affairs for nearly 23 years at Colorado State University, the Rochester Institute of Technology and SUNY, Cortland. She also served as Dean of Students at Marquette University in Milwaukee Wisconsin, and held various positions within student affairs divisions at Iowa State University and the University of Connecticut. She has served as an organizational consultant for a number of Colleges and Universities within the United States and in China.

She has published three books, Positioning Student Affairs for Sustainable Change, (2010), New Realities: Emerging Specialist Roles and Structures in Student Affairs Organizations, (2012) and The Handbook for Student Affairs in Community Colleges, (2014). She has published over 30 articles in referred journals, as well as numerous book chapters and presentations. Her research interests include: issues related to organizational behavior, change and leadership in student affairs and higher education, student engagement and retention, and student affairs professional development. In her limited spare time she is a painter, dabbling in a variety of media and also likes to bike and golf.