Laura M. Harrison

The role consumerism plays in student learning

In nations facing austerity measures, students risk diminished quality in their higher education experiences. Universities function increasingly like corporations as they struggle to compensate for budget shortfalls caused by declining public support. As a result, students become positioned as consumers of a private commodity that exists to facilitate their personal economic advantage. The purpose of this piece is to analyze the largely hidden role consumerism plays as an underlying contributor to the issue of diminished student learning in colleges and universities. This article will argue that educational quality is compromised when students are understood as customers to be placated rather than learners to be challenged. Drawing on research about how students learn, this work posits teaching and selling as inherently contradictory processes. Implications for higher education’s future and support as a public good are discussed.

Consequences and Strategies Student Affairs Professionals Engage in Their Advocacy Roles

This participatory study examined how student affairs professionals advocated for students within the power structures of university systems. Data analysis from research conversations with six participants found that student affairs professionals experienced a high degree of conflict when they attempted to advocate for students within the confines of their institutional hierarchies. Student affairs professionals employ a variety of strategies for negotiating these tensions. Some strategies entailed working within the power structure while others involved challenging the status quo within their respective institutions. Implications for professionals and graduate educators are presented.

How Student Affairs Professionals Learn to Advocate: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract This phenomenological study examined how student affairs professionals learn advocacy skills and what they learn in their education on this topic. Findings based on 22 interviews show participants felt underprepared by their graduate programs for the myriad challenges involved with advocating for students. Findings indicate participants found other sources of knowledge on this topic and identified core competencies they believe helped them become successful advocates. The author presents implications for professionals and graduate educators

The Completion Agenda Impact on Student Affairs Practice in Community Colleges

ABSTRACT This article considers student affairs practice within the Completion Agenda by studying community college student affairs educators’ beliefs about their work related to the value others attribute to it. The Completion Agenda’s goals are largely economic, and community colleges have been asked to focus on speed rather than the quality of the student experience. Momentum has served as the unifying concept linking recent community college student success literature, and, as a result, student development has become secondary to better completion rates. We approached this research with a belief that student affairs practice contributes to the growth and development of individuals with lifelong value. Neoliberalism, therefore, served as the study’s theoretical framework and challenges a narrative that values college completion for economic means alone. This qualitative study sought to learn from student affairs educators and better understand changes in their work as a result of external forces. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with 12 participants in a state with strong community college organization and numerous completion-based initiatives. Documents provided further insight into each institution’s strategies for completion improvement. Themes that arose included participants supporting the Completion Agenda, heightened attention to the role of student affairs related to academic affairs, the importance of college culture, student affairs’ growing student success role at the beginning and end of the student experience, and student affairs occupying a minor place in campus completion plans. The article concludes with limitations, a discussion, and recommendations future research.

Faculty and Student Affairs Collaboration in the Corporate University

Abstract Faculty, student affairs professionals, and most importantly, students, are paying the price as institutions of higher education increasingly operate in a top-down manner with an over-emphasis on the bottom line. The corporatization of higher education creates lopsided reward (and punishment) systems for faculty, unreasonably stressful environments for student affairs professionals already straining to do more with less as substantive resources for students continue to decline, and student debt increases. This article argues for an invigoration of the faculty-student affairs collaboration discourse through the lens of critical management studies, a framework for examining power relationships in organizations.