Cassie Barnhardt, Marisol Ramos, and Kimberly Reyes share a case study of an undocumented student's academic success to demonstrate the importance of administrative commitment, clarity, and consistency in supporting such students in the unique challenges they face. (Contains 13 notes.)

Planning programs with learning outcomes that address diversity issues on campus can become fairly routine--a "plug and play" task--for a director of multicultural student affairs at a private, religious, predominantly white liberal arts university. However, connecting with African American and other minority students when they arrived on campus…

When making decisions that impact student learning, college educators often consider previous experiences, precedent, common sense, and advice from colleagues. But how often do they consider theory? At a recent state-level educators' meeting, the authors of this article asked 50 student affairs educators about the use of theory in their practice.…

The new GI Bill offers the best educational benefits for veterans in the history of the nation. While many campus officials believe a surge of student veterans is under way, 2012 is the first year of college eligibility for veterans who enlisted specifically for the Post 9-11 GI Bill benefits signed into law in the summer of 2008. Further, the…

With the advent of the new post-9/11 GI Bill, many colleges and universities have seen significant growth in the numbers of veterans and other military students on their campuses. Along with this increased population has come a growing recognition that while these students share many of the same struggles as other students, their service in the…

The vast majority of college students, classroom faculty, student affairs educators, and administrators have a tremendous amount to learn about gender diversity. For this majority and for gender-nonconforming students and educators, opportunities are all but untapped to leverage this diversity to enhance learning, as well as to support and…

Like higher education itself, student affairs is a dynamic enterprise grounded in paradigms that have shifted over its history. This article frames the role of higher education at large, with a look at the role of student affairs in particular, to advance integrative learning. Portfolio pedagogy is described as one strategy for advancing…

In this article, the author examines the challenges of highly mobile students and what educators can do to retain and support them. The findings and recommendations presented here are based on two complementary research projects conducted with homeless students transitioning from high school to college. The author focuses on the residential…

In this article, the authors report on a successful collaboration between academic and student services that resulted in a Rutgers University Byrne Seminar on social entrepreneurship. The course, entitled "The Business of Doing Good: Combining Business Practices with Social Activism," was designed to inspire the next generation of change makers,…

The term "helicopter parents" typically involves parents--most often, mothers--who "hover" over their children to shelter them from stress, resolve their problems, and offer unwavering, on-the-spot support and affirmation. The recipients of this attention are the generation who have had their play dates managed and have been fed a steady diet of…

Kathleen Manning identifies seven philosophical positions in relation to the broad issue of difference. Recognizing and understanding where they stand in this matrix allows educators to work more effectively with students, faculty, and staff about the complex and sometimes contested issue of difference.

Faculty-in-residence programs aim to strengthen the intellectual climate in residential facilities. This article presents the author's reflections on nine years of living in a residence hall as a Faculty-In-Residence (FIR) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The author shares an insider's observations on the role he played as a…

This article describes the author's cross-pedagogical approach to co-teaching with student affairs colleagues. The central goal of this approach is to help students create meaning for their lives. The author also gives an account of an incident that occurred in one seminar and illustrates the benefits of a crossover approach.

In this article, the authors share an approach to enriching student learning through building on relationships among faculty, student affairs educators, and administrators. As their examples suggest, campuses where academic and student affairs educators work together most effectively have broad representation on campuswide committees and other…

In this article, the author discusses how the creation of enrollment management organizations separate from traditional student affairs and academic affairs divisions have caused negative impacts on student learning. A relatively new organizational structure that first appeared in the mid-1970s, enrollment management has its roots in…