The State of the College Union E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B SS Single Issue Student Services
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 212

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The college union is the living room and community center forstudents, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors, and serves as alearning laboratory for students through employment, engagement,and leadership opportunities. Senior-level administrators andcollege union professionals need to be aware of the trends andissues facing college unions in the 21st century. This volumeaddresses implications for college unions of changing: * Student characteristics * Student engagement * Facility design and the creation of community * Fundraising * Technology * Globalization of higher education. In addition, this volume explores the need for additionalassessment, evaluation, and research for this important componentof college campuses. This is the 145th volume of this Jossey-Bass highereducation quarterly series. An indispensable resource for vicepresidents of student affairs, deans of students, studentcounselors, and other student services professionals, NewDirections for Student Services offers guidelines andprograms for aiding students in their total development: emotional,social, physical, and intellectual.

Leseprobe

New Directions for Student Services

Elizabeth J. Whitt EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

John H. Schuh ASSOCIATE EDITOR

The State of the College Union: Contemporary Issues and Trends

Tamara Yakaboski

Danielle M. De Sawal

EDITORS

Number 145 • Spring 2014

Jossey-Bass

San Francisco

THE STATE OF THE COLLEGE UNION: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES AND TRENDS Tamara Yakaboski, Danielle M. De Sawal (eds.) New Directions for Student Services, no. 145

Elizabeth J. Whitt, Editor‐in‐Chief John H. Schuh, Associate Editor

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CONTENTS

Editors' Notes

References

Chapter 1: Revisiting the Role of the College Union

Changing Student Demographics

Technological Expansion

Students’ Changing Lifestyles and Values

Accountability, Competition for Resources, and the Assessment Movement

Conclusion: The Future of College Unions

References

Chapter 2: Serving Diverse Student Populations in College Unions

Changing Student Demographics

Becoming Intentionally Inclusive in College Unions

Defining and Assessing the Multicultural Organization

Diversity Expression in Physical Space

The College Union Mission Statement

Programming for Diverse Populations

Conclusion

References

Chapter 3: Student Engagement and College Unions

Cocurricular Student Learning in College Unions

How College Unions Foster Engagement

Measuring Student Engagement

Conclusion

References

Chapter 4: College Unions, Learning, and Community Building

Architectural Theory and College Unions

College Union Facilities’ Impacts on Students

College Union Facilities as Places for Learning

College Union Facilities as Places for Belonging

Future Considerations

Conclusion

References

Chapter 5: Fundraising and Philanthropy in College Unions

Partnering With the University's Foundation

Student Philanthropy in College Unions

Creating a Culture of Giving

References

Chapter 6: Impact and Evolution of Technology in College Unions

Facility Operations

The Future Role of the Campus Bookstore and Retail Venues

Student Organization Advising

Marketing

Planning for the Future

Conclusion

References

Chapter 7: Small College Unions

Defining Small Colleges

History of Small Colleges

Physical Space: Clearly Defined or Intentionally Blended

Small Union Staffing: Wearers of Many Hats

Student Employment and Paraprofessionals

Facility Management

Budgets and Finance

Small College Programming

The Future of Small College Unions

References

Chapter 8: Globalization and College Unions

Globalization and Internationalization of Higher Education

Student Engagement and the Role of College Unions

Student Affairs and Professionals in College Unions

Student Affairs and Globalization of College Unions

College Union Services for a Global Population

Conclusion

Note

References

Chapter 9: Preparing College Unions for the Future Through Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Creating a Culture of Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Considerations for Future Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Charting a Future Through Partnerships With Graduate Preparation Programs

References

Advert

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1 Actual and Projected Percentages (Rounded to the Nearest Whole Number) for Enrollment in All Postsecondary Degree-Granting Institutions, by Race/Ethnicity: Fall 1990 Through Fall 2020.

Guide

Cover

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Editors' Notes

College unions have been established as the “living room of the college campus” (Association of College Unions International, 1996, para. 4) and the “community center of the college, for all members of the college family—students, faculty, administration, alumni, and guests” (Packwood, 1977, p. 180). College unions also serve as learning laboratories for students through employment, engagement, and leadership opportunities. Senior-level administrators and college union professionals need to be aware of the trends and issues facing college unions in the 21st century. This volume addresses those trends and offers suggestions for research and practice in college unions.

In 2014, the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) celebrates its 100th anniversary, thus making it one of the oldest student affairs professional associations. The National Association of Student Unions—as it was first known—hosted its first conference at The Ohio State University with a combination of college union personnel, faculty, and students (Berry & Looman, 1960). Seeking to understand the commonalities and differences that existed in college unions across types of institutions, the association began to document and record effective practices and track trends in the work of college union practitioners. Milani and Johnston (1992) noted that the evolution of the “college union movement and that of the Association of College Unions-International (ACU-I) are inseparable” (p. 1).

College union ideals, which reflect the distinct purpose and rationale of a college union, have been part of the landscape of higher education since the Harvard Union was established in 1832 at Harvard College and Houston Hall was built in 1896 at the University of Pennsylvania (Berry & Looman, 1960; Milani, Eakin, & Brattain, 1992).

As professional staff examine the current trends and issues facing college unions, they should look to the next 100 years to ensure that the college union continues to have a dominant role in creating community and engagement. This volume draws on the expertise and experiences of college union professionals and student affairs scholars to address the current state and forecast the future of college unions in higher education. Porter Butts (1971) defined the college union idea through a historical journey that highlighted the growth and challenges faced by professionals working on college campuses. The current state of higher education requires college union professionals to understand not only the history of the college union but also how their work can advance the role of the college from a diverse perspective.

Current handbooks about student affairs and the functional areas of the field do not truly address the unique work and organizational design of the college union on today's campus. Although college unions often are mentioned in relation to auxiliary services and student programming on college campuses, college unions are a unique student service. Milani and Johnston (1992) provided the most recent New Directions monograph focused on what college unions would look like in the year 2000. The 100th anniversary of ACUI and the lack of recent literature on the state of college unions provide an opportunity to reflect on the future of this area of student affairs.

Tamara YakaboskiDanielle M. De SawalEditors

References

Association of College Unions International. (1996).

Role of the college union

. Retrieved from

http://www.acui.org/content.aspx?menu_id=30&id=296

Berry, C. A., & Looman, A. R. (Eds.). (1960).

College unions…year fifty

. Ithaca, NY: Association of College Unions.

Butts, P. (1971).

The college union idea

. Stanford, CA: Association of College Unions International.

Milani, T. E., Eakin, J. T., & Brattain, W. E. (1992). The role of the college union and the future. In T. E. Milani & J. W. Johnston (Eds.),

New Directions for Student Services: No. 58. The college union in the year 2000

(pp. 3–10). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Milani, T. E., & Johnston, J. W. (Eds.). (1992).

New Directions for Student Services: No. 58. The college union in the year 2000

. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Packwood, W. T. (Ed.). (1977).

College student personnel services

. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.

Tamara Yakaboski

is an associate professor in Higher Education and Student Affairs Leadership at the University of Northern Colorado.

Danielle M. De Sawal

is a clinical associate professor and coordinator of the Higher Education and Student Affairs master's program at Indiana University.

1

This chapter explores the state of college unions on today's campuses.

Revisiting the Role of the College Union

Robert M. Rouzer, Danielle M. De Sawal, Tamara Yakaboski

The state of college unions in the 21st century provides an opportunity for college union professionals and higher education administrators to reflect on its rich history and strategize for the future. Referred to as the “living room of the college campus” (Association of College Unions International, 1996, para. 4) and the “community center of the college, for all members of the college family—students, faculty, administration, alumni, and guests” (Packwood, 1977, p. 180), the historical roots of college unions are grounded in student involvement and recreation. The development of debating societies and focus on leisure time recreation prior to WWII evolved to focus on how college unions played a role in creating community on campus for faculty, staff, and students to gather for both social and intellectual pursuits. Professionals associated with the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) established The Role of the College Union (ACUI, 1996) to guide their professional practice in the field. The current state of college unions is best understood by evaluating how the role of college unions on higher education campuses translates into practice.

The core of The Role of the College Union (ACUI, 1996) statement is the idea that a college union is the campus leader in building community. It is difficult to find literature that provides a common definition for campus community, and Wiley (2003) noted that the concept of community building on college campuses is an elusive goal for higher education. In Ernest Boyer's (1990) seminal work, Campus Life: In Search of Community, he outlined the characteristics necessary for a college campus to establish a common community. On some campuses, the college union was the first campus facility that was neither a place for academic classrooms nor a student residence. As a result, it is easy to see how college unions became known as the “living room” of the campus. College unions created the conditions for faculty and students to gather in what could be considered a neutral space for both social and intellectual interactions. The physical design of the college union building invited casual conversations and interactions in a more intimate setting than a lecture hall or a dormitory.

Historically, those working in college unions could link their work to a physical structure on campus. The college union building was an important part of both the institutions landscape and how professionals within that facility identified with their work. Porter Butts (1971) gathered personal reflections, speeches, and writings on college unions to identify themes in how professionals approached their work in these facilities, which became known as The College Union Idea. Originally conceptualized to illustrate the seamless environment college unions provided in regard to both a physical space on campus and as a learning-centered environment, The College Union Idea provided context for the work of professionals in college unions.

The growth of fusion spaces or multiuse space has resulted in auxiliary challenges related to a need for traditional gathering location and the separation of functions within the facilities (Rullman, Strong, Farley, Keegan, & White, 2008). A shift has emerged and many higher education organizations are seeing a separation between the programming and the operational components associated with college unions, dismantling the once strong connection that existed between the space and intellectual dialogue. Maintaining separate programming and operations functions could be a threat to the foundational ideals of student-centered community on which college unions were built.

Physical space on campus provides “structure to social institutions, durability to social networks, persistence to behavior patterns” (Gieryn, 2002, p. 35). Although college union ideals surrounding the creation of community do not have to be tied to one specific space, they are linked to the facilities present on campus. Those facilities create the context for the environmental conditions established for social and intellectual dialogue. In a recent report on physical space in higher education, it was noted that “flexibility, adaptability, responsiveness, and a sense of ownership may be more important than the architecture, tradition, or permanence of most campus facilities” (Rullman & van den Kieboom, 2012, p. 23).

The history of college unions illustrates how the role of space on campus has evolved to showcase campus services, establish new sources of revenue, and dedicate space for informal and formal learning. Today, college unions are no longer the only spaces on campus designed to create social and intellectual engagement. Responding to Boyer's (1990) call for the creation of campus community, both student affairs and academic affairs organizations have developed spaces for social and intellectual engagement. Gieryn (2002) noted that “the play of agency and structure happens as we build: we mold buildings, they mold us, we mold them anew…” (p. 65). As higher education administrators examine how campuses create and use space, professionals in college unions need to rethink their role on campus as community builders in the 21st century.

At the same time, college unions struggle between pressures to enhance the overall university's revenue as state funding continues to decrease and college costs increase while maintaining a commitment to student development and engagement and supporting the academic mission of the institution amid changing student demographics and values. These trends have run the risk of encouraging college union professionals to change from viewing students as learners to increasingly describing students as customers or consumers. The shift to a business or customer service model is often incongruent with an educational focus, which measures learning outcomes not customer satisfaction (Davis, 2011). Ultimately, the shift to a business model makes it more challenging for college unions to justify their fit within the academic mission or focus on student development and engagement.

Milani, Eakin, and Brattain (1992) predicted six issues that would have an impact on college unions for the year 2000. Those themes were: (a) more diverse populations, (b) expanded technology and the rate of knowledge change, (c) changes in student values and lifestyles, (d) increased competition for resources, (e) a more volatile political climate, and (f) increased external accountability. A look back twenty years at those predictions and a look forward to the next decade shows that some of those themes will continue to be important, while others have become less so. We examine each of those issues in the following sections.

Changing Student Demographics

College student characteristics have changed over the past twenty years (Renn & Reason, 2013). Of the 21.0 million students enrolled in higher education (National Center for Education Statistics, n.d.), “traditional students are no longer the tradition” (Borden, 2004, p. 10). Since the 1980s, higher education has seen an increase in students from all racial and ethnic backgrounds enrolling in college (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2012). Changes in the racial composition of the population of the United States and changes in the rates at which members of underrepresented groups are enrolling in higher education have contributed to this increase (Pryor, Hurtado, Saenz, Santos, & Korn, 2007; Snyder & Dillow, 2009).

The average age of students attending college at the undergraduate level is also increasing; approximately 38% of all undergraduates are over the age of 25 (Hess, 2011). Women have been the “stable majority” in higher education since 1979 outpacing men's enrollment (Pryor et al., 2007, p. 4). The number of international students studying in the United States has doubled since 1980 to 3.5% of all students in 2010 (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2012) with the largest populations from China and India, and noticeable increases from Southeast Asian nations and Saudi Arabia (Institute of International Education, 2012).

Changing student demographics require college union professionals to examine their use of space and programmatic initiatives to remain responsive to the changing student populations. Creating environments that foster spiritual development through prayer and meditation spaces (Sapp, 2013) and establishing locations for lactating mothers (University of Maryland, College Park, n.d.) are examples of how the use of space in college unions has been affected by changes in the student population.

These changes in student demographics also have an impact on how community within college unions can be established. As college enrollments increase and the student population diversifies, so do the services offered on college campuses. Campuses have seen in the last twenty years an increase in the number of ethnic and racial centers on campus, community gathering places within academic and campus residence centers, and offices dedicated to specific student identity populations (e.g., student veterans and LGBT students). Butts (1971) noted in his interpretation of the role of college unions that the growth of student specific organizations on campus risked creating a campus community that could “become insular, withdrawing into themselves, splitting the campus socially” (p. 102). The diversification of the college population on campuses directly impacts the way in which college union professionals are able to create the conditions necessary for community building.

Rhodes (2001) articulated that an educator's “task is to educate citizens of a new society, embracing diversity with confidence rather than escaping from it in cloistered isolation, facing the challenges of disagreement rather than sheltering from them in a capsule of silent indifference” (p. 48). Creating the conditions for community building within college unions will continue to become more complex as access to higher education expands and higher education continues to globalize. It is the role of today's college union professional to stay current on changing student demographics on his or her campus and the specific implications for college unions of those changes.

Technological Expansion

The College Union in the Year 2000 was written before the advent of the World Wide Web, thus Milani et al. (1992) could not foresee the myriad ways that easy access to the Internet would change how individuals and organizations interact with each other and the world in general. Advances in technology and increased access to the Internet have encouraged and even demanded incorporating technology into classroom teaching and university services, thus impacting how students learn and interact with the institution. Nearly 100% of American undergraduate and graduate students ages 18–24 reported using the Internet and over 80% used some form of social media (Smith, Rainie, & Zickuhr, 2011) though not necessarily for academic purposes. And, although many students entering college use and think about technology in ways that previous generations may not understand, not all undergraduates possess sufficient knowledge about how to assess online resources critically (Hargittai, 2010).

Research has demonstrated that using technology in the classroom can enhance student learning, engagement, and interactions (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2009), but how can college unions use technology to improve experiential learning outside the classroom? Since incorporating social media, such as Twitter or Facebook, into the classroom may improve peer and faculty engagement and interactions (Junco, Heiberger, & Loken, 2011), college union professionals could use them to create engagement for online and commuting students. The abundance of Internet access provides marketing opportunities for college union professionals as well as opportunities to create new digital spaces for successful engagement and involvement.

Increasingly, courses and instructors are using digital textbooks, thereby changing the nature of campus-based bookstores through electronic textbook rentals or e-books (McDermott, North, Meszaros, Caywood, & Danzell, 2011). Thirty-two percent of all higher education students will take at least one online course and 6.7 million students took an online course in fall 2011 (Allen & Seaman, 2013). Both have implications for the role of college unions in providing course materials for faculty and students.

Technological advances will continue to impact the way college unions will need to respond to changing expectations for services and need for digital engagement. In addition, college union professionals should be prepared to help students use electronic technologies appropriately and ethically.

Students’ Changing Lifestyles and Values

Milani et al. (1992) predicted that the “factors that affect [student's lifestyles and values] changes are complex, dynamic, unpredictable, and difficult to measure” (p. 7). Therefore, changes in technology, politics, and the economic climate could threaten college unions’ connection to educating students and being a community builder. As the demographics of college students have changed so too has the purpose of attending college and the value of an education. In the most recent Almanac of Higher Education (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2012), students reported that 72.3% of them view a college education as the means to increase earnings, train for a career (77.6%), or obtain a better job (85.9%). Only 50.3% stated it was to become more cultured. Students’ political identities have changed to more students politically identifying themselves as “middle of the road” (47.4%) rather than liberal (27.6%) or conservative (20.7%). The majority of college students believe in keeping abortions legal (60.7%), legalizing marijuana (49.1%), same-sex couples adoption rights (71.3%), undocumented students’ access to public education (57%), national health care (60.5%), and that government should address global warming (63.2%; The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2012). These trends present opportunities for college union professionals to diversify programming and educational efforts and be creative in connecting to student groups.

Increased access to, and advancements in, technology and social media have also altered students’ lifestyles. Social media have reshaped college student's identities and development in positive and worrisome ways. For example, social networking may be harmfully addictive and lead to increased narcissism (Dalton & Crosby, 2013) and may negatively affect students’ sleep habits, self-control and need for immediate responses, and inability to successfully multitask (Grummon, 2013). While technology has improved the quality and effectiveness of higher education, college union professionals should proceed with intentionality and well thought out learning outcomes before using technology to connect with students.

A final lifestyle and values trend causing college union professionals to evaluate their practices, policies, and organizational culture is in relation to the increased attention to students’ spirituality, which broadly includes religion and other spiritual practices and belief systems (Kazanjian, 2013). College union professionals need to embrace a more spiritual awareness that requires a new approach to education and intentional community outreach and involvement.

Accountability, Competition for Resources, and the Assessment Movement

In 1992 when The College Union in the Year 2000