Student Affairs NOW

The Student Affairs Now host community comes together to discuss crisis response, supporting students, creating communities of love and healing, and helping the helpers. In this deeply personal conversation, Heather Shea shares her experiences as a staff member in the aftermath of the tragedy at Michigan State University. Hosts offer Heather support and discuss ways to support students, lead campu...

In anticipation of the release of the 11th version, several members of the Council for the Advancement of Standards or CAS leadership join host Dr. Heather Shea to provide an introduction to this valuable resource in the field. Panelists share their perspectives on CAS through a broad overview as well as specific ways that the CAS standards might be useful in graduate preparation, student affairs...

Former ACPA President, leadership scholar, senior leader, and senior scholar Dr. Denny Roberts joins us to discuss his career and life journey. Themes of connection, innovation, and learning emerge as Denny discusses those who influenced him and his paths, his experimentation throughout his career, and the learning he has done, has led, and is still doing today.

The Social Justice Education program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently had its 30th anniversary. In this conversation, a founding faculty member, Dr. Barbara Love, and two graduates, Michael Vidal and Dr. Tanya Williams, discuss this one-of-a-kind program and its role in elevating scholarship, teaching, and practice around social justice in many contexts, including student affair...

Dr. Pat Hayashi has had an expansive constellation of lived experiences along his career and life journey. As we continue to think about our duty of care to equity and inclusion in higher education, it is moving to hear about how his perceptions of ordinary life moments led to extraordinary change in higher education. Pat’s professional experiences model living a life of courage in support of the...

Dr. Glenn DeGuzman sits down with 3 leaders in collegiate e-sports to talk about the emerging complexities of competitive online competitions and gaming in higher education. Listen to Dr. George McClellan, Kaitlin Teniente, and Mike “Moog” Aguilar discuss a myriad of topics on the emergence, growth and future shifts of e-sports that college will need to be prepared for in the coming decade.

There is limited scholarship on Indigenous college students which reflects why finding belonging, engagement, and sovereignty is challenging for Indigenous students. Amanda Tachine is brilliant and uncompromising in her critical examination of what causes harm and the systemic barriers that make it difficult to create meaningful change in higher education. This episode will highlight the struggles...

We are in a time when we are all bearing witness to the intersecting social issues impacting our societies today. Responding to Grace Lee Boggs' question, 'What time is it on the clock of the world?" activist and scholar Deepa Iyer reminds us that our time is NOW. She reminds us that when we are part of a bigger strategy, we can create change. This episode puts a spotlight on Iyer's social change...

Three scholars and leaders share how they are reimagining social justice leadership in theory, in practice, and in their lives. Drs. Rachel Wagner, Rafael Rodriguez, and Kaleigh Mrowka explore proactive approaches to creating communities that foster equity and justice. They discuss anti-oppression and emancipatory approaches, restorative practices, skill building, ways of being, and strategies to...

Three innovative leaders discuss reimagining different ways of providing crisis response as effectively as possible as a community. Kate Baier, Steve Herndon, and Dr. Victor Arcelus explore models, roles, resources, scheduling, collaborations, and more for staffing crisis response and on-call as well as integrating after-hours crisis response with support during regular business hours in ways that...

This is Mamta Accapadi's first episode as a new host of the Student Affairs NOW team. Featuring five prominent South Asian/Desi women senior leaders, this episode is meant to be both a prayer and a beacon. It is an episode that honors the wisdoms, celebrates the triumphs, owns the privileges, and acknowledges the traumas of our lives and lineage journeys as pioneering South Asian/Desi women. We ho...

We are thrilled to welcome our newest host joining the Student Affairs NOW team, Dr. Mamta Accapadi! On today’s episode, Drs. Heather Shea and Keith Edwards chat with Mamta about her excitement for joining the team and the conversation and guests she is looking forward to hosting. The conversation touches on groundedness, consciousness blooms, healing, and timelessness.

Experienced residence life leaders Dana Olivo, Erin Simpson, and Dr. David Hibbler, Jr explore different ways of doing residence life work in our current and future contexts. They explore structural possibilities and methods of reimagining our day-to-day work. They discuss innovative ways to integrate the proactive work of student learning, community building, and belonging along with the reactive...

Higher education and student affairs has long needed to address attrition, retention, and leadership to create sustainable careers and better workplace cultures. ACPA President Dr. Andrea Domingue called for a Task Force on 21st Century Employment in Higher Education, which Dr. Roshaunda Breeden chaired. In this conversation, these two share the report from the task force, which describes the chal...

Editors and authors discuss practices, principles, and processes for being in our self work, relational work, and community work for transformation. Guests discuss the why, what, and how of the theory of Being in the contexts of practice, teaching, research, conflict, and even family. They share tools to help folks be more productive and effective in working toward transformation of individuals, c...

Today’s episode directly challenges the media-created assumption that parents are “problems” to be managed by the institution and instead posits a model of parent and family engagement and connection. Particularly relevant as institutions seek to connect with parents and families of first generation college students during points of transition and orientation, seeking engagement and partnerships w...

Despite their overwhelming success in higher education, Black women continue to be devalued, discriminated against, and harmed by the colleges and universities where they work or attend school. Their unique standpoints, epistemologies, and praxis have always challenged the standard white hegemony of higher education and yet never before in higher education have we had a text that highlights, expla...

Guests discuss governance issues, including overreach, ethics, and effective board governance. We unpack recent events at Michigan State University as a case study to explore governance issues for higher education institutions across the United States. Drs. Brendan Cantwell, Felecia Commodore, Demetri Morgan, and Kris Renn discuss engagement vs. overreach, negative partisanship, board accountabili...

This episode features a panel of scholars and practitioners as well as the executive director of the College Autism Network discussing how colleges and universities can better meet the needs of autistic and neurodivergent students on college campuses.

Student development theories and frameworks are foundational to the student affairs professions; however, there have often been concerns about their applicability to and effectiveness with marginalized college students. Square Pegs and Round Holes offers new perspectives to this important conversation by centering Critical Race Theory as a way to interrogate our understanding about the development...

Who are today’s college students, what do they need, and how can institutions rise to meet these needs? Today’s new episode brings together four panelists who contributed to a new book Multiple Perspectives on College Students: Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities. Combining thoughtful insights from higher education stakeholders -- including students, their parents, K-12 educators, faculty, and ad...

This conversation features the two editors of the new book, Identity Interconnections. Lisa Delacruz Combs and Dr. Aeriel A. Ashlee discuss concepts and connections from their book, including compassionate cautions, liminality, threshold theory, healing and transformation, paradox and nuance, aspiring allyship, and even a Rihanna quote.

Today’s episode features three authors of chapters in a new book Becoming a Diversity Leader: Navigating Identity and Situational Pressures. While diversity leaders exist at all administrative ranks and levels across both academic and student affairs. Today’s episode focuses on the senior diversity officer role. Often a senior administrator or vice president or chancellor, senior diversity officer...

Student persistence, retention, and success are the central roles of higher education. Many campuses are centering belonging in their efforts. This conversation brings together Drs. Erin M. Bentrim, Terrell Lamont Strayhorn, and Vasti Torres discuss insights from the new book, The Impact of the Sense of Belonging in College: Implications for Student Persistence, Retention, and Success. They clarif...

The guests on this episode move beyond restorative justice in campus conduct processes to talk about the proactive and responsive ways higher education can utilize restorative philosophy, practices, principles, and justice processes. Special co-host Jessi Benveniste joins Keith Edwards in conversation with Drs. Léna Crain, Desirée Anderson, Patience Bryant, and Valerie Glassman. They discuss resto...