Transcript Examining the Campus Environment

Presented by: Lori Burns

The mission statement should do the
following:
◦ Provide guidance to the day-by-day practices
within the institution
◦ Provide a statement of the broad long-term
purpose of the institution (should articulate why the
institution was created and defines the
constituencies the institution will serve)
◦ Guide the academic leadership of the institution in
determining what educational programs are
appropriate within the context of the institution

The mission statement should do the
following:
◦ Provide specific guidance to student affairs
professionals in developing policies and
implementing program initiatives
◦ Provide guidance to students by providing
information regarding the expectations of the
institution for students







Affiliation
Characteristics
History
Focus
Governance
Higher Education System
Geographic Location

Religious affiliation can play a large part of an
institution’s mission
◦ Earlham, Haverford, and Guilford are distinctive for
being founded by the Quakers
◦ Notre Dame, Georgetown, DePaul, Loyola of
Chicago, and Loyola of New Orleans are shaped by
their affiliation with the Catholic Church

These affiliations can influence the life of the
campus related to governance structures,
control, behavioral expectations for students,
and recognition of student organizations
Factors Influencing the Mission

Another way to understand an institution is to
look at the characteristic of the institutions,
such as:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Residential or commuter
Degrees offered
Part-time or Full-time
Cost of tuition
Size
Factors Influencing the Mission

Historical factors that can influence the
institutional mission
◦ The intention of the founders
 Creation of state legislature or private group of
individuals

“The heritage of an institution can be one of
the building blocks of it mission”
(Lyons, 1993)
Factors Influencing the Mission

Some mission statements are focused with
regard to whom they serve
◦ Community Colleges:
 serve a bounded demographic community and develop
programs and activities to meet the needs of the
communities where they’re located
◦ Historically Black Colleges:
 founded to serve those that were unserved or underserved
 Many were and are religiously affiliated and are public and
private
 Unique mission was challenged by the integration of public
and private institutions after the Civil Rights Act
◦ Tribal Colleges:
 Schools founded primarily for Native Americans
 Currently there are almost 30 tribal colleges
Factors Influencing the Mission


Very nature of an institution is influenced by
the statutory, constitutional, or charter
provisions governing the formation of the
institution
The corporate governance structure dictates
much of the day-to-day work of the
institution
Factors Influencing the Mission

Institutions of higher education may be
connected through the development of a
university system
◦ Individual campuses then have less autonomy
◦ Policies and procedures are administered on a
system wide basis
◦ It would be a mistake to assume that all campuses
in a system are the same and function the same
way
Factors Influencing the Mission

Physical location also influences the mission
◦ The creator of the institutions created it in a
particular place to meet a particular need
◦ Population sometimes dictates geographic location

Location also influences the role and scope of
student affairs work on campus
Factors Influencing the Mission

Example of influence
◦ Historically Black institutions are found more in the
south than the north
◦ Schools located in rural areas tend to focus more
studies on agriculture
◦ Growth of “normal schools” responded to the need
for educated persons to serve as teachers in
communities across the country
Factors Influencing the Mission

Public Institutions

Independent or Private Institutions

Size Distinctions




Student affairs staff need to be aware of the
concerns of the legislature that controls their
status
Public institutions in statewide systems
usually employ someone in the state capitol
to keep them up to date about legislative and
funding developments
Governing boards in public sectors are
usually quite small
Legislature determines tuition and fees and
compensation for faculty and staff
Institutional Distinctions



Governing boards are much larger
Trustees are usually benefactors
Governing board has greater control over
fiscal matters
◦ Set fees for students
◦ Control compensation levels for faculty and staff
◦ Decide parameters for budget decisions
Institutional Distinctions

Larger institutions need representative
groups for faculty, staff, and students to be
effective in governance
◦ Members feel more distanced from the decision
making process
◦ At times may not feel comfortable with or agree
with the decision making process

Smaller institutions don’t always need
representative groups because the group is
often small enough to represent itself
◦ The small the institution the more confident the
members feel in the decision making process
Institutional Distinctions

Purpose

Selection and Preparation

Activities and Operations

Student Life Committee

Other Board Committees

Typically the board of trustees
◦ serve as the final authority on:
 Institutional decisions
 Fiscal matters
 Major policy changes or developments
◦ Insure students rights are protected
Governing Boards

Selected in different ways depending on
institutional size or type
◦ At public institutions
 Appointed by state government process
 Elected
◦ At private institutions
 Boards are self-selecting and self-perpetuating
◦ At religious based institutions
 Nominated through process managed by church or
religious organization
Governing Boards

Board members
◦ Come from professional backgrounds
 Business, law, medicine, philanthropy
◦ Can have little to no knowledge about higher
education
◦ Chief student affairs officer create special programs
to orient board members to the institution
Governing Boards

Select and supervise the president of the
institution
◦ President is a non-voting member of the board
◦ Often the president is the only member of
administration on the board


The board acts as a collective entity not as a
collection of individuals
Working with individual trustees can be
interpreted as attempting to exert
unwarranted influence
Governing Boards


Work by boards is often done through
committees
Chief student affairs administrator is usually
assigned the responsibility of staffing the
student life committee
◦ Includes: suggesting agenda topics, meeting with the
president and committee chair about said topics,
gathering info and materials to make the meeting as
effective as possible

Committee is usually commissioned with the
responsibility of representing student interests
in the policymaking activities of the board
Governing Boards

Faculty are expected to:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦

Lead scholarly development in their field
Provide service to their institutions and community
Be expert in imparting knowledge
Participate in the governance of the institution
Direct the process of selection of their peers
Help direct decision making process for promotion
and tenure status for each member of faculty
Typical student affairs staff members have
little to no role in such matters unless they
are also a faculty member
Faculty Governance

Larger Institutions
◦ Have faculty senates or councils to represent the
faculty and their interests
◦ Typically there is no place for a student affairs
officials on these boards

Smaller Institutions
◦ Often engage the faculty as a whole in governance
and decision making
◦ Student affairs staff are sometimes part of the
process
Faculty Governance

Student Roles
◦ Student government used in student programming
and student representation in decision making
◦ Students have a voice but due to constant turnover
they are unable to keep up with specifics of many
issues
◦ Many institutions allow a student to attend trustee
meetings as a representative with no voting rights

Staff Roles
◦ Many institutions have staff committees or councils
◦ Some use staff reps as observers and
commentators at trustees meetings
Faculty Governance
1.
2.
3.
4.
Students benefit more from their college
experience when their “total level of campus
engagement is mutually supporting and
relevant to a particular educational outcome.”
Involvement in the academic and social life of
the institution enhances student learning
Integrated and complementary academic and
social programs, policies, and practices
enhance student learning
Students who feel they belong and are valued
as individuals are more likely to take advantage
of the resources the institutions provides for
their learning
Understanding Campus Environment

Substantive Frames
◦ Take into account physical and psychological
properties that influence learning
 Size and shape of structures
 Campus use of green space
 Students’ perceptions of what the institution
emphasizes and quality of relations among groups

Interpretive Frames
◦ Serve as a filter or lens through which to analyze
and understand how students’ interactions with
institution’s contextual conditions influence
behaviors
Understanding Campus Environments

There are three sets of institutional
properties that can influence student learning
1.
Institutional Mission and Philosophy
2.
Opportunities, Support, and Rewards
3.
Faculty and Student Subcultures
Substantive Frames

No institutional factor is more influential in
directing student and faculty behavior that
the institution’s mission and philosophy
Mission
•May or may not be congruent with
how the college describes itself
•May change intentionally or in
response to external environment
•In smaller schools the mission is
usually “salient” meaning even those
not directly tied to the institution
know exactly what the institution
stands for
Philosophy
•Often not stated in writing
•Mainly discerned from its acts which
represent the institution’s values and
beliefs as they are enacted by
institutional agents or policies,
practices, and standard operating
procedures
Substantive Frames
Opportunities
Support
•Examples Include:
•Social programming bodies
•Governance structures
•Performing arts venues
•Intercollegiate and
intramural athletics
•may take the form of an
ethic of care, a belief system
that permeates the
institution that encourage
faculty, staff, and students to
reach out to those in need
•Should encourage
spontaneous interaction
among students and between
students and institutional
agent consistent with
institution’s educational
purpose
•Safety nets made up of
faculty and staff are often
available to intervene with
students encountering
difficulty
Rewards
•Many colleges recognize
student achievement through
convocations and honor
society memberships,
banquets, dean’s lists,
announcements of
scholarship and fellowship
recipients, etc.
•Students learn best when
they receive frequent
feedback
When these three subsystems are operating at a satisfactory level they
can create powerful conditions for learning.
Substantive Frames

It is important to determine if faculty and student
cultures foster or discourage student involvement
Faculty
•Spend less time with undergraduates
outside of the classroom
•Can be influenced by the size of the
institution
•Face the conflict between research and
daily demands of teaching
•Unspoken agreement between faculty and
students seems to be, “You leave me alone
and I’ll leave you alone.”
•Mainly concerned with teaching and
research than interacting with students
outside of the classroom
Students
•One’s peers exert a nontrivial influence on
student learning because they determine
the kinds of people with whom one spends
time
•Different student affinity groups develop
and perpetuate their own distinctive
interaction patterns and norms that
influence how their members behave and
are to relate to others
•Most of these groups have set
expectations, attitudes, and values that are
often incongruent with those of the faculty
•Concerned with making good grades,
friends, taking care of themselves, and
managing their time
Substantive Frames

Three perspectives can be used to
understand how a college’s contextual
conditions influence student learning
1.
Ecology
2.
Climate
3.
Culture
Interpretive Frames



Includes institution’s size, location, facilities,
open spaces, and other permanent attributes
The amount, locations, and arrangement of
physical spaces shape behavior, in that they
facilitate or inhibit social interaction and the
development of group cohesiveness
The proximity of academic buildings to
permeable socially catalytic spaces can
promote or discourage interaction between
students from different majors
Interpretive Frames


Refers to how students, faculty, student
affairs staff, and other institutional agents
perceive and experience their institution
Student’s perceptions of their institution have
a nontrivial influence and directly and
indirectly affect learning and personal
development
Interpretive Frames



The collective, mutually shaping pattern of
institutional history, mission, physical setting,
norms, traditions, values, practices, beliefs, and
assumptions that guide the behavior of
individuals and groups in college or university
Collegiate cultures can be made up of holistic,
complex webs of physical and verbal artifacts,
enduring behavioral patterns, embedded values
and beliefs, and ideologies and assumptions that
represent learned products of group experience
Typically perpetuated through traditions, major
campus events, heroic individuals, and language
Interpretive Frames

Can change over time through a dynamic
interplay between the institution’s structural
and cultural elements
◦ Shifting in demographics
◦ Destruction of facilities or accidents that take the
lives of administrators or athletic teams
◦ Presence of people

Can also change due to the mutual shaping of
the cultural properties
◦ Physical attributes of campus
◦ Established practices
◦ Symbols and symbolic actions
Interpretive Frames

Barr, M. J. (2000). The Handbook of Student
Affairs Administration. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Factors Influencing the Mission