How we transitioned to a comprehensive professional and graduate student affairs office

Abstract

Background: Contemporary student affairs units arm students with professional skills, abilities and dispositions as they promote student learning, growth and development, as opposed to providing only administrative services.Aim: To describe the process for designing, planning, implementing and assessing a comprehensive student affairs unit that serves graduate and professional students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Eshelman School of Pharmacy.Method: A student services office that served only professional students was transformed in 2011 to an office of student affairs. The goal of the expanded, comprehensive unit is to work, in collaboration with academic affairs, to promote holistic student growth and development through proactive, intentional planning of co-curricular experiences.Results: The comprehensive student affairs model has allowed for more student programming and mentoring opportunities, improved graduate students’ feelings of connectedness to the School and improved efficiency of processes. The next steps include thorough assessment of the model and monitoring of the strategic plan.Conclusions: A comprehensive, centralized student affairs unit, working in partnership with academic affairs, can help professional and graduate health affairs programs meet their goals for student development, while improving the efficiency of administrative processes. This model can be easily implemented in other schools.