Certification as a Mechanism to Build Public Trust for the Profession Tamika N. Smith (bio) and Danielle M. DeSawal (bio) The Student Personnel Point of View monograph, published in 1937, served as a national call for institutions to be attentive to individualizing student experiences and needs. Since that time, those serving in these roles have worked to establish student affairs as a profession. While documents internal to the field reference student affairs as a profession (see The Compass Report [2022] and Envisioning the Future of Student Affairs [2010]), we continue to see a struggle within higher education, broadly, to recognize what is and is not a student affairs role on a collegiate campus. Furthermore, the process of assessing and defining the skills, competencies, and dispositions required for those roles is not agreed upon across campus environments. Bloland (1992) concluded that student affairs is not a profession, and professionals should consider themselves to be “essentially an administrative convenience linked by an allegiance to a common philosophical perspective on its work . . . in which it is practiced, i.e., college students in the out-of-class setting” (p. 5). This sentiment is apparent in looking at how requirements for positions across a range of functional areas within student affairs (e.g., residence life, career counseling, academic advising, residence life, student life) are written. That is, they often include administrative tasks that human resources departments have outlined for all non-academic personnel at the institution. This lack of distinction sets up an understanding on campus that a focus on administrative tasks in student affairs roles does not require specialized training where the individual would demonstrate specific skills, competencies, and dispositions. Additionally, the educational requirements for such positions vary and often list multiple possible degrees as an option (e.g., counseling, social work, specific academic disciplines for academic advising, educational policy). As a result, student affairs staff members continue to struggle with convincing their collegiate colleagues that they are part of a distinct profession. Recognizing student affairs as a profession requires more than making statements through internal guiding documents for the field. In this article, we address the establishment of certification for student affairs educators as the appropriate next step for the profession. CERTIFICATION AS THE NEXT STEP Discussions surrounding the need for and implications of certification as a next step for the profession have been occurring within student affairs professional associations for decades. [End Page 712] Throughout these discussions, the tensions surrounding the purpose, role, and implications have been critical to thinking about when/if this move is appropriate. In a study focused on intentional professional development among student affairs professionals, Janosik et al. (2006) found that 87% of the respondents supported a voluntary certification program. In 2012, ACPA announced an implementation team for credentialing individuals in student affairs (Tyrell & Levine, 2012). The announcement created a controversial response (Grasgreen, 2012) and highlighted that certification discussions were happening simultaneously throughout specific functional areas in the field. The multiple task forces created and the discussions that followed did not yield a consensus on how to move forward with certification. While the earlier attempts to establish a certification for the profession did not yield any results, they provided critical conversations that informed the establishment of the Higher Education Consortium for Student Affairs Certification. So how did it happen? In 2019, NASPA distributed a survey to 8,700 members to identify whether certification, at this time, was the next step for the profession. The survey yielded similar findings to the 2006 study by Janosik and colleagues: Professionals identified that voluntary certification would be beneficial; provide pathways for advancement; and establish standards for knowledge, skills, and experiences. To learn more about the readiness of the profession to move forward on this initiative, 27 focus groups (including chief student affairs officers, new and mid-level professionals, and faculty) were conducted. The findings continued to support the move toward establishing a voluntary certification program. In July 2019, the NASPA Board reviewed the data and approved the development of a collaborative initiative to create a voluntary certification program. At that stage, the process shifted from a single association guiding the process to a collaborative effort of nine associations. A psychometrics and evolution...
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Nov 21, 2024
Abdulla Phairoosch 
Just Published
Open Access