Internal Publications

This set of Professional Competency Areas is intended to define the broad professional knowledge, skills, and for some competencies, attitudes expected of student affairs professionals working in the U.S., regardless of their area of specialization or positional role within the field. All student affairs professionals should be able to demonstrate their ability to meet the basic list of outcomes under each competency area regardless of how they entered the profession. Thus, this document is intended to inform the design of professional development opportunities for student affairs professionals by providing outcomes that can be incorporated into the design of specific curriculum and training opportunities. Additionally, if student affairs professionals desire to grow in a particular competency area, they can examine expected learning and skills in the intermediate and advanced level. Such examination allows individual practitioners to use this document to help guide their own choices about professional development opportunities afforded to them.

With increased emphasis on student affairs’ contribution to student learning, increasing numbers of student affairs educators are being called upon to participate in the regional accreditation process. With accreditation processes taking place once a decade and recent revisions in the standards for regional accrediting bodies focusing on student learning, student affairs educators are often not equipped with the knowledge and skills to maximize the opportunity that accreditation presents divisions of student affairs. Without these skills and knowledge, this opportunity is lost and student affairs educators merely “endure and get through” the process.

While there are differences in accreditation standards and processes across regional accrediting bodies, there are many common themes that student affairs educators can benefit from exploring. In order to maximize the opportunity of accreditation, we need to understand the process of accreditation, including how to prepare for the process not only to address the standards of the regional accrediting body but also to strategically position the division in the institution with regard to priorities and resources. It is important to be able to document how student needs are addressed as well as how student learning is fostered and institutional effectiveness is assessed. Accreditation provides an opportunity to demonstrate the division’s contributions in these areas. This monograph affords student affairs educators the opportunity to broaden their understanding of accreditation and the possibilities therein.

Over the past few months, there has been much media attention on popular caffeinated malt beverages like Four Loko. However, researchers, policy makers, and health professionals have expressed concern over caffeinated malt beverages and mixed energy drinks for several years. Since the introduction of energy drinks to the United States such as Red Bull in 1997 and its subsequent use as a mixer for hard alcohol, there is a growing body of research evidence indicating that mixing alcohol with high levels of caffeine and other substances contained in energy drinks is unsafe. Policy makers are also concerned about the inappropriate marketing of these beverages to a younger audience. Although Four Loko is the center of recent controversy, there are several other beverages on the market with similar alcohol and caffeine content (Joose, Max), as well as highly caffeinated beverages often used to mix with alcohol (e.g., Red Bull, Monster) that have the potential for abuse.

To honor the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Student Personnel Point of View of 1937, the Commission for Professional Preparation invited scholars to reflect on this foundational document for the student affairs field. The monograph contains a reproduction of the original The Student Personnel Point of View as it appeared when it was published in 1937 along with a collection of essays wherein the authors reflect on the significance and enduring value of the document. The goals of this monograph are to “re-open” this important document and to stimulate thinking and dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and graduate students regarding The Student Personnel Point of View of 1937 and our continued role as student affairs and higher education professionals to develop the whole student.

For many years, organizations external to a college or university have been allowed to use an institution’s athletics facilities for summer basketball camps. These “nonscholastic” camps typically attract hundreds to thousands of young men and women between 14 and 18 years old. A small number of the participants of the summer camps are elite athletes and may eventually compete as varsity scholarship athletes at the nation’s highest competitive collegiate athletic level, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. This document concerns an NCAA Proposal directed at young male basketball players who participate in these camps.

ACPA’s Sustainability Task Force partnered with the Commission on Assessment and Evaluation with the goal of creating assessment tools to help ACPA members effectively measure student learning around sustainability. Towards these ends, Kimberly Yousey-Elsener (StudentVoice), Diana Richter Keith (Columbia University), and Staci Lynne Ripkey (New York University) formed a team in 2007 to begin a literature and web-search of assessment tools being used by various institutions.

This guidebook is built upon a framework of student learning outcomes developed by the ACPA Sustainability Task Force and published in the Monograph, Toward a Sustainable Future: The Role of Student Affairs in Creating Healthy Environments, Social Justice, and Strong Economies. Therefore, the assessment tools in this guidebook focus on one piece of the sustainability puzzle — student learning — and should be used to complement the assessment of operation and program effectiveness.

Toward a Sustainable Future: The Role of Student Affairs in Creating Healthy Environments, Social Justice, and Strong Economies is a call to action for college student educators, articulating the crucial role we play in the international sustainability movement. It contains valuable information about educating self, educating students, and making institutional change as well as a listing of resources on the triple bottom line. This monograph provides compelling arguments for taking action on campus and the necessary tools to do so successfully.

Use ASK intentionally as a basis to further develop your assessment knowledge and that of your staff. Endorsed by national accrediting bodies, associations, and assessment experts, the ACPA ASK Standards articulate the areas of assessment skills and knowledge (ASK) needed by student affairs professionals in all functional areas as well as by others. Use ASK to plan staff training or your own further development through ACPA eLearning courses, Webinars, State/International division conferences, and the annual ACPA assessment conference. ASK is your "what do I need to know?" professional development road map! ASK is a member service from the ACPA Commission for Assessment and Evaluation. View the list of ASK Contributors.

This manual is designed for those working with conduct boards composed of students and/or faculty. This manual serves two purposes:

1) To provide the Adviser and/or trainer(s) with guidelines, philosophy, and information so as to better structure your conduct board program (or to create one); and

2) To serve as an actual model for a manual for a conduct board.

Developed by the Commission for Student Conduct & Legal Issues.

Learning Reconsidered 2: Implementing a Campus-Wide Focus on the Student Experience is a blueprint for action. It shows how to create the dialogue, tools, and materials necessary to put into practice the recommendations in Learning Reconsidered. This companion book brings together new authors, discipline-specific examples, and models for applying the theories in the original publication to move beyond traditional ideas of separate learning inside and outside the classroom. Published by ACPA, ACUHO-I, ACUI, NACADA, NACA, NASPA, and NIRSA.

Learning Reconsidered is an argument for the integrated use of all of higher education's resources in the education and preparation of the whole student. This is a co-published publication between ACPA and NASPA.