Student Affairs and Technology Leadership

I'm in a lot of conversations about technological change and higher education institutions. We have slides that help in the conversation.

First, the makeup of the institution:

Technological change comes from the bottom of this pyramid. The students tend to be the early adopters because they don't have old habits to unlearn. They use what makes sense to them, starting fresh.

This trend pulls the base of the pyramid out from underneath the upper layers. Something new comes along, like Facebook, and about a year later, we have this:

The gap between the faculty / advisor level and the students is a problem. How can we advise about a world that is changing in ways we don't understand?

The gap between the administration and the students is much larger.

Many administrators who sit in on the talks say that their knowledge of Facebook or Myspace is primarily from their own teens at home. The problem with this is that budgets are being approved for the wrong things - things that students have moved past, i.e. expensive email systems at small community colleges, big web portal projects, or restricted, school only social networks. There is also a lack of coherent policy around new technologies, which leaves individual practitioners guessing and crossing their fingers.

The graphics are designed as a conversation piece. It exaggerates to make the point. Clearly most administrators heard of Facebook a long time ago, but they generally don't have a "feel" for it yet.

For the middle layer, there are differences depending on how close the particular faculty / staff segment is to the students. This brings up a surprising and interesting new dynamic in higher education:

The closer a faculty / staff segment is to students, the more likely they are to be in a technological leadership position at the institution.

Student affairs folk, typically, have more exposure to students than your average professor. Student affairs personnel worry about engagement and call it marketing. They don't get to "require" students to read flyers, or check email, so they do what works. They go where the students are.

This has Student Affairs folk out front with the "Should faculty be on Facebook?" conversation. Most Student Affairs professionals have already made some sort of peace with the pros and cons and made the jump.

Students are the early adopters. Student Affairs folk are the early followers. This is an institution leading position.

What about IT?

IT departments have their innovators. I've met a number who are playing with the new tools and trying to figure out new models and techniques. (The dept. at University Minnesota - Crookston and Augustana come to mind.)

In my experience this fall, they are the exception.

Most IT folk at small schools are focused on basic infrastructure. At medium to large schools they are focused on liability with peer to peer issues. They are hamstrung by lawyers and competing demands. The last thing in the world they want is another arena of responsibility.

And, importantly, most IT departments don't work closely with students! They don't have the daily exposure that Student Affairs does.

Increasingly, it's not technical aptitude, but conceptual openness that puts one out front.

This is both an opportunity and a challenge for Student Affairs. The opportunity is to build credibility and respect for the profession by bringing effective change to the institution.

The challenge comes with the conceptual backlash. When faculty members push back against the idea of being on Facebook, or when the IT department tries to kill new initiatives brought forward, Student Affairs might find itself on a political balance beam.

It's a fascinating development.

A new student affairs technology vanguard is starting to develop. It's coming together at APCA, NASPA, ACUI and on Facebook itself. It's building partnerships in the institutions. (Often with the librarians, who, as a general rule, are conceptually all over web 2.0 technologies.)

I'm very curious to see how this trend continues as students keep moving farther forward!

As if Student Affairs needed more, add technological leadership to the hat rack!