The recent shooting at Northern Illinois University has once again raised a number of issues regarding the role of the American university in student welfare. Such welfare traditionally has been the domain of student affairs, a corps of professionals that specializes in fields as diverse as physical fitness, mental health, and residential life. In short, student affairs officers are charged with promoting the general well-being of students.

But what constitutes well-being for a college student? And how much oversight do college students need in maintaining their health and wellness?

My own undergraduate institution explicitly refused to act in loco parentis and relied on a policy of student self-governance--collectively and as individuals. Indeed, over the past 30 to 40 years, many secular colleges and universities in the U.S. have at least given lip service to policies that discourage the university from acting as a parental proxy.

Increasingly, however, student affairs offices are taking more prominent roles in the everyday lives of American college students. Oso Raro of Slaves of Academe recently expressed some concerns about this greater intervention:

I had never really thought too much about the rise of a Student Life professional class in the university before some of our extended conversations. They seemed a vague presence on the edge of more important things: the machinations of evil administrators, the follies of faculty, the striving of clerical staff. But increasingly, the Student Life professional represents a new cadre in the academy, one imbued with considerable power and influence over the structuring of students’ social lives and, consequently, some of their relationship to the dynamics of the classroom.

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Nowadays, of course, the Student Life professional and his or her ubiquitous staff are cheerfully on hand to make an appropriate intervention into such crudely self-destructive habits. Obligatory counseling, group sessions, Resident Assistants with the power to “write up” straying undergraduates in the panopticon of the contemporary dorm, and staffs of people (and the money) to plan a slew of compulsory welcoming and continuing programming and heartfelt retreats that seem to serve at once as both jocular socialisation and rigid regulation are what seems to distinguish the residential and social lives of today’s undergraduates.

Dean Dad took umbrage at Oso Raro's characterization of student affairs professionals:

Put differently, the point of Student Life offices isn't to dumb down political discussion, to centralize administrative control, or to devalue faculty. It's to take care of the necessary and important things that faculty don't do.

Certainly there is a role for student affairs professionals in preventing shootings like those at Northern Illinois (by a former student) and Virginia Tech (by an enrolled student). The chancellor of my own university sent this e-mail yesterday to the entire campus community:

Additional registration fee funding this year has enabled Student Affairs to expand its most critical student mental health services, largely related to clinical diagnosis, intervention and treatment. Several counseling psychologists, a psychiatrist, and a data analyst to evaluate student mental health information and trends have been added to the staff. Additionally, Counseling and Psychological Services has instituted a seven-days-a-week, after-hours consultation and crisis response service to augment its regular services. And additional training is being provided to faculty and academic departments to help with effective identification, intervention and referral of distressed students.

Dean Dad elaborates on some other roles played by student affairs offices:

Without adequate 'back-office' functions, colleges lose their accreditation, and faculty lose their jobs. (The recent demise of New College in San Francisco is as good a test case as any.) Without a vigorous Admissions office, the college goes out of business. Without adequate student record-keeping, everything falls apart. Without financial aid, the most disadvantaged suffer the most. Without clubs and athletics, students get a one-dimensional educational experience (not to deny that some of them are okay with that) and are less likely, statistically, to finish their degrees. Without counseling, faculty are left to their own devices to handle student mental health issues and all their legal and ethical complications.

In comments following Dean Dad's post, Dr. Crazy and Maggie felt that Dean Dad oversimplified the issues. Go check out their comments on his post--as well as other faculty comments--for some good discussion.

Oso Raro offers some more specific criticism of student affairs programming:

in talking with my new colleague and thinking about some experiences in the profession, I have increasing wondered about the role of Student Life services on what we do in the classroom and how we function as professors and teachers in the university. I offer two relevant examples:

Diversity Training— Most student life services offer mandatory diversity training for incoming students. “Diversity” here typically means the usual suspects: race, gender, sexuality (sometimes), faith communities (sometimes). In my experience, most diversity training is poorly focused intellectually and often tends to center on a simplistic descriptive of feelings. This is not true all the time and in all cases, however, suffice it to say there is a lot of money to be made in diversity training (it is quite lucrative), and usually contracted to outside consultants. Heaven forbid I would be against Diversity Training (although I loathe the word diversity). But I have found, as faculty who teaches these things in the intellectual context of the classroom, that half my time is spent unraveling the messages, axioms, and truisms of the diversity trainer when students must confront, again intellectually, difference, power, and oppression. Some conundrums cannot be ended with a group hug, unfortunately.

I went looking for student affairs blogs, and they appear to be few and far between--at least relative to the pace of blogging by faculty in the academic blogosphere. But I did find a few that are worth reading:

The Student Affairs Collaborative Blog is written by 17 student affairs professionals from around the U.S. Posts are on a huge variety of topics, so there's sure to be something that interests you. Go check it out.

Higher ed technology consultant Eric Stoller often writes about student affairs issues.

The Oregon State College Student Services Administration program has a blog "where prospective students, current students, alumni, faculty, staff, stakeholders, and any interested individuals can share experiences and thoughts."

One blog chronicles a student affairs job hunt.

What are your thoughts? And if you're a student affairs professional, where are you blogging?

Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.