Responsibilities
Post by Shane Downing
What do you think? Questions of Day!
-What does active citizenship mean to you?-How can we encourage students to create environmental initiatives?
-How can students link student affairs (ACCEL, community service, etc) and academic affairs (academic advisors, departments)?
Recap:
Today we talked about the discussion our committee had yesterday. We really set up a foundation for what we will be talking about tomorrow. We had a representatives talk to us about Core Commitments and CEED. This really has given us a basis in social and personal responsibility (ACCEL, civic engagement council, CEED) and environmental responsibility (Sustainability Coordinator, CEED). Tomorrow we will be outlining the support structures of student learning. The committee has outlined the major players as being student affairs and academic affairs but the committee has also been quick to point out the need of another foundational group as well as the disconnect between in class and out of class life. I believe, and am in the process of trying to make others see, that students are this missing link. It is us who create the bond between student and academic affairs. We are going to be picking apart our mission statement to really find the core pillars we as Allegheny have so we can start to see how we can open and create our community to living lives of social, personal, and environmental responsibility.
Comments (1)
Shane I would just like to say that I agree with you completely, I too think the students are the "missing link". It is from our activities in student affairs that we are able to draw real world experience from and bring what we learned from those experiences in the classroom. There is such a rich background in each classroom from everyone's own involvement in student affairs that it is amazing to think about. I bet if you polled all the students in any particular class you would get a pretty good picture of all the different areas student affairs covers. It is this "diverse" background, participation, and experience that can allow for vibrant conversations to go on in the classroom. If anything, there does not have to be another foundation here between these two areas, maybe there should just be a more intentional way of bringing them closer to eachother. Professor's should encourage the students to draw from their student affairs experiences and share, which I feel is done a bit. However, maybe part of the disconnect is that the professors do not necessarily participate or have enough knowledge of student affairs for themselves. To bridge this gap it will take effort from both the faculty and administration and the students. Instead of using worldly examples all the time in classes maybe more focus could be put on local examples and classes could be integrated into service and other student affairs.
Posted by Ryan Cole | May 22, 2009 11:23 PM
Posted on May 22, 2009 23:23