"Another notable trend that is altering the student development landscape is the over-involvement of students’ parents. Whether you call it helicopter parents or, as I now call them Stealth Bombers, the stuff that I would have died and crawled under the table if my parents had told my Dean of Students is becoming commonplace. "

Kurt Keppler

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Dr. Kurt Keppler

Optimizing Student Learning

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PEOPLE WITH IMPACT INTERVIEW - Dr. Kurt Keppler, Vice President of Student Affairs at Valdosta State University and former president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administration (NASPA), has spent his professional career devoted to enhancing student learning and development in higher education. In the following interview, Dr. Keppler discusses the major challenges associated with student development and what proactive universities will need to do to address these emerging obstacles in order to optimize student learning and development.

Q: What do you see as the major challenges associated with student development?
Dr. Kurt Keppler: There are four or five key trends, in no particular order, that are emerging and changing the way that folks in student affairs do their jobs and work effectively with their students. I do not believe that one is more important or prevalent than the others as each presents a new and unique challenge to the field.

The first of these issues is the category of mental health. More and more students are arriving to campuses with existing mental health issues. Such issues do not correlate with academic abilities—these students can be 4.0 students or those that are just squeaking by. Increasing rates of students are arriving on campus with intensive counseling backgrounds stemming from psychiatric treatment, medication, broken homes, behavioral problems associated with ADHD, relationship problems—you name it. Campus counseling and student affairs centers are currently dealing with more complex cases than the traditional ‘I don’t know what to do with my life’ or ‘I just broke up with my boyfriend’ blues. It is now a very complex environment with a lot of very troubled young people. Schools must outline how they can effectively work in both a preventative and treatment-related capacity to cater to this new group of students that come to campus with serious histories of mental and psychological issues.

Technology is the next issue that presents a challenge in the evolution of student affairs. Students are more technologically savvy than most university faculty and staff. This trend seems to almost correlate directly with age—the more senior the faculty and administrators, the less likely they are in tune with emerging technologies. From cell phones to iPods to Facebook to YouTube, these new technologies are considered by students to be absolutely essential, much like a wallet, cell phone or keys. Many staff and faculty on college campuses have yet to grasp the importance of these tools, or the benefit that can result from communicating with students in their preferred medium.

Another challenge for the modern student affairs office is the lack of sophomore-targeted retention programs. We have made huge inroads in the last couple of decades with freshman—having creating first-year experiences, University 101 classes, comprehensive freshman orientation programs, theme-related cohort groups and emerging leaders programs to provide a lot of TLC to freshman in an attempt to help them through the transition year to college. However, I think that we’ve made the assumption that once students turn 19, rack up 30 hours of academic credit and become sophomores, that all of a sudden these students ‘get it.’ I think that is a huge mistake on the part of student affairs divisions nationwide. Campuses boast freshman to sophomore retention rates of 70, 80, even upwards of 90% for freshman, but when you look at the big picture of five year graduation rates, we’re looking at figures between 40 and 60 percent. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where we are losing students—as sophomores. Once students are seniors, they are closer to being finished and typically find ways to get by and graduate. Second year students, as well as third year students in some cases, pose the real risk of attrition. For whatever reason, higher education has neglected sophomores and developed the notion that if they help freshman to acclimate successfully they have it all figured out a sophomore. They don’t, and student affairs professionals will need continue to serve sophomores in the same way they served them as freshman. This might include creating special programs for sophomores through learning communities, internships, co-ops, peer groups or additional support in major selection or changing. Helping students transition through freshman year does not mean those students will graduate—therefore, additional attention must be provided to sophomore students to retain them through degree completion.

Another obstacle pertains to general issues that have evolved from the Virginia Tech tragedy surrounding the need for safety on campuses. I see Virginia Tech as the 9/11 of higher education—it opened the door and reminded us that the unthinkable can actually happen. Campuses have responded in proactive ways to the tragedy by developing programmatic elements, safety protocols and alert mechanisms, but at the same time, there is a whole new level of paranoia, and campuses need to watch everything twice as closely. Clearly, we are dealing with a different environment post-Virginia Tech, and campuses must be responsive to students’ and parents’ safety concerns.

Another notable trend that is altering the student development landscape is the over-involvement of students’ parents. Whether you call it helicopter parents or, as I now call them Stealth Bombers, the stuff that I would have died and crawled under the table if my parents had told my Dean of Students is becoming commonplace. A key tactic to reign in this behavior is to create campus parent councils and organizations, not unlike the elementary school PTAs, wherein universities can utilize the vitality and enthusiasm of parents in a positive way. Parents no longer understand the higher education chain of command or bureaucracy, so it is not unusual for a state university parent to call the Governor’s office, the board of regents or the president directly. For private schools, it is now common for a parent to call the president or the board of trustees to discuss a test score or dorm problem. The days of simply calling the director of housing and asking a question are gone, and I think schools must adapt to the changing ways in which they communicate with parents in light of FERPA, HIPPA and other privacy constraints. Helicopter parents, if managed effectively by the institution, can actually serve to help student affairs initiatives.

A final challenge to student development pertains to how schools will manage growth in enrollment. In Georgia, for example, we expect to have 100,000 more college students in the University of Georgia system over the next ten years. How will we handle those additional students with the current facilities? And what will draw a student to a particular university over another? No longer are the only considerations faculty, ranking in U.S. News, or SAT score tip the scale. Rather, there is more emphasis on factors like how good the food service is, how nice are the residence halls, or whether there is adequate parking, an attractive campus or a small faculty to student ratio. Those elements matter to today’s students and parents on the same level as the quality of instruction. Students have come to expect a certain level of quality and services and, if you don’t have it, they’ll go someplace that does.

Q: What should a proactive institution do to anticipate these challenges?
Kurt Keppler: We all need to realize that these facilities will likely not be funded by legislatures. They’ll be funded by the students in most cases. Student affairs departments will have to reconsider student fees and how they can long-term plan to build certain facilities and implement other programs to attract and retain the next generation of learners. The world of student affairs will also need to become better fundraisers and increasingly involve the private sector, going after corporate and alumni monies from the individual and the community. We can no longer rely on the budgets that come from state legislatures. You’ve probably heard this saying, but several of us have commented that “We used to be state funded, then we became state supported, and now we’ve become state located.” Student affairs professionals need to become more reliant on other sources of monetary support to subsidize these necessary initiatives.

Dr. Kurt J. Keppler has been Vice President for Student Affairs since July of 2002. Dr. Keppler spent the previous nine years at Georgia State University (GSU), where he served as Associate Vice President & Dean of Students and as Interim Vice President for Services for one year. Dr. Keppler was also President of the 11,000 member National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), from March 2005-March 2006, and currently serves on the association’s executive committee. Keppler continues to hold an adjunct teaching appointment and has taught courses in Leadership Style, Leadership Theory, Organizational Psychology and Group Dynamics at four different universities.

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