Some of this I no longer ascribe to, as I've grown even more "radical" in the field. But I think it's still a good read.
Outlines of a Critique of Student Affairs
Introduction
In the preface to The Sublime Object of Ideology,
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek (2008) drew the distinction between the
Ptolemaic and Copernican conceptions of the universe as a history lesson of
how, when confronted by challenges to the dominant discourse, a discipline
internalizes outside oppositions into its framework. According to Zizek, the Ptolemaic view of the
universe dominated the scientific perspective of European history for hundreds
of years, integrating various criticisms into itself or changing tiny details
until the Copernican revolution. This revolution changed the entire framework
of astronomy and re-oriented the role of human experience and relation to the
natural world.
The moral of this story presents an
important lesson to us in student affairs.
Although student affairs has responded over the years to challenges to
its practices, such as the feminist, anti-war, or civil rights movements, or
diminished state funding and increased demands for accountability, very little
has actually changed in the dominant perspective about what student affairs is
and should be. Furthermore, there exists
little space for radical critiques of the field, for reasons that I will explain.
The theme of this year’s ACPA
conference is “Be more in Baltimore”. To become more requires us to take stock
of where we’re lacking. I believe that this requires changes analogous to the Copernican
revolution, with a radical re-evaluation of our role as student affairs
professionals through the lens of critical theory, heretofore marginalized by
the corpus of student affairs. For the purposes of this essay, I will draw on
some of the integral guiding documents as defined by ACPA, such as the Student
Personnel Point of View 1 and 2, the Student Learning Imperative, and other
documents hosted on the ACPA website for Student Services and Development at http://www.myacpa.org/pub/pub_books_services.cfm
for analysis and critique.
From Where
We’ve Come
Critique of the student affairs field is not new. Several scholars have attempted to wrestle
with the philosophical and practical implications, as well as the direction
that student affairs should take in coming years.
Evans and Reason (2001) explored this topic, noting how the
first Student Personnel Point of View had a particular emphasis on the context
of the individual in society, and how the second Student Personnel Point of
View focused more on organization. This
emphasis on structure, organization, and practical emphasis of student affairs
has had a pervasive impact on the field – throughout most if not all documents
used as guiding principles or for similar purposes have the applicability of
student affairs scholarship as one of the prime values of the field. Intellectual pursuit for the sake of
intellectual pursuit (or, intellectual development through the pursuit of
knowledge), which one could argue is a part of the college framework since its
inception, is curiously absent from this perspective.
One could read the entire development of the student
affairs and developmental theory viewpoint as one of assimilation and control,
in response to the student movements of the 1960s (Bloland, Stamatakos, and
Rogers, 1994). This is the Ptolemaic crisis
of student affairs, and in response to the role of the student affairs
professional being challenged, the field collectively turned towards student
development theory as a way to bridge the gap between the express function of
student affairs professionals as experts on students and the new relationship
between students and the university.
Student affairs continued to develop its guiding
principles as it grew, fixating itself on the holistic development of students,
and the idea of the “whole student”, which has remained a focus throughout all
the years of student affairs (Evans and Reason, 2001, Bloland, et. al., 1994). But there remains a hole in the conception of
the whole student: Evans and Reason call
to our attention that there is little integration in student affairs from other
disciplines that could illuminate more deeply the terrain of student affairs,
student development theory, and our current efforts towards social justice.
They also give us a direct us to move beyond “Deweyian principles” of education
and development to critical theory as our next great stage of professional
focus. I now turn to critical theory as
a guiding philosophy for professional practice.
Critical
Theory and Student Affair
Critical theory has a long and storied history, birthed
in the complex social upheavals and continental theory in the decade preceding World
War II and thereafter. Henry Giroux
(2001) points to the Frankfurt School as the earliest model of critical theory. Stephen Brookfield (2005) calls upon other
critical traditions beyond the Marxist Frankfurt School of academics, such as
Michel Foucault, the psychoanalytic work such as Lacan or Fromm, or feminist
theory, but emphasizing the role of Karl Marx in developing the first
“critical” perspective, and how little can be analyzed without an
acknowledgement of Marx’s contribution to the field. These diverse and sometimes disparate
traditions point to five distinct characteristics of critical theory, as
identified by Brookfield through the work of Max Horkheimer: the recognition of
the influence of capitalism and commodification of the human experience; the
emphasis on liberatory practice and emancipation from oppression; a break
between the positivist notion of separation between observer and observed
prevalent in traditional theories; an approach that seeks to better the world,
not just recognize it as it is; the lack of concrete objectives and goals until
the world that critical theory imagines is realized and can be evaluated
henceforth on its own merit.
Literary
critic Lois Tyson (2006) notes that critical theory is based on recognizing the
assumptions we carry around with us. “We may not be aware of the theoretical
assumptions that guide our thinking, but those assumptions are there
nevertheless” (p. 4). As an example of critical theory’s applicability, literary
theory work and critique such as Tyson’s might prove invaluable to the
practice-oriented student affairs professional; the understanding of practices,
behaviors, and institutions as “texts” can give us insight into different forms
of analysis than we have conceptually used before.
Henry
Giroux cites the scholarship of Louis Althusser, Antonio Gramsci, and Michel
Foucault as being particularly applicable to pedagogical and educational
inquiry. This space does not adequately
allow us to explore their work in-depth; I will therefore rely heavily on the
work done by Henry Giroux and Stephen Brookfield in their application of these
and other critical theorists.
Critical
theory, taken as a whole, and using its language, problematizes our student
affairs practice, by drawing attention beneath the surface of practice to the
underlying ideologies transmitted through practice. This is the concept of “ideology critique”
suggested by Giroux and the critical theorist Louis Althusser (Giroux, 2001). “[I]deology
critique in this perspective suggests the importance of educating people to
recognize the interest structure that limits human freedom, while
simultaneously calling for the abolition of those social practices that are its
material embodiment” (p. 149).
Such
ideology critique can happen in student affairs, though. Bloland, et. al. (1994) note that the focus
of much of the New Directions monographs
focus revolves around the practical concerns that drive the “day-to-day” of practictioners,
not the evaluation and exploration of the end.
I suggest that this is one of the underlying ideologies of student
affairs practice: theoretical work must be eminently practical and relatively
easily translated into daily practice.
Another
underlying ideology is that we must be focused on students and specifically
student learning, in a way that overlooks relations between knowledge, power,
ideology, and dominant societal notions of education (Giroux, 2001, Brookfield,
2005). Throughout the document of Learning Reconsidered 2, the concept of
learning is invoked. However, I would argue that learning as described in Learning Reconsidered 2, as referenced
by process, strategic goals, and various other forms of attention to the
superficial sundry of the campus environment has little to do with the
development of learning or an environment for learning. An examination of the
underlying ideologies exposes the lack of critical learning focus in favor of
what some might call pragmatic development that critical theorists would point
to as reproducing oppressive social and cultural hegemony. Giroux (2001) offers an alternative:
“[S]tudents should learn not only how to weigh the existing society against its own claims, they should also be
taught to think and act in ways that speak to different societal possibilities
and ways of living” (p. 202).
Social
Justice
Social
justice is one of the prime examples of a terrain that can be impacted
positively by the judicious use and application of critical theory.
For
example, a careful interrogation of the terms “social justice,” “diversity,”
and “multiculturalism” would be essential to evaluating our attempts to import
social change – and we have to be consistent that the social justice we espouse
translates into social change, not merely personal development and
understanding of non-European cultures. Previous
diversity and multicultural efforts do not form truly liberatory practices;
they leave different cultures separate and segmented, and do not fundamentally
challenge oppressive social structures. An
emphasis on tolerance and respect as the basis for social justice is advocacy
de-fanged. The work of Wendy Brown
(2006) is insightful here. Brown points
out that the contemporary practice of tolerance is one of depoliticization – a
curious echo of the first “act” of student development theory was to ban a
political table (Bloland et. al, 1994). Thus, oppression and inequality become
not social issues to respond to with political action, but internal moral,
ethical, and interpersonal development.
This
sort of culturalism, where conflict occurs over meaning and not necessarily
power, tends to be the dominant notion in education paradigms about social
justice, diversity, and multiculturalism.
We focus on experiences as the path for learning, often regarding them
at the expense of highlighting the power relations that not only influence our
experiences, but also, if ignored, reinforce the status quo. “By elevating the notion of experience to
almost ethereal heights, we are left with an inadequate sense of how to judge
such experiences, since it is assumed that they speak for themselves” (Giroux,
p. 134). Is this not the emphasis taken
on sharing our experiences in diversity trainings, in ethnic food festivals, in
reflecting on privileged or oppressive encounters, otherwise coded as
“offensive”?
Student
affairs professionals must also confront the Eurocentrism in their work, and
recognize that Eurocentrism is not only a perspective that focuses on European
history and tradition as universalized values, but a perspective that
essentializes difference within individual actors. Eurocentrism is a philosophical and cultural
worldview that privileges and supports contemporary liberal hegemony (Amin,
2009). Culture then is no longer viewed
as dynamic but as transhistorical essentialism that freezes culture at current
or stereotypical, commodified notions of culture that can be packaged and
sold. We can see this approach in an
example of a food and culture program wherein students (most likely at a
predominantly white institution) are invited to participate in diversity
celebration revolving around food. The
ideological message of this is that by consuming food, these students are
partaking in their culture and are broadening their level of
understanding. While we do not want to
discard the benefit of stretching the participant’s cultural comfort levels, at
the end of education interventions in the name of social justice or increasing
“tolerance”, one must be made aware of students’ inner histories and
experiences, and most crucially, experience a “radicalization of consciousness”
(Giroux, 2001, p. 151). In other words,
it is not that food festivals in and of themselves are problematic, unless we
fail to illuminate the relations of difference and oppression that are
influencing and dictating the terms for our engagement with other cultures.
Even
student affairs’ attempts at advocacy fall into Eurocentric traps, such as
when, in Learning Reconsidered 2, student affairs professionals are asked to be
visionaries, perhaps when they should be asking themselves to be organizers of
movements. This echoes a “great man” theory of history, one that is re-told
when we focus on particular educators or activists as being movers or effectors
of great change, and which minimizes the impact of movements made up of
individuals in favor of the myth-telling about great individuals endemic to
Western society.
Student
Development Theory
Student development theory thus becomes a place for
fragmentation of understanding, and a site for reproduction of inequalities
through the recreation or reinforcement of repressive ideologies.
Recognizing
and analyzing ideology is the major subject that we seemingly refuse to take
up. Assessment, promoting holistic
learning, and intervening with appropriate developmental and educational
experiences are all a part of the student affairs practitioner and their craft,
but not a critical approach that would move beyond social and cultural
reproduction and towards a more equitable society.
One could posit then
that the ideological state apparatus thus conveys the important message that
efficiency is the primary behavior of services on campus should be
efficient. What defines an efficient
program or office then? Serving quantifiable results, hence we establish
learning outcomes; we establish large-scale programs that produce more.
The Role of
the Student Affairs Professional
Here, we must begin with a concrete analysis of the power
exerted by a student affairs professional, and draw from the work of Michel
Foucault (as cited in Brookfield, 2005).
Far
too often, the role of the student affairs professional is to respect the
mission statement or goals of the institution.
Student affairs professionals occupy a “new” space between
administrators, students, and faculty, but as the dominant hegemony, student
affairs tends to be lumped under administrators, both in allegiance and towards
the political breakdown during tensions on campuses. The question that follows
then is what relations of power do we support and enact through our practice? Learning Reconsidered 2 points to the
importance of the student affairs professional’s awareness of work under the
mission statement and institutional goals of the university. Where is the space for us to question the
institutional goals and mission statements of universities? Could we begin to form sites of resistance
against dominant ideologies that pervade institutions, such as the selling of
knowledge or the industrial-style production of education (Cleaver, 2006)?
Harry Cleaver finds parallels between the production of
goods and services, or tangible commodities, and the training of individuals in
education to be docile workers within conventional economic systems. We find this language paralleled in the
Student Learning Imperative, where we take on the task of directing students
away from “non-productive pursuits.”
We can
already see the impact of this particular ideology of learning-as-commodity
through the proliferation of for-profit online schools, as well as the
expansion of traditional nonprofits and state institutions into online courses
as cheaper alternatives to in-person courses.
These courses serve as useful draws for additional capital for
institutions. If our primary goal is to
work on student learning, should we not then seek to challenge the notion that
online education, which favors what Freire would call a “banking mode of
education” (Freire, 2009)?
Yet
the example of learning as a commodity is only one of the ways we could seek to
challenge conventional notions about learning and education. A thorough analysis and dialogue about
hegemony needs to be present in student affairs. Gramsci’s (as cited in
Brookfield, 2005) point that hegemony is educational in nature highlights the
importance and charge of analyzing ideological structures when we embark on
this critical theory journey.
We can also see power relations as described by Foucault enacted
in the role of advisers to student groups, a common job undertaken by student
affairs professionals. Advisers do not overtly hold power within the group;
power is laden throughout the advisers’ discourse and presence in the room
reminding the group that the university is watching their every move.
These power relations do not simply stop at interpersonal
interactions, though. Outcomes, assessment, goals… under a Foucauldian analysis
of power (Brookfield, 2005), all of these serve as surveillance mechanisms
ensuring a student affairs professionals’ productivity remains high, that
programs meet adequate goals and reach a certain number of students.
All these examples point to ways that we could
participate in the critique of ideology and ask what are the messages that
underlie and structure our practice.
Directions
for the Future
Critical
theory offers us the new direction for student services, in the way of allowing
us to develop a sort of teacher’s consciousness. As opposed to starting at students, Giroux
(2001) suggest we point to teachers and educators such as ourselves for the
liberatory work that we must undertake.
As Giroux notes,
“[m]ost students exercise very little power over defining
the education experience in which they find themselves.… [it is] this concern
that demands that we construe a theoretical framework giving teachers and
others involved in the educational process the possibility to think critically
about the nature of their beliefs and how these beliefs both influence and
offset the day-to-day experiences they have with students” (p. 194).
No
longer can we look at institutions and practices without examining embedded
ideologies and hegemony. Student
development theory must adapt to a new conceptualization of the student, not as
an object to be acted upon, but a dynamic actor. We owe it to our students to work with them on
their development not in a student development theory-driven way, but in a way
that recognizes ideological influences, hegemonic forces, and their own growth
as a site of resistance from oppression.
We must throw aside the idea of nonpartisanship and
advocate for our students in a way unlike our previous seeking of a balance
between institutional forces, student needs, and ourselves. As this essay has attempted to illustrate,
playing at not taking sides is not genuinely being nonpartisan. And as the late Howard Zinn (2003) noted,
history is comprised of conflicts.
History is happening all around us.
And today’s students face incomprehensible challenges beyond any that
have faced humankind before, from global war, terrorism, global warming,
alienation, poor job markets, to name a few.
As educators, we need to take sides in the interests of promoting
student development.
To “be
more”, as is asked of us, is to take a side against oppression. To “be more” is to think critically about our
role in that oppression. To “be more” is
to work against the hegemony that we support, and recognize the ideology that
guides our actions. And then, perhaps,
we can “be more” through critically evaluating ourselves to a depth that we
have yet to have done.
And finally, at the end of this critique, we cannot
accept an overly deterministic perspective on our role as student affairs
practitioners and scholars. Critical
theory is not the cipher to understanding our schools, our students, or
ourselves. It will not “solve” problems in the field. And it poses a significant intellectual
challenge to our current conceptions of student affairs, as it proposes
seemingly contradictory yet dialectical notions of understanding our students,
ourselves, and our institutions. We do
not want to have yet another bandwagon to hop on (Bloland, et. al., 1994)
uncritically. What I am proposing is a
remodeling of student affairs, not only of our lived spaces and the way we
interact, in the sense that we remodel our interior material space and
practices and structures, but to change our models of understanding in a new
way that will let in new light to our practices and ourselves.
References
ACPA/NASPA (2006). Learning reconsidered 2: Implementing a campus-wide focus on the student
experience.
Amin, S. (2009). Eurocentrism (2nd. Ed.) New York, New York: Monthly
Review Press.
American College Personnel Association
(1995). The student learning imperative:
Implications for student affairs. Washington, DC: ACPA. Available at http://www.myacpa.org/pub/pub_books_services.cfm
Bloland, P., Stamatakos, L., and Rogers,
R. (1994). Reform in student affairs: A critique of student development. ERIC
Clearinghouse on Counseling and Student Services, Greensboro, NC.
Brookfield, S. (2005). The power of critical theory: liberating
adult learning and teaching. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.
Brown, W. (2006). Regulating aversion: Tolerance in the age of identity and empire.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Cleaver, H. (2006). On schoolwork and the struggle against it. Retrieved from https://webspace.utexas.edu/hcleaver/www/OnSchoolwork200606.pdf
Evans, N., and Reason, R. (2001). Guiding
principles: A review and analysis of student affairs philosophical statements. Journal of College Student Development,
Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 359-377. (July/August 2001).
Freire, P. (2009). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, New York: The Continuum
International Publishing Group Inc.
Giroux, H. A. (2001). Theory and resistance in education: Towards
a pedagogy for the opposition. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey.
Tyson, L. (2006). Critical theory today: a user friendly guide (2nd Ed). New
York, New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis.
Zinn, H. (2003). A people’s history of the United States: 1492 – Present. New York,
New York: HarperCollins.
Zizek, S. (2008). The sublime object of ideology. London, England: Verso.
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