Chapter 4: Adding To The Legacy: African American Contributions to Student Affairs

Drawing upon various sources to put together the assertion that nestled alongside the teaching and learning aspects of today's institutional mission statements for American colleges and universities is student affairs, which is, the nexus between inside-the-classroom-learning and out-of-the-classroom experiences. In other words, while the classroom focuses to specifically develop the cognitive intellectual abilities, student affairs seek to cultivate the “whole person.” Some have identified the “whole person” as character, citizenship, as well as lending understanding for multiculturalism, diversity, and difference.

Student affairs, is like any other profession in that a history of the vocation exists (Komives, Woodard, & Associates, 1996). Unfortunately, among student affairs administrators, there is a lack of historical emphasis in their academic preparation (Rhatigan, 2000, p. 3). Writing almost 40 years ago, Appleton, Briggs, and Rhatigan, for example, penned in 1978 that, “[i] n our field, the present is a dominant preoccupation. The price of this preoccupation is the diminution not only of our predecessors but also of ourselves” (p. 9). This is not because there is a lack of interest, research, or scholarly inquiry pertaining to student affairs work, as existing research literature is actually plentiful.