The beginning of a new academic year for many of us is full of excitement and the start of new memories. Mid-level administrators guide, drive, and engage in much of the work of student affairs and we are both fortunate to work with the Mid-level Administrators Steering Committee (MLASC) to serve you. In a short amount of time, we have made progress on various projects and initiatives to help prepare members to lead on current and future issues in higher education which we would like to highlight as we start the new school year with renewed energy and commitment.
As we progressed in our committee work through monthly meetings, a workgroup was created to define the mission, purpose, and goals of the Mid-level Administrators Steering Committee to complement our initial charge.
Mission: To support excellence within mid-level positions through professional development, knowledge creation and sharing, networking opportunities, and recognition aimed at NASPA members in these roles.
Purpose: Mid-level administrators encompass the broadest and most extensive population of faculty and staff within both the field of student affairs and the NASPA membership population. The NASPA Mid-level Administrators Steering Committee guides and equips NASPA leaders and members with tools and resources to promote the success of mid-level administrators in their professional roles.
Goals:
Serve as the conduit between mid-level NASPA members and NASPA leadership.
Assist in the creation, delivery, outreach, and assessment of resources, programs, and services, as well as additional opportunities for networking, designed for the mid-level administrator community.
Engage in consistent communication and feedback sharing with NASPA members in mid-level administrator roles to maintain a pulse on the community and its immediate and long-term needs.
Review and report on current trends in the higher education community, particularly those impactful to NASPA members in mid-level administrator roles.
Furthermore, we created five working subgroups based on professional development needs and interests: Annual Conference, Communication, Data and Assessment, Member Engagement and Programs, and Partnerships. We would like to extend our appreciation to our committee members working diligently to provide working models and frameworks to enhance professional development opportunities and engagement to support our Mid-level professionals at large.
From a foundation of leadership, it is a combination of building collaboration, a willingness to work extraordinarily hard, and the ability to recognize opportunities that have driven and inspired the creation, work, and commitment of the Mid-level Administrators Steering Committee. We look forward to continuing to provide many different opportunities for you and to navigate this academic and co-curricular journey together here in the new school year.
In the coming months, you will see information about joining the Steering Committee and we hope you consider joining us in this important work!
With Gratitude,
Ben Williams
Assistant Dean of Students
Miami University - Ohio
Thanh Nguyen
Assistant Dean/Director Center for Multicultural Engagement and Inclusion
Metropolitan State University of Denver
We Want to Hear From You
WE NEED YOU! — Because the Mid-level Administrators Steering Committee (MLASC) is still in its inaugural term, we want to know more about YOU and how we can serve YOU! With that, we ask you please take a few minutes to fill out our membership needs survey. This will help the MLASC to have a better understanding of who you are, what you need, and what you want as a MLA. Your responses will help shape the work of the MLASC and provide the group with valuable insights as to what it means to be a Mid-level Administrator.
If you would like to help, we kindly request that you fill out the survey by Friday, October 6, 2023.
Name: Wade Brown Mid-level Position: Assistant Director, Department of Residential Life
Institution: Indiana University, Bloomington
Professional Journey and Current Career:
I have been a mid-level administrator at Indiana University Bloomington for nearly a decade. After completing my doctorate in 2013, I arrived at IU as the Research and Assessment Specialist for the Division of Residential Programs and Services. My role was to work with the unit's various Directors to demonstrate what our students were learning while living in the residence halls. For the last four years, I have served as the Assistant Director for Center Management for the Department of Residential Life. Most of my responsibilities include the selection, training, and hiring of our in-center staff. Most days, I feel like a coach for our staff and students. Every day is truly a different challenge and adventure with everything that happens inside the residence halls. In the morning, I could be working with multiple departments to address a facility crisis and then doing a presentation for prospective students and their families. By the afternoon, I could be having meetings with our human resources and finance departments to address staff behavior and reconcile purchases. Every day is a different adventure, and you need to use various skills, strategies, and talents to address responsibilities.
What advice would you give current mid-level professionals?
One of the most potent tools a mid-level manager can utilize to help make decisions within their organization is to have a professional philosophy or a set of values for how you are going to make decisions when faced with unclear situations. I had faced situations when there was not a black-and-white answer for how we were going to address an issue but having a professional philosophy provided me with a framework for how to address those issues and a method to help explain to others how a situation was addressed.
Favorite Thing About Being a Mid-level Professional
My favorite part about being a mid-level administrator is being a coach for our professional and student staff. I work with many people who have various levels of employment experience and backgrounds, and it amazes me the growth that can happen when staff learn new skills or take on stretch assignments to advance themselves and move our organization forward. You must enjoy working with and being around people to work in student affairs at residential institutions like Indiana University.
Recent Research
We close this edition of the newsletter by sharing with you some relevant research we feel useful to mid-level administrators. Got recommendations on published research or books you want to share? Have you been recently published and would like us to spotlight your work? Email Emily.Holmes@usm.edu for consideration.
"The purposes of this study were to identify factors of mid level student affairs administrators’ professional identity and to examine the association of those factors to career commitment, career entrenchment, and demographic characteristics. Principal axis factor analysis derived 3 dimensions of professional identity: career contentment, community connection, and values congruence with the profession. Regression analyses conducted on 377 survey responses revealed that 3 of 4 demographic characteristics, all 3 career commitment subscales, and all 3 career entrenchment subscales were significantly associated with at least 1 of the professional identity subscales. Implications for research and practice are discussed."
"Mid-level managers comprise a large proportion of student affairs organizations. They are often the most overlooked when it comes to professional orientation and institutional introduction when entering new positions. Accordingly, information is presented from the professional literature that speaks to the characteristics and unique needs of this administrative cohort, with attention to orientation needs, including life and work transition, role complexity, leadership demands, and technical skills requirements. Finally, a process developed for a mid-size, private university’s student affairs division is offered as an example for preparing orientation for mid-level staff."
"The ACPA/NASPA Professional Competencies for Student Affairs were designed to articulate skills needed for effective practice. However, since its first publication in 2010, little research has been done to understand whether these competencies align with the skills needed to be successful student affairs professionals. This qualitative study examined mid-level supervisors’ perceptions of the skills needed for effective entry-level student affairs work and compared these responses to the ACPA/NASPA competencies. Mid-level manager’s perceptions of skills aligned with stated competencies with some minor discrepancies noted. These findings have implications for practice, graduate preparation programs, potential revisions to the competencies and future research."
Save The Date
Save the date and make plans to join us at the following events:
For questions about the Mid-level Administrator Steering Committee, please contact Emily Holmes at Emily.Holmes@usm.edu .
* For the purpose of the Mid-level Administrators Steering Committee, NASPA defines mid-level administrators as those student affairs professionals who serve in roles between (and not including) entry-level positions and AVP (and the equivalent) roles.
