In the last five years, student success and student affairs professionals have worked through the most dynamic period in higher education in our lifetimes. Although most of us were educated and trained in colleges and universities that prioritize continuity and incremental approaches to change, we have all been forced to navigate disruption and recalibration over which we have exercised little, if any, control. Although the onset of the global pandemic has been the most compelling example of this kind of change, demographic, technological, geo-political, and economic shifts have also reshaped our professional worlds.
The recurring theme of burnout that still grabs headlines in the higher education press begs a few questions:
Are we depleting ourselves by misunderstanding the nature of change today?
What is the most generative paradigm through which we should view the current state of change?
What skills do we need to thrive through change as professionals?
Understanding the Recent History of Change:
For the thirty years prior to 2019, higher education’s prevailing change model could be defined as “change by choice.” Universities and colleges could decide the degree to which and the processes through which they would engage change or not. Whether planning capital projects, managing enrollment or filling a budget gap, the decision to act or not, and when to act, seemed like choices within the purview of the institution. Varying degrees of stakeholder engagement could unfold on academic timelines, mostly driven by faculty interests and the tenets of shared governance. Then, senior administrators, along with fiduciaries, like trustees would endorse the resource allocations and budget decisions would reflect the institutional view of change.
Since 2019, the greatest drivers of change have been exerted from outside colleges and universities, instead of being generated from within them. These external drivers of change have operated on their own timelines without regard for higher education’s culture, comfort, or timelines. Engagement with change has become mandatory. We have confronted a new normal in which change is not just inevitable; it's constant.
At the same time that the new paradigm of change became our new reality, twin themes emerged in higher education media: change management and staff burnout.
Perhaps in an attempt to preserve a sense of control and comfort amidst alarming change, higher education jumped on the change management bandwagon and adapted it to our professions. To be fair, we were part of a worldwide movement. For an industry as change averse as higher education, the appeal was obvious: The rhetoric of change management preserved the illusion that higher education could continue the culture of “change by choice.”
But student success and student affairs professionals once again emerged as the canaries in the coal mine who exposed the fallacy of the rhetoric. The mass exodus from fields like student affairs and student success, fueled by an epidemic of burnout, proved that the change management paradigm was not sustainable and that change by choice was a myth.
Here’s what we know now:
The era of change by choice is over.
Change management is dead.
We will prolong the crisis in student affairs, student success, and higher education only as long as we maintain allegiance to this fallacy.
Five years later, student affairs and student success professionals continue to search for a change paradigm that more honestly describes their lived experiences and charts a path forward that is both more generative and sustainable. Whether it's technological advancements, shifting demographics, evolving student expectations, or global crises like pandemics, institutions must navigate change effectively to thrive. We are beyond the phase in which tweaking policies or procedures is enough.
In our next post, we will introduce the new paradigm we believe will empower student affairs and student success professionals to navigate this time in healthier and more generative ways.