Daniel Salter
Penn State University
Editor

Stuart Brown
StudentAffairs.com
Executive Editor

Technology and Student Affairs:
An Unlikely Pair

An Unlikely Pair

Student affairs and technology may be best thought of as oil and water. The underlying paradigms and myths used in student affairs embrace face-to-face see the color of their eyes interactions. Our paradigms and myths do not embrace technology beyond the copy machine, the overhead projector and the telephone. While information technology is being used more and more in student affairs, web pages are taking shape, using laptops in place of overheads and using E-mail in place of  phone calls, this does not challenge the basic student affairs paradigm and myths in interpersonal interaction. With all of the talk in years past about high tech and high touch student affairs has maintained the high touch but has resisted the high tech. In student affairs we like to see the color of students eyes, and somehow using technology to mediate communication is not right.

Paradigms and myths are the normative set of beliefs akin to culture about who we. They help us define ourselves, the nature of the important questions in our work and lives, the processes we use and the kinds of answers we should expect. They are a model of 'sense making'. Paradigm, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, (2000) states is "a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated".  Myth  similarly referenced by Merriam-Webster (2000), is "a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society."

Paradigms and myths in student affairs

Interpersonal interaction is the foundation paradigm and myth in student affairs. This is a bold statement not grounded in the research, but grounded in experience and in models of the human aggregate. Interpersonal communication is the face-to-face see the color of their eyes personal contact. It is the direct service delivery of student affairs. It is a major part of the foundation of how student involvement is conceptualized. It is the vehicle for the interaction between students and the university for the Personnel Point of View, student development and student learning models.

As an adjunct to this face-to-face synchronous communication, we use handouts and handbooks, killing trees for student development. Even the name "handout" is personalized, further strengthening the paradigm.  Combining face to face communication in a workshop or program with text based communication using handouts is a time-honored part of our profession. The underlying paradigm and myth is interpersonal; handouts are an adjunct to the real interaction in the workshop or program.

These handouts are the "Media" described by Morrill, Oetting and Hurst (1974) in Dimension of Counselor Functioning in their triad of direct service, consultation and media.  In 1974 using media in student affairs was a radical concept, and still challenges our basic paradigm.  The profession has not built up a collection of any media to nearly equal the collection of handouts and very little media is designed to stand alone. Video tapes, audio tapes, slide shows are rare in student affairs and our web pages are generally poor, reflecting a handout mentality. Our preferred media is text; books, monographs, articles and handouts. 

Given this basic interpersonal paradigm and metaphor, it is no wonder that student affairs is slow to adopt emerging information technologies.

Separating the media from the message

Marshall McLuhan (1967) in The Medium Is the Message noted that the "media" and "message" are inexorably intertwined. The preferred media in student affairs is interpersonal communication and much of the message is intrapersonal and interpersonal. The literature in student affairs is overwhelmed with content relating to intrapersonal and interpersonal issues. The messages in this literature about student development and student learning are not generally concerned with organizational structure and campus environments. As a generalization, recognizing that generalizations are inaccurate, in student affairs the media and the message must both be interpersonal.

With information technology the media is inherently impersonal and producing the message for web publication is a technologically based act. The messages from information technology media tend not to be about the intrapersonal and interpersonal. News groups, distribution and discussion lists tend to exchange information, web pages tend to be information about things, not people, about data and not ideas. Information technology media and message tend to be outside of the interpersonal paradigms and myths of student affairs.

Student affairs staff meetings have many purposes, but typically these include the dissemination of information and staff interaction. Nearly every staff meeting has a time when someone talks and everyone listens. While it may be appropriate to certain learning styles, listening to someone speak information is not always an effective use of staff time, but it does reflect the current face-to-face see the color of their eyes metaphor in student affairs. The media, interpersonal contact, overwhelms the message. Interactions in staff meetings are often stylized and often serve to maintain the group norms (Napier and Gershenfeld 1998, Corey and Corey 1996).

Based on this intertwining media and message in student affairs it is no wonder that student affairs is slow to adopt emerging information technologies.

Being true to our types

Holland Types

The Holland type (see Google search) predominant in student affairs is Social, followed by Enterprising and Artistic (Holland, 1989). Student affairs types are social people and eschew any attempt to mediate communication through technology. Below is material describing the Social, Enterprising and Artistic environments, which sound like nearly every student affairs office. Note the many references to social and the lack of references to technology.

As the name implies, the Social people have social interests. They prefer teaching or therapeutic roles and are responsible, humanistic, and accepting of conventionally feminine impulses. Social people not only seek close interpersonal situations but are skilled in their interpersonal relations. These people tend to avoid intellectual problem solving, physical activity, and highly ordered activities. The Social environment requires the ability to interpret as well as to modify human behavior. There is pressure to be interested in communicating with and helping others. Work situations (such as teaching, lecturing, social work, and other forms of helping) generally demand verbal facility with people rather than with things.The work environment fosters prestige but reinforcements tend to be delayed. On the RIASEC circle, technology falls in the RIC domains, the opposite of our SEA selves.  The Enterprising people are verbally skilled, dominant, sociable, adventurous, and persuasive. They strive to acquire power and status. These people place high value on being influential in public affairs and thus prefer to be community leaders, experts in finance and business or the like. The Enterprising environment is characterized by tasks requiring verbal responses meant to influence other people. Pressure exists to assume persuasive and supervisory roles. Work situations require such behaviors as directing, controlling, and planning the activities of others. The environment demands an interest in people and things. Social skills are needed because many work situations are people oriented; the environment does not call for the ability to form close relationships, however. The Artistic people have a high need for original and individualistic expression. They tend to be asocial, intraceptive, emotional, and more conventionally (or stereotypically) feminine than masculine. Such people dislike structure and show a limited amount of self-control. They prefer dealing with environmental problems through their artistic expression. In the Artistic environment, tasks generally require the use of imagination as well as personal interpretation of feeling, ideas, or facts. Personal interpretations are usually evaluated against sensory or judgmental criteria. Although excellence is valued, the standards of excellence are often defined ambiguously. Work situations usually require intense involvement for long periods of time and draw upon a person's total resources. Some work situations (such as drama) involve close interpersonal relationships; other work situations (such as painting) are completed in isolation. (Walsh, 1973)

Myers-Briggs and Keirsey-Bates Types

Using a simplified version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (see Association for Psychological Type, Consulting Psychology Press and a Google search), the Keirsey-Bates temperaments (see Keirsey Temperament Sorter and Keirsey Temperament Theory and a Google search), our predominant temperament in student affairs is Intuitive-Feeling, again confirming that we are nice, interpersonal people.

http://keirsey.com/personality/nf.html, Last Updated December 3, 1999 by David Mark Keirsey. IDEALIST NFs, being ABSTRACT in communicating and COOPERATIVE in implementing goals, can become highly skilled in DIPLOMATIC INTEGRATION. Thus their most practiced and developed intelligent operations are usually teaching and counseling (NFJ mentoring), or conferring and tutoring (NFP advocating). And they would if they could be sages in one of these forms of social development. The Idealist temperament have an instinct for interpersonal integration, learn ethics with ever increasing zeal, sometimes become diplomatic leaders, and often speak interpretively and metaphorically of the abstract world of their imagination. They are proud of themselves in the degree they are empathic in action, respect themselves in the degree they are benevolent, and feel confident of themselves in the degree they are authentic. Idealist types search for their unique identity, hunger for deep and meaningful relationships, wish for a little romance each day, trust their intuitive feelings implicitly, aspire for profundity. This is the "Identity Seeking Personality" -- credulous about the future, mystical about the past, and their preferred time and place are the future and the pathway. Educationally they go for the humanities, avocationally for ethics, and vocationally for personnel work. Social relationships: In their family interactions they strive for mutuality, provide spiritual intimacy for the mates, opportunity for fantasy for their children, and for themselves continuous self-renewal. Idealists do not abound, being as few as 8% and nor more than 10% of the population.

Note that social stands out and that technology is not an issue.

Kirton's Adaptation-Innovation

Michael Kirton (see the Adaptation-Innovation web site, and a Google search) in Adaptors and Innovators: Styles of Creativity and Problem Solving   (1976, 1989, 1994) develops the concept of a cognitive style continua from Adapters to Innovators.  Below are behavioral descriptions of the two types, somewhat simplifying the concept.  

The adaptor	The innovator
Characterized by precision, reliability, efficiency, methodicalness, prudence, discipline, conformity.	Seen as undisciplined, thinking  tangentially approaching tasks from unsuspected angles.
Concerned with resolving residual problems thrown up by the current paradigm.	Could be said to search for problems and alternative solutions, cutting across current paradigms.
Seeks solutions to problems in tried and understood ways, with maximum of stability and continuity.	Queries problems’ concomitant assumptions; manipulates problems.
Reduces problems by improvement and greater efficiency.	Is catalyst to settled groups, irreverent of their consensual views; sees as abrasive, creating dissonance.
Seen as sound, conforming, safe, dependable.	Seen as unsound, impractical; often shocks his opposite.
Liable to make goals of means.	In pursuit of goals treats accepted means with little regard.
Is an authority within given structures.	Tends to take control in unstructured situations.
Challenges rules rarely, cautiously, when assured of strong support.	Often challenges rules, has little concern for past custom.
Is essential to the functioning of the institution all the time, but occasionally needs to be 'dug out' of his system.	In the institution is ideal in unscheduled crisis, or better still in helping avoid them, if he can be controlled.
Supplies stability, order and continuity to the partnership.	Supplies the task orientations, the break with the past and accepted theory.
Is sensitive to people, maintains group cohesion and co-operation	Appears insensitive to people, often threatens group cohesion and co-operation.
Kirton, (1989) page 10-11

While there is no research yet on KAI scores in student affairs, long term managers, and the administrative culture, tends toward Adaptation (Kirton, 1989). For information technology, adaptors will seek to use technology to do the same things more efficiently. Innovators will explore what new things can be done with technology.

People people and technology people

• The group dynamics literature tells us that people who are not normative will be sanctioned (Napier and Gershenfeld, 1998, Corey and Corey, 1996). 
• The work satisfaction literature tells us that you will be most satisfied in a work environment in which you share interests with others (Gysbers, Heppner and Johnston, 1998). 

The people in student affairs who are, by personality type, most likely to use technology are least likely to be mainstream. People with a Holland type of R, I or C, or an MBTI type of Sensing or Thinking, who are Innovative, people do not share interests with student affairs normative individuals, will be marginalized and negatively sanctioned.  Such people will not be in the mainstream.  As a minority, their voices will count for less.

Based only on human aggregate and group dynamic grounds, it is no wonder that student affairs is slow to adopt emerging information technologies.

Managing Change

Change is a fact of life, only the pace of change is variable. Some changes are quick and significant, others are slow and minor. Distinguishing between the two may not be easy, and in many cases, only time will tell. An appropriate metaphor here is fad and fashion. Fad is a very quick and insubstantial change, and fashion would be the enduring changes to the mainstream. As a general rule students follow dress fads and faculty and staff follow dress fashions. There are important and notable exceptions on any campus, and infamous faculty and staff who assiduously avoid any change of dress.

Managing change is an onerous task for anyone, and information technology brings constant change. Newer versions of software and hardware and totally new information technology products emerge regularly. Training and retraining are constants, and using new technologies is constant work above and beyond the regular work of student affairs. 

There are many responses to change, but three common ones are:

1. Resistance to change.
2. Adapt to change within the current paradigm and increase efficiency.
3. Innovate by altering the paradigm to manage change. Doing things with technology that were never before possible.

Resistance

Resistance to technology in student affairs is understandable, and is not a bad thing. The current student affairs paradigms and myths of interpersonal interaction have served us well as individuals and as a profession.  Resistance can be seen in at least two ways:

1. Resistance to change, which is a common phenomenon.  Everett Rogers in The Diffusion of Innovation (1995) references ample literature on innovation and resistance to innovation, and the counseling literature has an equally ample literature in individual resistance to change.
   
2. Homeostasis, which is an organism's attempt to maintain it's current state. If the temperature is cold, warm blooded animals will generate sufficient heat to maintain an appropriate and constant internal temperature. As a metaphor, homeostasis describes paradigm and myth maintenance; people seek to maintain the current set of paradigms and myths in student affairs. A similar metaphor would be the inertia experienced in a gyroscope.

Adaptation

Using technology to more efficiently do the same things is a hallmark of adaptation to change. In student affairs the primary examples have been replacing paper messages and the telephone with E-mail and distribution lists and replacing handouts and literature with web pages.

Changes in efficiency, and the addition of technology, will eventually cause paradigm shifts as things inevitably change, albeit slowly. The end result will be an eventual alteration to the paradigm. The result of adaptation is slow and incremental evolution.

Innovation

Using information technology to do things never before possible is a hallmark of innovation. There are few examples of information technology innovation in student affairs. Studentaffairs.com is in many ways an electronic handout, but some real innovations are emerging. The electronic and automated inclusion of new information is the kind of thing not possible with paper technology. This same technology could be used on any campus to allow students to maintain information about their activities and organizations.

The "yes-and" solution: Becoming Multi-Paradigmatic

Confirming and continuing our student affairs heritage and our interpersonal paradigm is important.  Information technology is here to stay, and managing the change engendered by these technologies will require multiple strategies.  A single paradigm may not be sufficient, and adding a paradigm based on emergent information technologies is important.

Shifting from a mono-paradigmatic to a multi-paradigmatic perspective is the heart of the multicultural process. This shift means adjusting the institution to the individual, rather than adjusting the individual to the institution.

Does adopting a new paradigm require abandoning the old paradigm? Of course the answer is no, but our systems are not set up to be multi-paradigmatic and inclusive. Paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1970) is fact of life. The required changes are in our selves and in our management system if we are to adopt information technologies. We need to literally become bicultural - a culture of interpersonal interaction, and a culture of computer mediated information exchange. We must embrace both synchronous and asynchronous lifestyles. We must make distinctions between the media and message. We must relate to each other differently and not be pejorative toward people who work with technology.

Perhaps the best way to expand our paradigms and myths, and to become multi-paradigmatic is to use information technologies and manage the changes as we go. There is no single way to face change, but change must be faced.

References

Corey, G, & Corey, M. (1996). Groups : Process and Practice (5th ed.). NY: Brooks/Cole

Gross, S. J., (1978). A basis for direct methods in consultee-centered consultation.   Unpublished manuscript, Indiana State University, Terre Haute

Gysbers, N., Heppner, M. & Johnston, J. (1998) Career Counseling: Process, Issues, and Techniques. NY: Allyn and Bacon.

Holland, J., (1989). The Occupations Finder. Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.

Kirton, M. J. (1976).  Adaptors and Innovators:  A description and a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 622-629

Kirton, M. J. (1989). A Theory of Cognitive Style. In M. Kirton Adaptors and Innovators: Styles of creativity and problem solving.

Kirton, M. (1994). Adaptors and innovators. London: Routledge.

Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

McLuhan, M., (1967).  The Medium is the Massage. New York: Bantam Books.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2000) http://www.britannica.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=paradigm

Morrill,W., Oetting, E., and Hurst, J., (1974) Dimensions of Counselor Functioning, Personnel and Guidance Journal, 52, 354-359

Napier, R. & Gershenfeld, M. (1998) Groups: Theory and experience. (6th ed.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Rogers, E. M., (1995).  Diffusion of innovation (4th ed.), NY: Free Press

Walsh, W. Bruce (1973). Theories of Person-Environment Interaction: Implications for the College Student. ACT, Iowa City, Iowa.

© Will Barratt, 2000, All rights reserved.