Likely Partnership: Library and Students Affairs Department

Topic: Why are library and student affairs partnerships a good fit?

 Decentralized Organizations

Swarz, Carlisle, and Uyeki (2006) mention that there are pros and cons about decentralized organizations practiced in academic institutions. The good thing about decentralized organizations is that it relies on the specialized knowledge and expertise of the faculty to make decisions and run daily activities. The downside of decentralized organization is that each separate department can become separate entities that lead to territoriality and “silo thinking” (Swartz, Carlisle, and Uyeki, 2006, p. 109). This type of myopic perspective and tunnel vision often prevents collaborations from occurring outside of individual departments. These compartmentalized departments can become isolated and competitive against other departments based on their insular thinking. On the other hand, there are those like Art Sandeen (2000) stating that: “[effective] student affairs leaders know their successes rarely come from acting alone. Successes usually occur as the result of close collaboration and planning with key colleagues on the campus, most of who are not in student affairs” (Swartz, Carlisle, & Uyeki, 2006, p. 110).

I would have guessed that the student affairs department in particular is immune to the above obstacles, but they also have a tendency to fall into the trap of insular thinking. Another obstacle compounding the insular thinking is when the academic institution has a large campus. The silo mentality becomes emphasized and magnified when there is a sprawling distance between departments. At the same time, it is important to point out that decentralized thinking is not only about the physical geography, but about the placement of authority and leadership.

Contrary to a power structure in the form of a hierarchy, the authority is delegated among the experts and leaders of each discipline. The above problems can prevent cross-campus collaborations. Additionally, “Cross-campus collaborations can easily break down due to challenges in communication and misunderstandings due to cultural differences of campus units” (Swartz, Carlisle, & Uyeki, 2006, p. 119).

Again, the operative word that repeatedly comes up in this course is collaboration. It is important for librarians to continually investigate methods and approaches to best enhance collaboration and form as many partnerships on campus as possible.

Reach a Greater Number of Students

I think library outreach and collaboration with the Student Affairs Department is an excellent idea! In order to spread information literacy and reach as many students as possible, I find the collaboration of librarians and the Student Affairs Department to be a good fit. Working together with the Student Affairs Dept. has twice the benefit. The primary benefit is explained in Love and Edwards (2008) article stating that: “These collaborations ultimately produce a wider range of opportunities for students to develop their critical thinking skills beyond the academic milieu and in turn, help position the library as a valuable and integral asset to the campus community” (p. 21). I believe that librarians collaborating with the Student Affairs Dept. have the most potential of reaching the greatest number of students as possible.

“The University of Illinois, a major land-grant university, currently enrolls over 30,000 undergraduate students, roughly 11,000 graduate and professional students of which almost 2,000 are international students. The University community hosts over 1,000 registered student organizations in addition to 96 fraternities and sororities, encompassing 22 percent of the undergraduate student population” (Love & Edwards, 2008, p. 22).

With the above statistics, the collaboration between librarians and student affairs seems to be a natural fit. As Love States about the University of Illinois, 22 percent is a large student population worth pursuing as a library outreach program. I also think collaborating with Student Affairs is an effective and innovative approach in reaching the largest number of first-year students on campus. For the sake of comparison, I believe it is a much larger percentage of reaching students in student affairs compared to the number of students any one subject librarian can reach in one semester.

I particularly liked the macro-level tutorial created by the library and student affairs at UCLA to integrate information literacy as mentioned in Swartz, Carlisle, and Uyeki’s (2006) article. The primary goal of the tutorial is “to raise students’ consciousness regarding issues related to plagiarism, the scholarly process, intellectual property, and campus policies” (p. 115). I believe collaborative projects like the IL tutorial and plagiarism tutorial is an excellent example of successful collaboration between librarians and student affairs.

Outside of the Academic Milieu

I believe there is a strong correlation between the library and the student affairs department. For example, the primary commonality shared is that both groups are independent and not specifically tied to any structured academic course or discipline. Because I recall college as a single experience, I never thought about the student affairs department and various other student groups as being outside and separate from the academic milieu. As Swartz, Carlisle, and Uyeki (2006) articulately explains: “Like librarians, those working in student services are operating outside of the curricular structure in trying to reach students. Because partnerships between the library and student services are not tied to the curriculum, there can be more flexibility and creativity in programming” (p. 118).

Without Inherent Conflict

One of the benefits of the library and the student affairs department being outside of the confines of the academic infrastructure is because the inherent obstacles and innate challenges in faculty-librarian collaboration are not present in the librarian and student affairs partnership. In faculty-librarian collaboration, it has been documented that faculty has misperceptions and stereotypes about librarians. For example, faculty members perceive librarians as being generalists rather than subject specialists or experts.

Shared Goals

In order to collaborate with any group, it is important to share common goals. “The College Library and the Office of the Dean of Students share a common goal, i.e. to help students succeed” (Swartz, Carlisle, & Uyeki, 2006, p. 113). As another example of a shared goal, both the Student Affairs Dept and the library are concerned with the ethical use of information. Before they had their first meeting, the Dean of Student Affairs did not know that librarians are also interested in the ethical use of information, and not just access to information as they had thought. As the article confirms: “Only after opening a dialogue did student affairs and library professionals discover not only that we shared common interests, but also that those interests were supported and codified by our professional associations” (Swartz, Carlisle, & Uyeki, 2006, p. 114). As a result, it is essential for both parties in the collaboration to communicate with each other in order to achieve the shared goal of students’ successes.

I also believe student affairs and libraries share the same student learning outcomes. For example, both groups want to help the students succeed as a “whole.” In addition, academic integrity, plagiarism, self-efficacy, and lifelong learning are also some of the shared goals between the groups. Like the library, student affairs have to change with the times and with the changing needs of students. The library and student affairs do have a lot in common, beyond being an independent entity outside of the academic milieu.

Discussion

Seeing a lot of shared goals and common interests, I believe the library and student affairs collaboration is a natural fit. There are many projects that can be accomplished together to help first-year students get acclimated to the campus and the library.

The only downside I can think of is that because it reaches (or attempts to reach) a larger number of students across campus, the collaboration project will work best at a macro-level. For example, the article states at the University of Illinois “roughly 11,000 graduate and professional students of which almost 2,000 are international students” (Love & Edwards, 2008, p. 22). With such a large demographic of international students, perhaps the library can collaborate with student affairs to create a welcoming package including a tutorial with information literacy instruction, campus orientation, and library services.

I suppose it is possible to tailor and customize the information among student groups and service units, for example, in-person IL instruction between the student affairs and librarians. However, the library collaborating with student affairs will work the best in integrating resources at a macro-level. This is especially true because there is no course or academic curriculum to integrate the IL resources. Because decentralized organization disperses leadership powers among specialized disciplines, there is no real pre-existing structure to integrate the common goals. As a result, these collaborative efforts, projects, and resources can be used in combination with some event or occasion. A “Welcoming” kit for first-year incoming students and informative resources for student “Orientation,” for example. Since there is no inherent structure to the library or student affairs like an academic course, it is essential to collaborate and create some structure or a forum to present the information. The information and topics covered on the resources might be broader at the macro-level, but the biggest benefit is that the collaboration will reach a larger number of first-year students.