Student affairs administrators

Assessment is frequently cited within the student affairs literature as a way of continuously improving programs, services, and events (Henning & Roberts, 2016; Upcraft & Schuh, 1996). However, the data collected through assessment is infrequently used to improve student affairs offerings due to practitioners’ fear, practitioner’s lack of training, a lack of leadership within the division or university, or an emphasis on assessment as a method of reporting results rather than improving offerings, such as programs, services, initiatives, or events (Cox et al., 2017; Fuller & Lane, 2017). In the limited published studies about how student affairs professionals use assessment data, many professionals admit they do not have a plan to use their assessment data and only a small number have a plan to use their assessment data to make changes (Beshara-Blauth, 2018; Cox et al., 2017; McCaul, 2015; Parnell et al., 2018; Ridgeway, 2014). The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how student affairs directors who have been identified as exemplars use their assessment data to make changes. The research questions for the study were: 1) How do student affair directors use assessment data in their role to make changes? 2) How do student affairs directors learn to use their data to make changes? And, 3) What influences student affairs directors to use their data to make changes?

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of inter-campus relations
by mid-level student affairs administrators of both main campuses and branch campuses,
with a focus on a specific population from 6 of one state's public, 4-year or above
multicampus universities. The study examined the relationships that exist between the
administrators' perceptions and the variables gleaned from their environment and
positions. This research study focused on the branch or regional campuses of 6 of the 11
4-year or above public universities of the state ofFlorida. A convenient, purposeful
sample of mid-level administrators, heads of departments designated as student affairs, at
Florida university branch campuses and their counterparts on the main university
campuses constituted the population for this study. This study discovered significant differences in perceptions of the main campus
and branch campus student affairs administrators as they related to the four domains.
Campus location was the most significant factor in predicting the perceptions of the
respondents. Significant differences were found on issues of respect; communication;
authority over budget, staffing, decision making and policy setting.