Friday Focus: Division of Student Affairs and values-based leadership
January 17, 2019
— by Keith Champagne, vice chancellor, Division of Student Affairs
I have just begun my second year as the vice chancellor for student affairs at UAF. Throughout my short tenure at the university, I am asked the following questions: “What is the role of the Division of Student Affairs in public higher education, and how do you lead such a division in the 21st century?” In this column, I will respond to these two questions.
First, the role of student affairs leaders and administrators is to educate the whole person intellectually, psychologically, morally and culturally in an ever-changing world. The 21st-century “whole person” cannot be without an educated and learned awareness of a diverse, inclusive, global, technological and interconnected society, and being able to contribute to that society in a productive manner.
Second, my leadership philosophy is based on a set of core values: self-awareness, ingenuity, love and heroism. Let me explain these in detail.
First, I am a leader who thrives by understanding who I am and what I value by becoming aware of unhealthy blind spots that can derail our success as a division by cultivating the habit of ongoing and continuous self-reflection and learning.
Second, I make myself and others comfortable in a changing environment and world. I eagerly consider and/or explore new ideas, approaches and ways of knowing and doing as we encounter indifference, which prompts me to adapt confidently to change and emerging opportunities.
Third, I face challenges with confidence and a positive sense of self as I am aware that I have been placed in position to lead and to work with others to achieve certain results. I seek these same attributes in others, and together we create environments that are bound with energy, loyalty and mutual respect and support for each other.
Finally, I imagine an inspiring future and strive to shape it rather than passively watch the future happen around me. I work to extract gold from opportunities at hand rather than waiting for golden opportunities to be handed to me.
The aforementioned values-based leadership framework allows me to engage in both transformational and adaptive leadership when we as an institution are presented with challenges such as reduced state appropriations, declining and/or low enrollments, retention and completion rates. These are the kind of challenges that require a senior leader or leaders to move the entire institution to respond to the situations in a reinventive manner. For instance, I, along with Ali Knabe, the associate vice chancellor for student affairs, and Mary Kreta, the associate vice chancellor for enrollment management, will be required to reinvent, reorganize and reconfigure the division of student affairs in some systemic ways to solve major problems facing the university.
Here at UAF over the past year we have created an enrollment management and enrollment services area. This area is administered by the associate vice chancellor for enrollment management who is leading our universitywide strategic enrollment planning process. In addition, we created or reorganized the following: Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities, Center for Student Engagement, Department of Military and Veteran Services, Nanook Brotherhood Project and the Brother 2 Brother Student Organization, Diversity and Community Outreach and Engagement Program, and the Resiliency Project.
Moreover, we have instituted a new services and activities fees-funding model and increased the fees for the Student Recreation and Health and Counseling centers, which allowed us to remodel and upgrade the SRC and provide more counseling sessions for our students and a counseling service at the Community and Technical College.
This is an example of the Division of Student Affairs uses the abilities of its personnel and resources to solve heterogeneous problems with all diligence and deliberate speed and agility in a manner that will positively affect future generations of UAF students for years to come.
In essence, I, along with my associate vice chancellors and the Division of Student Affairs directors, will have to use our ability to formulate new sustainable and evidenced-based models that will enable us to respond to the demands of a changing external environment and a new political landscape in the state and the country to ensure that UAF remains financially viable and maintains quality and impact so our students affairs and academic programs can connect in powerful ways to our external community.
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF's leadership team every Friday.