How To Support Staff Who Keep Students Enrolled

0:00:12.0 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. As enrollments tighten and the pressure on higher ed intensifies, success increasingly depends on keeping your existing students on path to graduate and launch successful careers. At the center of that effort are the advisors, counselors, and student success professionals tasked with that mission. Today, we’re digging into what it really takes to attract, develop, support, and retain the people who perform this critical work. This is a conversation about the future of the student affairs profession, so give these folks a listen and enjoy.

0:00:54.9 LaToya White: Hello and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. My name is LaToya White, Managing Director of Student Success here at EAB. And today’s conversation is going to focus on a facet of university operations that has never been more essential or more stressed. I’m talking, of course, about the staff tasked with keeping current students engaged, supported, and able to persist academically, socially, and personally. As enrollments tighten and institutions shift from growth to retention, the work of student affairs professionals, being supporting students’ well-being, building community, removing barriers for persistence, that work has become more central to institutional sustainability. Today, we’re going to talk about what it takes to truly support people doing this work. And we’re going to talk about why the student affairs workforce has become more mission critical than ever and how institutions can encourage more talented young professionals to see this field as a career choice. So to dig into that, today I’m joined by two colleagues, Brooke Paradise and Anthony Froehlich, who are joining us here from NASPA. They bring deep experience and perspective to these challenges, and we’re going to have some questions back and forth, but I just want to start with introductions. So I’m going to ask you two to just briefly introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your current professional focus. Brooke, why don’t we start with you?

0:02:21.9 Brooke Paradise: Absolutely. So my name is Brooke Paradise, and I am the Associate Dean of Student Affairs for Inclusion and Engagement at Skidmore College. I’ve been in higher ed for about 15 years now, so this isn’t just a job for me, it is a career and a calling. What’s interesting right now in higher ed is that there are institutional and financial crunches, demographic pressures, and those staff who support those students, that is really a large component of my job. How do we empower them? How do we retain them? Because happy students stay. And what does that look like?

0:02:55.4 LaToya White: Anthony.

0:02:56.4 Anthony Froehlich: Yep, my name is Anthony Froehlich. I use he/him pronouns. I am currently an academic advisor at the Tomball campus of Lone Star College in the Houston, Texas area. I’ve been in higher ed and student affairs work a little over ten years. I’ve worked at both four-year universities, public, private, and two-year community colleges. Very similar to what Brooke said is higher ed is in a state of really wanting to help develop talent and bring in that it’s not just a backup plan or this offshoot that people find themselves in, but it’s an actual career field that people can choose and prepare for and really find intentional value and worth in.

0:03:44.5 LaToya White: Yeah. Well, why don’t we start there a little bit to get folks familiar with what that day-to-day feels like for a student affairs professional. Maybe walk me through what a day-to-day is like and what the reality is like for student affairs right now. Particularly, what’s the strain? What might be those stress points that they’re facing today?

0:04:07.3 Brooke Paradise: Absolutely. So for today’s student success professionals, the day-to-day reality is it’s constantly a balancing act between high-touch relational work and ever-expanding set of institutional demands. So it’s meeting with those students one-on-one and then it’s making sure that you’re meeting the expectations of your role. Much of the work is reactive and emotionally intensive, shaped by what the students are essentially walking through the door with that day. And sometimes it’s not a predictable schedule, right? So the biggest source of strain and primary driver of burnout, I think, is the mismatch between expectations and capacity. What do we have to do and what can we do and how much of that can we do? Emotional labor is another major touch point. Over time, the accumulation of crisis work, especially when paired with limited boundaries and a culture of always having to be available, this leads to sometimes compassion fatigue. I would also say burnout is fueled by the lack of clarity and sometimes recognition. Who doesn’t want to be recognized for good work? But what does that recognition in leadership look like? When hard work results in higher retentions but little visibility or feedback and career growth is given, it becomes really hard even for the most committed professionals to sustain that energy long-term.

0:05:27.4 Anthony Froehlich: Yeah, I definitely agree with Brooke about the sustainability of that energy and that culture of availability. I really feel like some of the day-to-day work, especially being frontline, like my current position is, is that you never know who’s going to walk in the door. Similar to that Brooke’s comment about being reactive. You can think a student’s coming to see you or someone that’s here asking for you is about, oh, we’re touching base on an appointment, or it’s just about classes or degree plan, but it might be, hey, so this just happened, what are my options? Or working at a community college with our university partners and really feeling like how do we help build more established pipelines? Things that sometimes feel way above our pay grade or what our compensation or responsibilities are. But anyone who has chosen the career path of student affairs know that it is very rarely a one-hat job. And a lot of our focus and choice to be here is because we want to be a lot of things to a lot of people and we have the skills and capacity to do that. So I definitely feel like there’s so much in student affairs and higher ed to offer individuals. And for those that choose to be here, they are trying to get those positive experiences to not just students, but to the campus and surrounding communities.

0:07:04.1 LaToya White: Yeah. That’s really interesting because it sounds like there’s a clear ownership that you have around that student experience and their sense of belongingness and things. And we know that’s important to retention and maintaining students on campus, right? Them feeling like they fit in and this is where they want to be. I wonder how you would say maybe, and you touched on this a little bit, maybe with the capacity and feedback and all the things that maybe you’re not seen as much or not recognized with campus leadership. Would there be things that you could point to that you would say maybe institutional leaders might undermine student success and student affairs folks a little bit in being able to do their work well unintentionally, right? Of course they don’t mean to, but maybe just not knowing some things.

0:07:59.6 Brooke Paradise: Absolutely. So I think unintentionally institutional leaders most often undermine student success staff not through their lack of commitment, but through the misalignment between stated priorities and everyday decisions. And really what I mean by that is like, one common way this shows up is through under resourcing. So leaders may declare retention is mission critical, right? While maintaining high caseloads, short-term grant-funded positions or stagnant compensation. So stating that retention’s a priority, but not putting the fiscal oomph behind it to really keep them there. I think another one is initiative overload. What’s the hottest new thing that’s going on? A new tool, a new early alert system, strategic plans, piloting programs. All of these things are layered onto existing responsibilities without sunsetting some things. And so there’s just an overload of things to do that they view as this will make your job easier when in reality that’s not always the case. I think sometimes it comes to staff accountability too and how things sort of flow downward with corresponding authority. A lot of these decisions are being made from the people that are not in the trenches. And so what does that look like? Cultural signaling really matters. It’s when leaders exclude student success staff from these strategic conversations. And so they’re treating advising as this entry-level transactional work instead of really celebrating the retention it gains. And they’re doing this without acknowledging the labor behind it. And so that kind of over time erodes trust and motivation.

0:09:42.2 Anthony Froehlich: Brooke, I’m so happy to hear you say, talk about advising because it definitely feels like sometimes our area is overlooked or seen as expendable, or sometimes that’s where the first resource or budget cuts happen. But I think outside of sometimes those immediate concerns is just the understanding that some leaders don’t understand what student affairs do. Whether it’s they’ve never been a student affairs practitioner and so therefore don’t understand the field at large, or they understand only specific areas in student affairs, and so the other is foreign because they haven’t spent time learning about that. I definitely know that as a community college, a lot of our additional leadership is not just who’s on campus or at our system office, but what does the state and our coordinating board and our accreditation dictate. And so sometimes if there’s a shift in focus being on education to maybe be more industry or workforce driven. Education and higher ed especially sometimes the ones to receive those undermined by that resource shortage or the fiscal need of an institution, that then turn around and then kind of have that domino impact effect not just staff, but the what opportunities the students get to experience.

0:11:18.6 Anthony Froehlich: I feel like in some institutions I’ve worked at, the faculty are sometimes seen as golden children and the student affairs staff are sometimes seen as like, oh, these are just the nice things to have when really it’s both parties are equally important. But student affairs does a lot of the hands-on work with students in the everyday parts of institutional functioning. And sometimes I think leaders just see that, they look at just the outcome, not necessarily what are all the pieces to get there.

0:11:53.5 LaToya White: Yeah, that’s fair. Well, I know that there are a lot of instances where this is done really well. Leadership gets it right and sets up things for success really well for a collaborative effort across campus, across offices. What would you say that looks like when they get it right and they’re doing things that feels like it’s supportive and it’s empowering of the work that you all are doing?

0:12:19.9 Brooke Paradise: I think that’s a great question. I think when institutions get it right, they treat student success workers as a core part of the infrastructure, rather than just this supplemental on the side service. This really makes a difference and it shows up not in just a single program or a tool, but in the set of aligned practices that make high volume, high needs work sustainable and effective. Some of the things that I’m just thinking off the top of my head is, they design roles and caseloads around reality, not around aspirations. And so they understand the nuances of the job and what students are really bringing into this work. Secondly, I think they invest in people, not just platforms, recognizing that trauma-informed practices, equity-minded advising, mental health referrals, all of these things matter and people can do it better than computers. And what does that look like to invest? I think third, honestly, leaders share ownership of retention. Accountability for retention must be distributed across the institution, reducing this pressure on an individual staff member or a subset of staff. That’s sort of the broken system right now. It should be accountability for retention distributed across the campus, we’re all working to retain students. I think the institutions that get it right make it a career path and make it visible and viable, not just an entry-level position. So how are you wording it? How are you framing it? How are you investing in the people that are working with you to ensure they want to stay in the field? Because this is a career, it isn’t just an entry-level stepping stone.

0:13:54.0 LaToya White: Yeah.

0:13:55.7 Anthony Froehlich: Yeah. Brooke, I really like how you talked about, it’s all about framing or how they word it. At a community college, the leaders that do things right sometimes is just about addressing sometimes the lens and perspectives individuals have about student affairs and community colleges. So I have a lot of students that come to my office talking about, oh, I’m just here to do my basics, or they’re just here just to complete the steps to get into a different institution. And our leaders really challenge that by saying, or the effective leaders really challenge that by saying, we’re not here for the idea of basics, we have meaningful degrees of value, we have workforce training into your chosen vocation. Our curriculum and course offerings are really to set you up for foundations for success beyond just the campus. So in my experience, as the leaders that help tackle the community misperceptions of the work that higher ed does, not necessarily just student affairs, but also just reframing the value that community colleges offer in the larger scope of things really helps motivate, I feel like our staff and our faculty to want to be here. They’re not looking to check a box so they can go elsewhere, but they’re really here to do meaningful work in their communities. And I feel like there are so many times where people can think, oh, the leadership doesn’t really want that, but the leaders out there make it known that yes, they are here to work alongside us. And when they do it right, you really see how the institution lights up when working with the community and with our students and staff members throughout.

0:15:51.4 LaToya White: Yeah. Well, let’s talk a little bit about one of the value propositions that is talked about a lot recently and that’s career readiness, right? And I know that it’s important to institutions and to students to think about that. And how would you say that importance is centered for student success professionals and as they think about how they’re helping students to launch successful careers after graduation, what does that work look like?

0:16:21.2 Brooke Paradise: Absolutely. So I think helping students launch successful careers after graduation is deeply important and not just to the students themselves. But if we’re really looking at the long-term health and credibility and sustainability of the institution, those numbers and those data sets really play into a huge impact. So today’s higher ed landscape, career outcomes are no longer a nice add-on. It’s a must to the academic experience and they’re central to how students and families evaluate the value of college in the first place, especially when that value continues to rise. Focusing on students’ post-graduation success is essential to both students’ well-being and institutional visibility. So that’s a huge way to market for the institution. Numbers don’t lie, so that data is wildly important. When student success professionals are empowered to connect and persist with purpose and support students and systems that share that workload, students are more likely to graduate with not only just a degree, but an actual future. So buying into those student success workers is essential to a thriving institution. And that’s something that’s not talked about enough. If we have folks that are there and engaged and happy and showing up, that is going to be a ripple effect to those students. And it’s just not something, those are metrics we can’t play with. We need retention, it’s wildly important. And so if those students are getting those good services, we should see retention remain and rise.

0:17:53.0 LaToya White: Yeah, that’s a great point.

0:17:55.6 Anthony Froehlich: I definitely would say in the terms of career readiness, there’s a lot of, like you said, there’s a lot of the hot topic conversations happening. I’ve heard Brooke say in other meetings. But the degree offerings and instruction side are what gets students to an institution. But really it’s about the student affairs is what keeps them here and really helps them develop. Tomorrow, there’s a foundational literature that I read through my master’s coursework called Tomorrow’s Higher Education. And its emphasis was on lifelong learning that occurs because of academia, but not just that, that the purposes of higher education institutions is to produce better, well-rounded global citizens than who first walked onto campus. When we’re talking about career readiness, I feel like so much of today’s emphasis is on it’s just about getting the job as soon as you graduate or it’s about making big bucks with minimal effort. And that’s not necessarily the world we are in. It’s never been the world we’ve been in. Careers are investments and doing the right steps while you’re in the higher ed landscape in college really helps attribute to that long-term success. So whether you’re talking about generalist versus specialization or importance of a rounded core curriculum versus very specific, tailored, prescribed curriculums. Student affairs have such a hand outside of those discussions to really add value, to help build not just value in higher ed and in our graduates as the new members of the workforce, but also attribute the worth about why do you go to college? Why do you seek out participating engagement with student affairs practitioners? And all of those are ultimately going to lead, I feel like, to long-term career success, not just for students, but also the legacy of institutions and to the larger global economy to workforce.

0:20:18.7 LaToya White: Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about the students and affairs career itself, as student affairs practitioners on campus. We’ve talked about shortages in that particular role on campuses. Why do you think more young professionals are not choosing that as the career path? Are there maybe misconceptions that are there for them?

0:20:46.2 Brooke Paradise: Absolutely. And I think that this is one of the things I am most passionate about because I do love this work and I want to see a strong pipeline. I think shortages in student success roles and student support roles aren’t primarily about the lack of interest in helping students, but really about the lack of confidence in this work and can it be sustainable and is it a respected career? Many young professionals are drawn to the mission, but they’re hesitant when they’re looking at the conditions surrounding the role. So like, what conditions are we really talking about? One of the major deterrents is the perception and often the reality, and with burnout and having that be a reality of the job. Another barrier I think is the lack of visible career pathways. So instead of just looking at those entry-level jobs, where do you go from here? Is there growth? Is there room to grow and consider new potentials for yourself professionally outside of these entry-level roles? I think another thing is there’s a misunderstanding about the nature of work itself from the outside from student success roles. Sometimes it’s seen as purely administrative or reactive.

0:21:54.3 Brooke Paradise: And so they’re missing the nuances. They’re sort of focused on the schedule, compliance, putting out fires, but they’re not understanding the intentionality of the work behind it and sort of the beauty and the nuances that go into actually working with students. I think finally, structural signaling matters. Short-term funding models, we talked about grant positions and frequent reorganizations that causes sort of stability. And well, if this position’s only funded for three years via a grant, if I take that, what is the longevity of my position? And so how are we building up these positions to not just be stepping stones and introductory? How are we really looking at the holistic value they are providing? I think to attract more talent, institutions must actively counter these misconceptions. And how they can do that is not just by messaging, but by action. What are you actually showing? That means offering competitive salaries, stable roles, mentorship, professional development, things to keep people, clearly articulate these job trajectories. So when student success is positioned as impactful, intellectually engaging, and a viable long-term option, I think more young professionals will see this not as just a temporary stop, but as meaningful work to commit to, which it deeply is.

0:23:22.5 Anthony Froehlich: Yeah, I would… I agree with a lot of what Brooke said and I definitely am reflecting on my own time being the young aspiring professional. I was fortunate that I kind of found a calling to higher ed and student affairs work while I was still in undergrad through my involvement. But so many individuals I work alongside or who I’ve worked with in the past have said they just kind of fell into higher ed and fell into student affairs. The intentionality of young, aspiring professionals to actually choose working in colleges and universities, I feel like it’s, using Brooke’s word, a beautiful nuance that gets overlooked. Because those are individuals who see that value before they’re even on the other side of stage, before they really have had a chance to have to put all their eggs in the basket of what that career path looks like. But for those that fall in, so many times their pre-experiences from outside of higher ed that contribute to the value and the worth and helping students connect those post-college career goals back into the reason why they’re choosing college in the first place. I’m very fortunate also that we have associations like NASPA, which is where Brooke and I connected with at first, who are intentionally trying to build those pathways and those opportunities for development for not just the well-established professionals, but also for choosing higher ed or those who are maybe new to the profession from another career area or industry to really understand that there are places to set roots and a place to land and a place to build a long-term career that’s not just a temporary situation or it’s something that you’re just in for a time.

0:25:25.8 LaToya White: Well, you’re getting into this a little bit, so let me just ask this question and back us up. Tell us a little bit more about NASPA. Maybe start with what NASPA stands for and then elaborate a little bit more on what you were starting to get into, Anthony, of how the organization plays a role in strengthening that talent pipeline for student affairs and student success.

0:25:47.6 Brooke Paradise: Yeah, absolutely. So NASPA is like the premier student affairs administration in higher education network, experience, extravaganza, all of these things. It really does play a critical role in shaping, supporting, and sustaining student affairs and student success professions nationally. One of NASPA’s most important contributions is the talent to pipeline profession for socialization. So NASPA is where you first learn about language, values, framework of student affairs, and sort of the essence of what it means to be a student affairs professional. It also strengthens the pipeline by structured pathways for growth, its professional development offerings such as competency frameworks, leadership programs, functional areas, communities, mentoring opportunities. I just got back from an institute from NASPA. All of these things are coming into play to support the profession. NASPA plays a critical role in reaffirming the meaning of the work that we do, and you are surrounded by folks that are doing the exact same thing, it’s a community. I think for me, in short, NASPA doesn’t just support individual professionals, it helps sustain the ecosystem that makes student affairs and student success viable. It’s value-driven and it’s a profession.

0:27:02.5 Anthony Froehlich: Yeah.

0:27:02.9 LaToya White: [0:27:04.5] [inaudible] Oh, I’m sorry.

0:27:04.6 Anthony Froehlich: No, go ahead, LaToya.

0:27:07.0 LaToya White: Brooke. At the beginning of spelling out what NASPA stands for.

0:27:10.7 Brooke Paradise: Yes, absolutely. So Student Affairs Administration in Higher Ed.

0:27:18.4 LaToya White: Okay.

0:27:18.7 Brooke Paradise: Thank you.

0:27:19.0 Anthony Froehlich: And thank you, Brooke, because I always forget what that NASPA is not a name for the association, that it’s an alliteration. So I do forget that. So thank you for that.

0:27:29.5 Brooke Paradise: Yes, that National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. That’s the long and short of it.

0:27:36.5 LaToya White: Perfect.

0:27:38.4 Anthony Froehlich: So just NASPA is really, in my experience, sometimes like, it’s the organization to kickstart your involvement and further understanding who you are as a higher ed practitioner. My involvement with NASPA is this is going to sound so shallow. One of my grad, my higher ed program’s assignments was go find an association to join. And on their list, NASPA was like the first one. I was like, this one sounds good, I’ll sign up for as a membership for it. And wow, how I wish I could have seen the future and realized how valuable NASPA was going to be in my career. It just mind boggles me looking back now that what started off as a psych has been such an integral portion of my development and my understanding of higher ed. And if nothing else, it also was kind of showing the first example of what it means to have meaningful network of professionals outside of the place you work at. And for me, it’s even helped me understand that my role as a multifaceted individual, not just being a student affairs practitioner, but also an advising professional and being able to interact with other associations like NACADA or NACE or Texan or TACUSPA, all of those things really evolved because of what NASPA modeled for me.

0:29:16.6 Anthony Froehlich: In addition, NASPA has also been an awesome place for those who are trying to figure out how do I give back to the profession or what opportunities are there to participate on maybe a national state or something with more intention. NASPA has knowledge communities, they have boards and institutes where it’s really not an association that’s a far off route dictating or trying to coordinate all these functions. But really it’s the work that a whole tapestry of professionals and areas come together to really build meaningful purpose and meaningful worth for those of us on the front lines or all the way to the top of an organization. But that involvement piece and the fact that it’s an opportunity that provides opportunities for members to give back and feel like they have buy-in to an association is such a cool opportunity that I have not seen in other non-higher ed associations. And it’s part of what I think just makes NASPA such a valuable thing for the profession.

0:30:31.2 LaToya White: That’s really cool. Especially like that idea of just having exposure to a list of organizations really did set you off into a career path that you hadn’t even thought about. I love that. So let’s talk a little bit about forward-looking. So looking ahead, what is one concrete change that higher ed leaders should make, right? In the next, let’s say, 12 to 18 months? Very concrete, that could better support current staff or attract the next generation of student success and student affairs professionals?

0:31:11.3 Brooke Paradise: This is such a good question and I think if higher education leaders were to make one concrete change, it should be formalized student success in professional career tracks with a clear scope, sustainable workloads, and visible advancements. Really just honing in on the things that we talked about today in those pitfalls, doing three things. Leaders should right-size roles and make the workloads more manageable, absolutely. Institutions should create and publish career pathways and have them be clear within student success. And finally, I would love for leaders to pair these structural changes with visible cultural shifts. So naming student success’s expertise in strategies, inviting these professionals to the tables into decision-making and sort of holding up them in the profession. These changes are concrete and achievable but very urgent for the field.

0:32:13.7 Anthony Froehlich: I agree 100% with everything Brooke said. So just as the overall, a lot of what I’m going to say is going to build off of what Brooke indicated and has said. But for me, one of the biggest things would be higher ed leadership and institutions should realize like, professional development [0:32:32.2] [inaudible] Professional development is a almost responsibility to allow your professionals and practitioners to have, not something that they have to figure out, do they participate or do they not, or something that’s only reserved for those uppermost leadership of an organization. We talked about that pipeline in and so really modeling for undergraduates who have any expressed interest in higher ed student affairs and allowing them to go to things like the NASPA annual conference or other associations and those related kind of maybe student-focused opportunities. So for Brooke and I, we help coordinate the NASPA Undergraduate Student conference that happens to be going into the annual conference. But allowing those leaders to bring students alongside them to participate in professional development and understand like, this is the way that our profession stays up to date with trends, opportunities, hot topics. And it’s not necessarily just a news article you read in your newsletter or you just happens to get. But these are intentional discussions and dialogues, but ways to network with those like-minded professionals to learn best practices, to not have to reinvent the wheel when you’re thinking about what’s an initiative we want to do or how do we change our recipe for that career readiness or student success.

0:34:12.3 Anthony Froehlich: So really like the call to action I would say is like administrators need to be bringing students alongside them to see what does this mean to have successful networks, get that inside glimpse into the profession by pairing them with practitioners that are network involved, having the conversations and doing the thing. But finally is model the expectations that you want the students to have for themselves and have other admins. Do you want an admin who doesn’t go to anything, doesn’t do anything, or would you rather have one that you have seen do all the things that they say that you need to do to advance in your career?

0:34:54.1 LaToya White: Well, I know that we’ve only scratched the surface. There are so many other things that I want to get into and ask you about, but I really want to respect everyone’s time. But Brooke and Anthony, I just want to thank you both so much for taking the time to speak with us today on Office Hours with EAB.

0:35:09.9 Brooke Paradise: Thank you so much. It was an absolute pleasure.

0:35:12.7 Anthony Froehlich: Thank you, LaToya. This was so exciting to be a part of.