the role of student affairs and services in higher education

provide its citizens with an improved quality of life, it must include the funding of
a higher education system that will help move that social group toward a better
life through teaching, research, advanced employment, and service.
The more traditional and most of the not-so-traditional methods of delivering
higher education academic degrees are primarily comprised of the classroom
instructional model or approach. In addition, there is increasing evidence that
higher education also must address the basic personal needs of students by
providing a comprehensive set of out-of-classroom student services and
programs commonly referred to as student affairs and services. These efforts
should be designed to enable and empower students to focus more intensely on
their studies and their personal growth and maturation, both cognitively and
emotionally. They also should result in enhanced student learning outcomes.
Another important rationale for these efforts is economic, because investments in
students and student affairs and services provide a healthy return to national
economies as the investments help to assure students' success in higher
education and their subsequent contributions to the national welfare.
Student affairs and services professional theory and practice are informed by a
number of academic disciplines. Student development theory draws from
research in psychology, sociology, and human biology. Mental and physical
health services rely heavily on medicine, psychiatry, clinical and counseling
psychology, education, exercise sciences, and health education/wellness, as well
as others. The effective administration and leadership of the wide variety of
student affairs and services is based, in part, on the theories of management,
accounting, human resources, marketing, statistics and educational research,
and leadership studies. Because the array of the services and programs offered
by student affairs and services is wide and diverse, the latest thinking, research,
and practice from an equally wide and diverse set of areas of academic study
and practice necessarily underpin its effectiveness. These perspectives also are
utilized in other sectors of society, both private and public.
The Manual on student affairs services and programs in higher education,
developed by the International Association of Student Affairs and Services
(IASAS), will make the case for inclusion of a student services/student affairs
presence in higher education institutions and how that effort is directly related to
the WDHE. First, this publication has been developed based on the assumptions
coming from the WDHE, especially those that call for student affairs and services
functions in higher education. Second, it will outline the principles and values
upon which pertinent and effective student affairs and services are based.
Those countries or institutions that would like to evaluate the effectiveness of
their current efforts in this area or are giving serious consideration to the
development of a more structured higher education student affairs and services
operation, could utilise the Manual as a guide, template, or model to work
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