The nature of tertiary education makes it absolutely essential in determining the kind of human being that is 
introduced into the society and community of our nation. While primary and secondary school education covers the basics and fundamentals, it is a tertiary education that provides the staging ground that turns you into the man or the woman that you will be for the rest of your life. As such, tertiary education requires a holistic approach that provides students the environment they need to flourish and choose what they wish to do with the rest of their lives. While this is understood and even accepted as somewhat banal or common wisdom now, the administration of tertiary education and the educational programs themselves are lacking. Much as they might encourage extra and co-curricular activities, they continue to perceive all experiences for their students in a manner that classifies them as entirely separate activities. There continues to be a disguised, yet palpable tension between the requirements that these activities make on their students, asking them to make choices between two different avenues to education when they should be experiencing both.
The Education industry trends seem to agree that student activities should be encouraged. However, they are systematically kept separate. This creates feelings of loss in students, often leading to issues pertaining to their retention and academic performance. Academic and Student affairs, being treated as wholly separate departments, means that students have to constantly experience a sense of loss or isolation when indulging in either, often leaving them more dissatisfied. Studies and research have shown conclusive evidence that merging of academic and student affairs aids students in being able to adequately determine how much of each aspect of their education to indulge in, leading to better retention in academic institutions of excellence as well as higher student retention.
One of the big concerns while electing to go for such a plan is determining how to identify success in this new educational paradigm. The measurement of student performance as well as providing adequate feedback for their efforts requires some kind of evaluation metric and framework that can reconcile these two sides of the tertiary education coin, ensuring a strong balance between them. Getting ahead of the education industry trends and reconciling academic and student affairs is not only important, but essential to your institution.
Joe Cuseo, who holds a doctoral degree in Educational Psychology and Assessment from the University of Iowa and is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Marymount College (California), will present an education webinar on bridging the gap between the curricular and co-curricular on Thursday, Jan 14, 2016 at AudioSolutionz.com. Attend the event to get practical advice on how student affairs and first-year experience professionals, academic administrators, faculty and educators can holistically integrate the curriculum and co-curriculum in order to maximize student development in college.
