In this article, we provide an overview of the current and emerging professional competencies for student affairs professionals around the world, highlighting those from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Botswana. We compare and contrast competencies from these countries and conclude with implications for the student affairs…

College and university remain the dominant academic pathways for graduating Canadian high school students. However, apprenticeships can provide alternative education pathways for a significant proportion of the population. Despite the push to undergraduate programming, some students end up in fields that don't suit their interests. To pursue…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, student services leaders needed to adapt to working entirely virtually, find creative solutions to adjust their service delivery, and change how they engaged with their teams. Before COVID-19, studies of virtual leadership focused on virtual teams developed because of the geographical distance between team members.…

As the number of racially diverse students on university campuses in Canada increases, so too do questions about whether and how postsecondary institutions are equipped to create a welcoming, respectful, and supportive learning community for a racially diverse student body. This research explored how a residence life management (RLM) team could…

This quantitative study explored the secondary trauma experience of Canadian student affairs professionals. Using a composite scale comprised of the Secondary Trauma in Student Affairs Professionals scale (Lynch & Glass, 2019), the Brief Resilience Scale (Smith et al., 2008), the Survey on Perceived Organizational Support (Eisenberger, Armeli,…

This study examined lived experiences of foreign-born student affairs professionals (SAPs) in the United States and Canadian higher education. We sought to understand foreign-born SAPs' impacts on higher education internationalization and what their professional experiences inferred about the level of international engagement in the field of…

The sustainability of the student affairs profession continues to be questioned, as is the conditions influencing attrition and "burnout" of those working in the student affairs profession over time. Therefore, understanding the workplace conditions of midlevel student affairs administrators continues to be an important area of inquiry…

Science students face specific challenges associated with their field of study. The purpose of this study was to assess science students' use of support services and programs, identify barriers to use and group differences, determine professors' and staff's familiarity with programs and solicit ideas from all participants about what programming…

Although the number of international students in Canadian colleges has been increasing rapidly, colleges' internationalization activities have received less attention than those of universities. This article examined how Canadian colleges discuss international students in their official internationalization strategy documents. Conducting critical…

Student services professionals have emerged as significant supportive collaborators in the construction of environments that encourage student success within Canadian post-secondary education (Hardy-Cox & Strange, 2010). In Canada, literature pertaining to student services is evolving and research from other contexts is therefore often used to…

Although there is a growing body of research that suggests the mental health of graduate students differs from that of their undergraduate counterparts, studies examining international students at the graduate level are scarce. This study therefore compares mental health diagnoses, challenges and stressors experienced, and use of mental health…

Decades of established research have focused on the attrition, workplace trauma, and career burnout of student affairs (SA) professionals working at colleges and universities (see N. J. Evans, 1988; Herr & Strange, 1985; Perez & Bettencourt, 2024; Walterbusch, 2019). The purpose of this generic qualitative research study (Khalke, 2016) was…

Do the narratives of employability constructed by higher education institutions for marketing purposes differ from the conceptualisation and/or the realisation of employability within those institutions? The study reported here drew on interviews with 16 senior academic and student support staff who were tasked with developing student…

This paper explores the need to build a reciprocal partnership with Indigenous Peoples and develop culturally-relevant strategies that foster academic motivation among Indigenous youth. The objectives of this study were to describe education professionals' perceptions regarding: (1) the challenges Indigenous students face when transitioning to…

How can universities ensure that the first-year learning experiences are purposeful, personal, and transformative? This study explores challenges post-secondary institutions face in the ever-changing landscape of first-year teaching and learning. It spanned 18 months and included surveys, reflections, and an environmental scan of 92 first-year…