This paper asks "how can higher education and student affairs (HESA) faculty influence the development of HESA practitioners outside of the reproduction of the present?" First, I develop a theory of alter-competence, the practice of nonrepresentational thinking, through wonder. This theory is put to empirical work in a GPP classroom through post qualitative inquiry. The results paradoxically locate alter-competence, the nonplaces of competence, within a classroom environment structured by the Competencies.