Student Affairs Professionals Should Add Technology Tools to Their Toolboxes

While reading Tom Johnson's blog post, "Tactics for Survival: A technical writer's field guide to overcoming the forces of petty project managers and broken IT environments," I thought about how student affairs professionals and technical communicators approach the idea of tools differently. When I was in graduate school working on my College Student Personnel degree, we talked of tools in the toolbox. These tools were mostly developmental and behavioral theories that we studied, and then we practiced these theories using our daily interactions with students in our assistantships, internships, and practicums. For technical communicators, the tools may be intellectual ideas as well, such as audience analysis research and rhetoric writings, but often what I see or read about are the actual tools that the technical communicator uses to communicate messages.

Student affairs folks could benefit from the discussion about tools in the practical sense that technical communicators talk about it. Programs, software, hardware, deceives...these are all tools that tech comm professionals use in their everyday work to produce, deliver, and track information. Because our students are digitally savvy, student affairs professionals should work to educate themselves and to keep up with these practical tools. Knowing and using practical communication tools makes communication with students more meaningful.

Authors Klages and Clark point out, in their article 2009 article "New Worlds of Errors and
Expectations: Basic Writers and Digital Assumptions," that students in college today don't know a day without technological conveniences that are a part of life from the minute that their cell phone wakes them up in the morning. While students know this technology and integrate it seamlessly into their lives, they may still not know the basics of writing, arguing, and critical thinking. Young student affairs professionals that attend graduate school right out of their undergraduate studies will certainly have similar technology experiences as the undergraduate students; however, the theoretical tools in their tool boxes come from learning and not from any experience other than the experience gained from the two years of school.

With a few years of experience beyond graduate school, student affairs professionals begin to develop the body of knowledge that informs their actions. Without a curiosity for the technology tools that are constantly emerging, the student affairs professional can lose ground with technology quickly. The student affairs professional needs to keep informed about the tools that are available to them so that they can easily communicate with students. The tools for communication cannot be a barrier to the interactions that we must have for students.

The good news for professionals with some experience behind them is that it is easy to join and keep up with the conversation in and around technology. Students and new professionals are willing and excited to share when they know about technologies. Mid-level and senior professionals should be treating this learning as an extension of their professional development. Communicating using technology is an important tool for the studnet affairs professional's toolbox.

What Technical Communicators Teach Student Affairs Professionals about Collaborative Authorship

Collaborative authorship may be a place where the fields of Technical Communication and Student Affairs meet. And in this meeting, each may learn from one another. Student affairs professionals and technical communicators may have some valuable lessons to teach each other about the value of collaboration and authorship, separately, and collaborative authorship.

Student Affairs: Collaboration for Development is Fundamental
The goal for the student affairs professional is to help develop students into a better students, into leaders, and eventually, into contributing citizens of the university. Using developmental theories, student affairs professionals work together collaboratively to assist students in every way imaginable. Teams of support staff in colleges and universities use various theories to collaborate with fellow professionals, faculty, and most importantly, the students themselves.

Viewing students through the various theoretical lenses such as cognitive development, identity development, and career inventories, student affairs professionals work together with the end goal of helping students develop.

Technical Communication: Authorship for Audience is Fundamental
The technical communications professional is keenly aware of audience in authoring materials for users. Collaboration for the technical communicator means working as a liaison between developers of content and users of content. Collaboration often takes the form of technical communicators producing several iterations of documents for their audience to approve. Using various technical tools, software and hardware, a technical communicator works collaboratively with the user to deliver understandable, useful content.

Student Affairs and Technical Communication: Learning Fundamentals from Each Other
In student affairs realms, there is a real sense of working together to benefit the community of students. There is a greater good that drives a student affairs person in their jobs, and that greater good is developing students collaboratively. Technical communicators are driven as well-- driven to communicate the best message to the audience in they way that the audience will best hear it. Though this is the case, technical communicators don't work often in collaborative teams due to the often times freelance nature of positions. Student affairs personnel have the benefit of being located on the same campus together in the community. Technical communicators could learn from student affairs professionals by understanding that the community interaction is critical and that face to face interactions--social interactions, even-- are essential. Where the student affairs professionals fall short is with authorship. The documentation that comes from the field is too sparse and not iterative enough. Student affairs people can take a lesson from technical communicators: ask students for input repeatedly and make documents that reflect the feedback.

Collaborative Authorship: Fundamentals for Student Affairs Professionals
Student affairs personnel can infuse collaborative authorship into several areas of their jobs. For those who supervise student employees, collaborating on the writing of the policies and procedures on a wiki can be a way for professional staff to elicit constant feedback from students. A wiki document is a way to build information and trust in the documentation process because of the collaborative nature of the writing. Certain permissions can and should be set, but there could be levels that are "unlocked" as students achieve greater responsibility in the organization.

A collaborative wiki could be used for student organization volunteers as well. Trainings would benefit by collaborative authorship, as well. Committees of students and professionals should be working together to author training documents and sessions.

Collaborative authorship works for student affairs professionals working up the administrative chain of the university. By banding together to tell the story, various departments can and should author documentation that shows the worth of student affairs to students and to the university. There is not enough being written by professionals in student affairs.