Eduventures Student Affairs Learning Collaborative
The Eduventures Student Affairs Learning Collaborative (SA-LC) is a member-based research consortium designed to help colleges and universities build a welcoming and diverse campus, as well as focus on areas such as retention and mental health. The SA-LC provides insight and direction to identify best practices, benchmark performance, and improve the functioning of core processes through research, analysis, and networking opportunities.
The SA-LC provides Collaborative Research, Custom Research, and opportunities for interactions with our analysts and decision-makers at peer institutions. Research is organized into four tracks: learning outcomes, health and wellness, student engagement, and organizational design.
Recent and upcoming Collaborative Research topics include:
Learning Beyond the Classroom
Co-curricular learning in areas including leadership and intercultural sensitivity are increasingly central to colleges’ and universities’ missions and educational strategies. The study will investigate the aspects of the university experience that support learning beyond the classroom in these two areas. Students come to college possessing a wide variety of background characteristics. These characteristics and the experiences students have had prior to college can influence learning and development outcomes. As a result, a key component of the research is to take these background characteristics and pre-college experiences into consideration when examining students’ current level of development in the targeted areas.
Supporting Minority Student Engagement and Success
Many universities are moving away from multiculturalism toward an active embrace of cultural differences, recognizing that students from different ethnic and cultural traditions may need unique patterns of programming and support to realize their full potential. This study will investigate participation in co-curricular programming by students from different ethnic backgrounds. It will also look at the association between patterns of participation and outcomes, including academic performance, persistence, and co-curricular learning.
Mental Health Report
Mental health has been a salient issue on college campuses in recent years as reports of mental health issues among college students have become more common. This study will bring together data from three types of research projects to look at this issue. A student survey will gather baseline data on student mental health (MH) issues, and identify student needs, barriers to treatment, and alternative strategies employed by students who do not use the campus counseling center. A faculty, staff, and/or RA survey will assess key stakeholders’ awareness of mental health services on campus, the likelihood of referring a student to the MH center, opinions of institutional policies, the perception of stigma associated with seeking MH services, and perceived barriers to seeking MH services. A benchmarking study will compare MH staffing levels, budget, measures of efficiency, and scope of services.
Past topics covered by Collaborative Research include:
- Achieving Strategic Alignment
Some examples of topics covered by Custom Analysis include:
- Student Affairs Staffing and Budgets: A Benchmarking Study
- Differences in Student Engagement: Review of 2005 and 2007 NSSE Reports
- Identifying At-Risk Students: Analysis of Core and NCHA Data
- Student Competency Development
- Impact of Student Employment
Please contact us to explore how membership in Eduventures Student Affairs Learning Collaborative can help you make better, more-informed decisions.