Volume 11, Issue 4

College peer culture is perhaps the single most important influence on student learning, values, and behavior in the college environment and yet it remains one of the least studied and understood aspects of higher education. This article examines the nature and influences of peer culture in contemporary higher education, the power it possesses to define meaning and purpose in the lives of college students, and reasons why colleges and universities should give more serious attention to this potential “monster within the gates.”

College students have always searched for meaning and purpose through romantic and intimate relationships. As the dominant script for sexual activity on most U.S. residential campuses, “hooking up” explicitly separates physical intimacy from interpersonal closeness and mutual commitment. A developmental analysis of hooking up demonstrates that normative undergraduate identity development and meaning-making structures map closely onto the contemporary hook up peer culture. A developmental lens suggests why the hook up scene is resistant to change but also implies directions for effective campus intervention.

This essay, based on an ethnographic study of a collegiate evangelical student organization residing on a public university, explores the estrangement involving this organization and the larger university. The author explores the optimal relationship between evangelical student organizations and public universities. The essay concludes with recommendations centering on ways to rethink student affairs and faith-based student organizations’ alliances.

Adapting best practices in student affairs in settings where neither the holistic student experience is understood, nor research about learning and development widely acknowledged, can be challenging, a dilemma that the authors faced in the pioneering work of Qatar Foundation in its Education City initiative. In this article authors explored their separate work at Qatar Foundation and at Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar, how each complements the other, and how their work resulted in the enhancement of students’ learning through culture centric practice.

The NASPA 2011 Conference theme will focus on a fundamental goal of higher education, “Educating for Lives of Purpose.” The program will examine how campuses support, encourage, and educate students to pursue lives of purpose and will highlight those demonstrating lives of purpose on campuses and in national and international arenas. Conference participants will hear inspiring stories of students, professionals and national figures as well as listen to sessions on how to create campus climates that stimulate students to find meaning and purpose in their lives.

First-year college students are at an important juncture in their psycho-social and cognitive development. The goal of the EXPLORE! retreat is to provide a space where students can begin to grapple with questions about the vocation of a student, understood not as a search for a career so much as the search for a meaningful, purpose-driven life commiserate with the Lutheran tradition of higher education. During a 28-hour retreat triads of faculty, staff, and student leaders facilitated first-year students through guided instruction. Immediate assessment at the conclusion of the retreat affirmed that students left with a deepened understanding of vocation and the concept of "big enough questions." Results are discussed in the context of student development and the pedagogy of event planning.

This article presented findings on educating students in environmentally friendly living in a values-based education system in India. The study was based on a survey conducted among the students of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, a values-based deemed university. After providing the conceptual foundations for environmentally friendly living, authors used the results of the survey to present components involved in the learning process and to discuss implications of the study that support the importance of values-based education in learning for environmentally friendly living.

The International Scholars Program (ISP) at Philadelphia University, a collaborative effort between a college success program and an honors program, was designed to introduce low and moderate income students to international study. Faculty and staff nominated students based on academics and leadership potential to participate in this program which included a semester of pre-departure preparation, ten-day travel to nonEuropean countries, and post-travel related activities. Staff conducted focus groups to evaluate students’ ISP experience. Themes about civic responsibility, environmental conservation, and nationalism emerged. In addition, students reported that this was a life change opportunity that had a significant impact in their self-confidence and ability to learn interdependence.

The designs for cultural programs on most campuses seem to imply that students possess mono-cultural identities. However, with the increase in bi-racial and multi-racial students on campus, it is time for student affairs leaders to question the design for these programs.

As part of a larger investigation into the spiritual lives of student affairs administrators, the first author interviewed twenty-four practitioners representing four types of institutions to determine how they think about issues related to their purpose in life. The results of the study provide insight into the importance of reflecting upon such issues in order to be equipped to assist students in their own identification of a purpose in life.

This interview with Alexander and Helen Astin addressed their major multi-campus, seven-year study on college students' development of spirituality, focusing on equanimity, one of 10 domains they studied and one for which there was little research available at the time of the study. The Astins also discussed the importance of collegial dialogue to unearth important leads in research, the purpose of their research, the origins of the construct of equanimity and its relationship with other variables, surprising and strong findings, and applications of the spirituality research on campuses.

The author of this article reviewed three publications that framed provocative questions about the future of service-learning. Authors of the three publications openly considered changes necessary to advance service-learning and in doing so they raised issues such as inclusion of new voices in the conversation on service-learning in higher education; degree to which service-learning should be embedded in academic majors, minors, and interdisciplinary programs; and social and political forces shaping the future of service-learning.

In this article, the author discusses the implications of having strongly apparent political views in the public eye as a teacher or administrator. Ultimately, this article stresses the need to separate the private person from the authoritative persona in order to avoid stifling the students' independent growth and honest reflections on their own views.