NASPA President Kevin Kruger joins us to look back and look forward on higher education trends, students, student affairs, and student affairs leadership. He shares the evolutions he has witnessed, the trends emerging, as well as his worries and hopes for what is ahead.

Edwards, K. (Host). (2024, June 5). Student Affairs Legends Then and Now: Kevin Kruger (No. 207) [Audio podcast episode]. In Student Affairs NOW. https://studentaffairsnow.com/kevin-kruger/

Kevin Kruger
So I had a bit of a seminal moment last week that I didn’t even know and it’s kind of connected to how I got here. I was Mike Christakis vice president Student Affairs at university Albany invited me to come do what I knew it was gonna be my last campus visit as President. And as I was on the plane, I mean, I should have known this I kind of did in the back of my head, I understood that realize, okay, literally 50 years ago, I started at the University of Albany as a freshman as my as my or did my undergraduate graduate work. So that was sort of like a nice sort of, like, bookend something started at Albany and kind of finishing with my last campus visit.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today I’m joined by NASPA President Kevin Kruger. Kevin has a long career as a student affairs leader and leading NASPA in this role has been able to observe the changes in students Student Affairs and Student Affairs leadership over decades. I’m excited to learn from Kevin as he looks back at his journey and our profession. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week. On Wednesdays find details about this episode, or browser archives. It’s student affairs now.com. This episode is sponsored by Leadershape go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you to create just caring and thriving world. This episode is also sponsored by Huron our global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him his. I’m a speaker, author and coach, helping hired leaders Empower transformation for a better tomorrow, particularly around leadership, learning and equity. can find out more about me and Keith edwards.com. And I’m recording this from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the ancestral and current homelands of both the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to the conversation. Kevin, thank you for being here. And thank you. Great to be here. Let’s, let’s just begin. Tell us a little bit about you. And as you coming to the end of this career and role, a little bit about your journey and how you got here.

Kevin Kruger
Great, thanks. Thanks for having me. I’m a big fan of your podcast. And it’s been a nice way to see a lot of different folks reflect on the issues in higher ed. So thanks for your work on this. So I had a bit of a seminal moment last week that I didn’t even know and it’s kind of connected to how I got here. Mike Christakis vice president Student Affairs at university Albany invited me to come do what I knew it was gonna be my last campus visit as President. And as I was on the plane, I mean, I should have known this I kind of did in the back of my head, I understood that realize, okay, literally 50 years ago, I started at the University of Albany as a freshman as my as my or did my undergraduate graduate work. So that was sort of like a nice sort of, like, bookend something started at Albany and kind of finishing with my last campus visit. So you know, my experience while he was great, I was a first generation students, so and the low income students, so I was looking at ways to pay for college. And lots of different stories about that. But the one that’s related to, you know, to your question is, after having been two years in residence hall, I applied to be an RA, and serves as an RA for two years. And then also an orientation advisor. I wanted to be honest, I thought I did I wanted to be a social studies teacher. So I might, I was a history, political science major, and I got my social studies, education. Certification, did my student teaching at Clinton High School up in Albany. And while I enjoyed the teaching, I didn’t enjoy being a teacher. In fact, I didn’t like it at all. And I’m sort of stuck, right? I mean, here I am in my senior year. This is what I’m supposed to do. But don’t do that. I don’t know what I was going to do with the history and political science major. And I had, then what is the pivotal conversation that I think many people in student affairs have had in their career is I saw I had somebody who was my supervisor at that point was name is Lenny Baglioni, he was the hall director for the building I was in. And I said, Lenny, how do you how do you do what you do, because I just did wasn’t even paying attention. I didn’t know there was a career. We didn’t have things like careers and Student Affairs month and things like that back then. And he’s like, Well, you know, this is a profession and you can eat, gotta go to grad school and call me, you know, elicited a bunch of programs that I could have gone to. And that was the kind of the, you know, the boost to get me to think about something different. And I applied to a bunch of programs. I ended up choosing the University of Maryland for really well researched and scientific method. At that time, the woman that I was dating, she was going to go to get her master’s in library science at Catholic University, Catholic University, University of Maryland, pretty close. Oh, we’re gonna go to Maryland. That’s how I decided to go to University of Maryland. Parenthetically, that’s the same person broke up with me on the last day classes. So I headed to Maryland for not the same reason, but you know, worked out Yeah. And and really then, from that point forward, once I got to Maryland to which it was a journey that very quickly for me was about becoming a vice president of student affairs. That was very quickly what I wanted to do. I met the VP of Student Affairs and Amos, but Thomas met some of the student leaders and I was on that journey. And I, what I began to do was think about how to how do I craft a career that would position me to be a VP of Student Affairs, you know, back then Keith, you would know that a pathway to a vice president then was you had to go through his life, that was the only way you got that job. Now, of course, is, you know, 15 different pathways. But so I started ResLife worked for a legend and he Roberts Methodist University, and then worked in suit activities. And I was the SGA advisor back at Maryland and, and you worked in admissions and a variety of other roles. And I was trying to kind of cobble all this together. Got my PhD along the way at Maryland with some other legends like the Catholic camp and Susan coviz. And Marilyn McEwan. So you know, these really great people got to be around and was then the social vice president state affairs, dean of students at UMBC. That was, so I was on my track to become a VP and was involved in professional associations largely ACPA. I was involved in commissions have done some convention, work with ACPA look arrangements, Chair of it, though things. And then lessness. Now the connection from Maryland. She was at that time, the executive director of NASPA, she called me up and said, Hey, do you want to apply for this? This an executive director job? And I’m like, Yeah, that’s okay. Now, I had some other people I would recommend, but I’m not interested. She’s like, why don’t you just take the train down in DC and talk to me, which is what happened? I think the train down and then after a two year, two hour conversation, I was really energized, the idea of working on issue is not at the campus level, but you know, brought more broadly than that. And so, you know, fast forward, I said, don’t take the job was offered to me and thought, well, this would help me be a better vice president, because I’d have that kind of broader view. And I told her explicitly, I’m gonna do this for two years, then I’m gonna go back to a campus. Well, fast forward on June 30, of this year as my 30 year anniversary with NASPA. So you see how that two year thing worked out? Your plans are great. But Keith, you know, what got me. What kept me in this work was, you know, it was really two things. One is the association world is very entrepreneurial, it’s pretty much more probably our nonprofits, they function as a profit oriented in terms of being a successful organization. But I, I have this intellectual curiosity about like, what’s happening in the world and what’s happening in higher ed and thinking about being in a position to influence or guide or help a profession, to address those issues became the thing that kind of kept me committed. And I stayed with it. And then I’ve had the unbelievable privilege, the last 12 years of being being president, CEO, you know, a job I never thought I would ever have. I mean, they may aspire to it, because it was so far out of reach. And that’s kind of my journey. And so 30 years at NASPA, 45 years in the profession coming to a close on on June 30. And then last 12, as an Esper President, I’ve had a blessed career, and I mentioned some of the names that are along the way. And I could mention, you know, others going Dungey, of course, previous consecutive director of NASPA, other other folks at Maryland, because it really, you know, one of the blessings of this field and, uh, you know, this is the relationships you establish, and, and the ways in which people help promote other folks, I’ve been just so fortunate to have so many good mentors who have helped me be successful. And to even to this day, I mean, you know, when you run an organization like NASPA, you can’t, you can’t all be in your head, you have to connect with other people. And so you know, all the know, 10s and 10s and 10s of people that you connect with to help you be successful in the work that you do. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
Well, I can’t help it, indulge in the similarities in our journey, a very poor kid went to a college history, major social studies, teachers, student time, I loved it. But then I had this, maybe I’ll just dabble in the Student Affairs thing. And away we go. And then when you go, Yeah, that’s cool. And we crossed over at Maryland, we were saying, Yes, almost 20 years ago, ish. You came into a class and talked about trends in student affairs and higher education. Assistant Executive Director role and yeah, and then so many things. And then, you know, we both share this role of this multiple campus perspective and seeing these trends and seeing what’s similar campus to campus to campus and I find it often reassuring because people think, what’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with what are we doing wrong? Oh, no, everybody’s struggling with that. And then also, I think sometimes people don’t really see their points of pride because it’s just what we do here. Right? They take it for granted. And you can say, Wow, that is really remarkable. It is really sure. But I want to I want to talk a little bit about some of these broader things in the field. But as you mentioned, it’s been it’s been a long tenure at NASPA and multiple roles. I’d love to hear how you’ve seen the association shift and change over that time. Yeah, you’re kind of the curator now. Right? You were you were the young bucket one time. And now you’re kind of the curator of, of this long metric of time. And some of the folks that you mentioned along the way. Yeah.

Kevin Kruger
You know, this one nothing, when one has to answer that question when a scale. You know, when I started, we had extended staff and we did a conference conference, it was a pretty small annual conference, we had a conference program for vice presidents, we had a journal, and one teleconference where we literally been but program up to the 22 campuses. And we largely served at that time, vice presidents who were largely white men, it was a pretty small, narrowly focused organization. You know, fast forward, we’re $24 million organization, we have 15,000 members, we represent Student Affairs, which also now is the most diverse sector of higher ed, right, so NASPA reflects that diversity as well. And so it’s just, you know, a lot of its scale, I think the biggest change has been, NASPA, as well as other associations have, have kept pace with the amazing changes that have occurred in the field, right, that over the last, you know, 30 years. I mean, it’s, I say this in some of my speeches, and it’s, and I, and I get a head nod from everybody in the audience. But we’ve got about 30 years, even if I just said to you, or anybody else in this field, particularly someone who has been worked over the last 10 years, what we do today, is qualitatively different than what we did 10 years ago, in some, in some ways that make the work very different. And I think that that is, I think that’s reflective of that, I mean, the issues we were tracking 30 years, I mean, it’s interesting, when we hit our 100 year anniversary, just like ACPA just had this year, we, I went back to the journals that, you know, back in the founding of NASPA, but like in, you know, early 1900s. And, and I had this thing where I listed out the 12 issues that were talked about, I did look at a content analysis of the of the journal at the time, and the conferences at the time, and then I read those without the date attached. And of course, you know, a lot of them are the same, right? I mean, the same issues, right. But the ways in which we think about them are just completely different than I think our associations have all. track that to some to some degree, NASPA, you know, again, it used to be a focus on vice presidents now, you know, Vice President servers are important, but small part of our members, mid level professionals are the largest piece grad students, the AVP role, which largely existed, but has expanded dramatically over the past, you know, decade and a half or so. Grad faculty, so, you know, the the focus of sociation has grown in that regard a little bit. I think the thing that the big The other change that I think we’ve seen, certainly I’ve seen, and maybe reflect a little bit about what what I didn’t understand when I became president, NASPA was the extent to which the media in particular, but also college presidents and other associations would look to me to that as one of the key voices of the field. And I never thought about that, that, that I had a megaphone. You know, and I think that I’ve said this a couple of times that, you know, my belief is, you know, with the privilege that comes with being president, I should own the opportunity, then to speak out on issues that are important to the field puts the students to higher ed. And so I had my metaphors I like took the job that was megaphone sitting on my desk, and you can either pick it up or not. And I think that I wanted to pick it up, because it was I thought there were things that we could say that would advance the field, but also the chance to work or deal with students. And so as a result, you know, I’ve been on Dateline, and NBC News and all these kinds of things, which is not about me, but about the issues that we get to talk about, which I think has been pretty, pretty unique opportunity. So anyway, that’s, that’s, uh, that’s what I’ve seen over the years. And so we’re, you know, it’s a real pleasure to be in the association community and to work with all the student affairs associations, you know, which are, you know, play also super critical roles in our field. And to be, you know, amongst with other colleagues and other associations that are working on some of these really difficult issues that we’re trying to struggle with on how in higher ed.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, yeah, that’s a that’s a great look back and the massive scale up, and the opportunity, and then also the responsibility that comes with that megaphone, right. You got to be real careful what you say into that megaphone. Because it’s a leverage position, right? It makes Well, yeah,

Kevin Kruger
and, essentially, you know, when you say things and you have a perspective And then you also have to be willing to take the heat that comes with that, right? Because not everybody’s always gonna agree with you. And, you know, a piece of advice that I got early on, which is not surprising for anybody who speaks a lot is don’t read the comments. So I get if I’m quoting the inside or out of the Chronicle or Washington Post New York Times, whatever, I don’t read the online comments, because they’ll just debilitate you, you know, they’ll just wear you down from you know, from sometimes the meanness, but the way other people might be what you have to say, you know, but you know, you and I are in the same space, but most of the people listening to this are in the same space, we we have a generally progressive human dignity viewpoint on the world. And for people who find that to be bothersome, it’s difficult to hear that voice. So it’s one of those things you kind of have to kind of close down a little bit.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I reminded of Brene Brown reading some of the comments after her massive TED Talk and having a panic attack, which is what led her to that. Theodore Roosevelt quote about the Man in the Arena, which she then framed and put on her wall and kind of shifted her perspective. And, yeah, when I did my TEDx talk, I asked a good friend, I said, I need you to read the comments, because I wont and if there’s anything there that helpful feedback, let me know, or that I need to respond to you let me know. And otherwise, I’ll just ignore it. And

Kevin Kruger
I did simply my communications, folks on my team, they will read the comments, you know, and they’ll and they will they, you know, they don’t they’ll alert you to anything that really needs some attention, because you don’t want to ignore them, right? I mean, so there might be something in there that from our customer service or something needs responding, and then, but then, you know, again, this is just a little sidetrack here, but for anybody who is in this position, so I never then engage with people online in that regard, because that’s a losing proposition. But I will call people I mean, I’ve had many people that who disagree with me, and I’m happy to call them and or say call me, and then set up a call and just have a conversation. But not to play that out in an online environment, which can, which is I think, not sometimes what people want when they were making that kind of critique.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, absolutely. Good wisdom. Good, wise advice is we I think we’re all playing in a more public realm and feel me. I do and even if we think it’s, you know, conversation at a town hall on campus, we have to assume someone’s filming it with their phone, and it was, yeah, others.

Kevin Kruger
I think that’s yeah, I’ve talked to a bunch of folks recently about it over the last year or two about that, I think. The fact that you’re, you’re not maybe being recorded, you are being recorded, that’s a different kind of valence on what, how you do this job. You know, it’s it’s not you’re not in the privacy or the, you know, the protective environment of a group of students that you’re working with, or a town, like I say, a town hall kind of thing, the fact that it can immediately go public, and then you can be evaluated or critiqued by more than just your communities, I think it changes the work a lot. I think it makes people our members in our people in the field a lot, are cautious about what they say, I don’t think that’s a good thing. But just, it almost means that like, you know, anybody who’s in a senior role a VP director and VP, I mean, they almost must like you must, everybody needs some communication training, because of the fact that you are essentially in the public eye as soon as you step foot in our audience. And look at those folks that, you know, at UT Austin, that we’re kind of, you know, kind of tricked into talking about their di efforts. Yeah, that kind of, really, in some ways led to the dissolution of those departments, by the by the legislators, and I think it’s, it’s a different world today in that regard.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s talk about how it’s otherwise it’s a different world. You’ve had this decades long macro experience, as you said, you have this rich curiosity for the trends. I know you pay attention to trends in students and the issues in media, politics, and their effect on campus. And then you also have been in this role of sort of objective advisor to many student affairs leaders, someone who is doesn’t report to them who isn’t a competitor for the next job or that thing or their president or their board. But sort of has this macro view. I’d love to hear from you. What have you seen shift in your time around students around Student Affairs and Student Affairs leadership?

Kevin Kruger
I’m sure some things none of them will come as a surprise. These are all I mean, you’ll be like, they’ll be like, yeah, yeah, but they are but there’s some of them are pretty tectonic in terms of you know, the changes. Because at one level, the work that we do individually with students today is the same as we joined 30 years ago, I mean, or 45 years ago when I first started I mean, is this the work of Student Affairs? The value system of Student Affairs fundamentally is pretty calm, pretty simple, similar, but There’s so many big changes that are embedded in beyond that. So here’s what here’s the one that I have given a lot of thought to, given my own background from University of Maryland, which was a program when I started in 1978, which was one of the number of programs in the country that were based in what was called at the time of student development theory. Now, anybody who studies development theory at the time knows that that was most of those theories were developed on white, middle class students, that’s sort of an aside, but at the time, that was not part of the conversation. And, and so student development, and so you know, the idea of taking human development and, you know, morphing that into notion of how students progress developmentally was brilliant, the funding foundation of our field. Yeah, I do remember that when I started SMU, as a whole as an area coordinator, and I brought my Maryland briefcase of student development theory with me, you know, you know, metaphorically, and I started talking as a, by that time, I was 2022, probably whatever. I was so enthusiastic about this, about how you use to development theory, and I remember the Director of Housing at the time. And so he was like, Whoa, put that down. We have work to do here. We don’t talk about you know, we don’t talk in developmental theory language, we just do the work, it was sort of like a wake up call, but, but in case student involvement theory, and then keep your member, you know, folks began talking about student learning. Now, we had the student learning imperative, and we had learning to be considered and documents like that. And this whole idea that which we kind of always knew that we were part of the learning and enterprise of the institution. But we wanted to articulate that in a little more clear way with learning domains, and, and the like. Interestingly, that got us a little afoul of the faculty component of the institution, because faculty always said, hey, we’ll be the ones to do learning, you do this other thing. And there was some chafing around that time. And that I think, was part of our journey. Over that period of time in the 2000s, are sorts. Well, and then fast forward, where are we what are we talking about today, every single day student success. We don’t talk about student development as much as they are in our programs. We talked about learning, but student success is really an organizing structure. And we see, you know, sort of swept across the country. Interestingly, learning we consider which is 20 year anniversary is this year,

Keith Edwards
I had made that connection. Yeah, we

Kevin Kruger
did some work on that. And we’re actually putting out kind of like, not a revised student learning and prepare, but we’re just sort of did some reflective work on it. But

Keith Edwards
I mean, I did feel old because I remember Yes, editing with Susan governess drafts and providing feedback. And that exactly, that document, I think, really shifted my perspective as professional, profound. Well, you

Kevin Kruger
know, and, you know, it holds up to a few. Because this one, we read it, and it does hold up. But here’s the interesting thing, if you do a word search, on the document, the cont the word student success is mentioned one time in the entire document. And I think it’s just an example of the evolution of language, right, the work may be similar, but I think the focus on student success, I think, for me, is one of the more critical evolutions for us as a field, because when you unpack student success, you know, for me, it becomes very closely linked to the equity agenda for higher education. And, and the, the reality that we have been fairly unsuccessful, in closing historic attainment gaps for black students, Latin X, Hispanic, and Latino students. Some are indigenous students, some portions of the AAPI community, low income students, first gen students, I mean, you know, roughly those, their attainment rates are about half of their peers. And that has been pretty sticky over the last couple of decades. It’s only now that we sort of see the moral imperative, you know, within the last five, seven years to make some changes in that space, and to try and do something to address that. And I think so that’s a pretty big change, I think, for us as a profession, and one that I think resonates with college presidents and provosts I think provides for me, you know, we talked about student affairs, academic collaboration, you know, last 45 years, but we’ve had a hard time figuring out how to do that. Student success is the organizing structure around how we do that because you cannot have a successful student success agenda without collaboration between those two entities. You know, I mentioned equity, I think the other evolution is, you know, in language, but also in purpose and intent. You know, back in 30 years ago, we talked a lot about multicultural programs, multiculturalism, then kind of morphed a little bit into diversity, and it’s really been over the last maybe It’s five 710 years or so that we have been more articulate about diversity, equity inclusion, of course, now belonging is a big piece of that justice, social justice. I mean, those concepts, I think, are places where we’ve seen some real evolution. Just a quick NASPA story. And this won’t come as a surprise to those who have followed the association journeys have in the field, new ACPA always lead in this space. I remember a conversation with at a board meeting, where we were doing an institute strategic plan. And, and there was a very, you know, robust conversation about whether social justice as a concept should be in the strategic plan as a as a goal, or should it be something that kind of runs through it. And even those two things had not been something you’d have seen in a NASPA strategic plan and pull it down oops, who was a, both ACP and s person was on our board, and she really advocated for, for, for that inclusion of that language, and we are because we had been acting in that way. But we hadn’t really articulated in a way. So that’s even, that’s just a benchmark for me about how we, how we’ve changed. And now you know, I think it’s would have to kind of reflect now on the political environment of our country, and, and how di work and the anti di legislation is affecting our work, and also the work we do with students and students themselves. It’s, it strikes me now that we have two different student affairs professions. One where there’s a legislative climate in that state that allows the AI work to flourish both organizationally as well as you know, programmatically, and one where it’s illegal to do the work or not permitted. I don’t think we’ve ever had a time in my career where, or the core work of who we are, as a profession, what we do, has been legislatively denied. And I think that that is new. And I think it’s it’s a stark reminder, if you’re in grad school, and you’re looking at a job. I mean, there’s there’s two different professions that are that are existing now. And I think that’s, that’s just one of those. That’s a pretty big change. I mean, in a very short amount of time. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
I think that’s true, but I’ve never thought about it in that starker terms, as we have two different student affairs professionals. Yeah. And it really resonates with me. But as I think about conversations that I have, with some of the campuses that I work with, where some are saying we cannot lean into dei enough, as far as we think we go, it’s never fair enough for our students, for our and we just we cannot be and then others are like, we can’t even use those words. That’s right. And I can’t do conferences, and I can’t enroll in this professional development. Yeah. But I’ve never thought about it in the starkness of two different professions. Yeah, that’s really remarkable to think about. Yeah,

Kevin Kruger
I think that’s it, you know, the thing that strikes me is that, you know, we have always kind of, I think, believed totally, let’s say always, let’s say in the last 10 years or so that we are hand in hand with our students and wanting a more equity based society, you know, whether it be at the institutional level of our society in general. But now, as this rolls out, we see that we are now squeezed between two forces, we have squeezed between, you know, legislators or attorneys, or governmental officials who are saying, Don’t do this, we’ll do less of it. And our students want more of it, actually, which is interesting. Even in the states where we have banned di, the students themselves want this to be a part of their educational experience. And that’s backed up by every data point you can find is the one thing because make you a little hope, because I think that I think that this is a short lived movement, because as these students become a voting age, and become influential in their local communities, they will want to reverse this experience that reverse this trend that we’ve seen. And so I’m hopeful that maybe you know, it’s not going to be next year, but you know, in the next five, seven years, that we might see some new pressures to restore it really, what is the dignity of how we work with our students? So I may mention a couple of things, mental health, we’ve always had mental health, if you look at back in the Student Personnel point of view, it’s in that it’s in there and language in there. But of course, the mental health crisis that we see amongst this generation is is new and unique. And I think one of the things that, you know, is two things that have come out of that I think that is really positive one is the expansion of wellbeing as an initiative on campus and as a strategy for dealing with mental health. Now we were talking about well being the wellness wheel was around in the 70s. So it’s not a new concept, but it is new in terms of how we think about it and organize ourselves around it. I mean, the whole expansion, for example, the AVP for health safety, well being I mean That’s that role didn’t exist very much a decade ago. So so they so that is one piece. And then the second thing, I think, which is the the rapid Advent through COVID, of tele counseling as a modality. So that was something that only 5% of counseling centers had any kind of tele counseling in 2019. Now, it’s more like 65%, and probably growing. And in fact, if you go to the NASPA NASPA meeting, and maybe some other meetings, if you go to the exhibit hall, and now it looks like I mean, it basically looks like a mental health counseling, exhibit hall, the amount of private equity that’s come into that space has really expanded the number of providers. And I think this is a good thing, right for international students or for students who work full time or adult students, or broadly other sectors, international students to provide access through tele counseling allows us to use the resources in the counseling center, the clinical services on site for some of the most severe cases of mental health challenges, we see that that’s a pretty big, I

Keith Edwards
can’t tell you how many therapists I know who said before COVID I would never do it. It’s unethical. I refuse. I will not exactly be in person. Yeah. And accidentally it’s half, it’s gonna be half. And I like it. I like it. Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Kruger
I think that’s a that’s a huge change in a very short amount of time. Oh, that’s what I mean. Let me mention one more, and we’ll move on to the question. I’ve never seen I don’t think you have either the dissatisfaction of the workforce. So we certainly have we have right now it that we’re now facing. You know, student affairs folks have always understood that they’ve chosen a profession that isn’t the most highly paid in the in the world, right. So you know, you could have gotten worse, you could have gotten IBM, Google whatever it is, because that’s something else, but you choose it because to some extent, its value centric, right? It’s something that’s like teaching. I mean, it has that. However, what we have been what we have been confronted with over the last two, three years, is our own making. And that is, we allowed when I say we Student Affairs and Student Affairs leaders and presidents to some degree, but we allowed salaries to languish in student affairs, to the point they became really unsustainable in some places where you could have a master’s degree and some experience and not even necessarily have to make a living wage that may your only choice might be to live with have roommates to afford an apartment. And I think we did that out of a core belief that we had generationally, like, certainly my generation in some extent, Gen Xers, that the love of the work was exchanged for the salary. Right. And while that’s true, to some degree, I think we allow that to, to evolve in a space where we have a lot of dissection, this aspect of a pay equity. And so people are leaving for better paying jobs outside the field. And, and you can’t blame them for doing so. And then second thing is we also have allowed the workday to expand. And that sort of intersects with the salary issue, you know, so the old my model, when I came up was you work 6070 hours a week, you don’t get paid anything, but you love the work, and eventually you get paid. This generation doesn’t want that, right? They want fair pay, they want a reasonable work hour. If you look at the coop HR data, only about a third of folks in student affairs work, just the standard hours that you’re paid for. Yeah, I mean, two thirds don’t. And some of those hours can be pretty expensive. But I think that’s that unpaid labor has become an issue for this profession. For this this generation as well. I will note that I think what’s important to note that this is not just a student affairs issues is across many, many professions. So it’s it’s not just us, but we are dealing with it. And we’re seeing the impact with the dissatisfaction of the core kind of mid level professional, who are not recommending Student Affairs, the way they used to, thus, our graduate programs are all suffering, every one of them are enrollments down. And that is a I mean, you could call it a canary in the coal mine, you can call it I actually call it an existential crisis of the profession. Because if we are not No longer do we have enough grad students to fill our programs, and then fill the jobs that many have taken historically, are we still a profession if we don’t have that kind of core graduate experience? Now granted, not everybody in Student Affairs has that grad program. So it’s not that it’s never been a requirement. But it has been a pretty sick pipeline, it’s been a pretty significant part of who we are. And I think it’s something for us to think about. How do we and you know what’s happening, Keith, as I’m sure you’ve heard the same thing, I still have a job to fill. If I can’t get a grad student, a master’s level candidate, I’m gonna have to hire another Master’s level candidate from some other discipline or hire a bachelor’s level candidate. When you start hiring bachelor’s level candidates, who’s going to train those people to be effective in the complexity of the work? That’s going to be a challenge I think the profession is going to be facing coming in the near future. Well, just

Keith Edwards
to reinforce that, I mean, we’ve done more than 200 episodes and the number one request we get Is episodes on people leaving student affairs, student affairs adjacent careers. And we’ve done lots of episodes on that topic. And it is still the thing number one request. Folks are just really interested in that. I think the other thing is, I see that pipeline issue. And then I also see student affairs professionals who are just sometimes treated awfully by the House terribly. True for silly reasons. And then those complaining about how they can’t hire people.

Kevin Kruger
I know I know. Yes, yeah. I just want to build on that for a second. So we had a project, we did a kind of roll through COVID, a little bit, we call it the future of Student Affairs Task Force. And so there was the reports available on our website is free. But one of the things that this, we surveyed about 13,000 Student Affairs professionals, and there was quantitative data, and it was also a qualitative piece. So when there was several questions that were asked about, like, you know, your experience of Student Affairs now, we didn’t publish that we had, we did some factor analysis, but I read every one of the comments. And it was sobering, because what I saw what so many people who were feeling like they were mistreated by their supervisor or the institution, or I mean, not just a couple, but a lot. And it strikes me that I think that one of the things that we have not emphasized enough, is high quality. Supervision at the director level, assistant director level, you know, we don’t teach that in grad school, right? You have to kind of just learn it on the job. And I think we I think you’re right, we don’t take care of our people in the same way. When we ask people why they were thinking about leaving. So they didn’t feel valued by their supervisor or the institution that so be the easiest thing. I mean, what the hugging gender profession, right, we hug everybody, of all the things that should be the one thing that we that we can take pride in, and we’re not doing a good job with it. We should. So I think you’re right, that if we want to fix the workforce, we need to fix the middle management piece, particularly at the leadership, higher leadership levels to not just middle managers. Well,

Keith Edwards
I know you have a lot of conversations with senior student affairs officers, I know you’re on a lot of campuses, you talked with a lot of people at conferences, I know you’re at a lot of events, and I’m sure you have a lot of phone calls and zoom conversations that no one wants you to talk about. So don’t name names. But I’d love that insights that you’re gathering from all of these I’m sort of thinking about, I love talking with college therapists, not about a particular client, but about their caseload. So I’m kind of wondering, what do you learn from all of these conversations with the senior leaders? Yeah,

Kevin Kruger
yeah. Um, well, I think right now, I mean, let’s let’s do this. Let’s get current events. I mean, there isn’t a single vice president, a VP or college president talk to who isn’t struggling with the current activism we see on campus. It’s impossible position at campuses around. And I think that that is. So you know, we’ve been, you know, you probably had an episode on it. We’ve been talking about this generation for a few years, this is this generation we knew was going to be more activist. And, frankly, as a student affairs professional, I think that’s a good thing like we should activism should be part of the college experience, shouldn’t we be a place where we can engage in challenging and difficult issues? Part of the list isn’t? Exactly and I think that is happening on many campuses, if you really kind of get past the headlines, and the actual, what’s actually happening on campus, not the screaming across a barriers, but in the classroom and dialogues you hear there’s a lot of positive things are happening as as folks are trying to understand the complexity of this issue. So that’s a good thing. What’s what’s difficult now as a leader is a couple of things. One is when protests become this inflamed, I think it’s important to note one of the things that I’ve you know, is we we put Student Affairs people in harm’s way. And I was watching a video, it’s one small example of a name campus and I was there was an incident that took place and it was looking at the videos on Amazon, YouTube. And there’s the barriers and the students on one side screaming the students outside screaming, and as a central as a space in between. And I look at that, well, there’s that this and vice president Dean of Students and a tactical vest with, you know, with a helmet on trying to maneuver between some things were happening in history, I teach that in grad school, they don’t teach that in grad school. They also, by the way, didn’t teach grad young hall directors to put on PPE and deliver meals to quarantine students in a in a in a in a crisis that we didn’t even know the impact would be on your own personal health. I mean, we actually are actually putting student affairs folks in in positions that are not commensurate with what what we tell people this field is about. I’ve had many of us presidents assaulted vice presidents AVPs assaulted by the protesters, I mean physically assaulted, some are now working from home, because they don’t feel safe on the campus. That’s a very different world. So that’s something so that is part of the conversation about how to kind of get through this period. And what can we do differently. Now, I will tell you, this is a learning profession. So when we had many protests and activism around, if you might remember, like, in the maybe, say, the 2000 10s or so where we talked about controversial speakers, you know, there was a lot of, you know, issues going on, you know, what we we learn how campuses are dealing with this. And so we, you know, how can we be more effective? How do we, you know, some of us tactical, you know, kind of how do you work with the police, and when, even even where, whether the police have uniforms on when they’re on the frontline, and there’s lots of different things that can happen, we’ll learn we’ll learn from this and try to get better at this. Because I think, to some degree, I think we’re a little caught flat footed on this crisis. In Canada, it’s happened so fast. And I don’t think that we were prepared for what that meant for for our campuses. So that’s one thing that people are talking about. I think the other conversation I’m having with campus leaders is about budgets. Everybody knows about the enrollment issues. And but even just even without the enrollment issues alone, we have forces that are pushing against, you know, our campuses, look at the new Kubo data we just released today. So we see tuition discounting now at the highest level it’s ever been. But it’s been that every year, it’s is this tracking this one, you keep increasing tuition discounting, it’s going to erode your budget integrity to some degree. I think for the next decade, I think there’s an understanding, Keith, that we have student affairs is facing a very hard budget period. fiscal constraints are going to be the word of the day even for the elite colleges. I think we’re going to be looking at fewer resources, that’s going to create both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is how do we rethink the work that we do to serve the key priorities of the division? And our students? And the challenge, of course, is going to be how do we do that? How do we do that? Because we have structures, we have silos that are built into our institutions and those kinds of make, give us remove some of the flexibility we might otherwise have to make changes, right. So I think we’re gonna have to do that. And I think that that’s, that’s a priority. Third thing, which has not really talked about too much yet. But is, is an understanding of and that is, this generation of students and Gen Alpha behind them, are coming to college for very different reasons than previous generations, they are clearly coming for a job and a career and a well paying job. Some of that’s, you know, up against the cost of college and financial cost issues that exist. So I think we, as a enterprise, have the, you know, see a lot of movement in the next five years, I think about how we make a stronger connection between what students are doing in school, college from freshman from the freshman year and even pre matriculation to an articulating a well thought out career and career path and a connection to the workforce. I think we’re going to see a lot more in that space over the next number of years as well. And then, you know, I’m just gonna say, you know, I mentioned the workforce, I think we got to repair the workforce, like we’re, it’s it’s not at crisis level, but it’s getting there. That’s certainly a conversation that I think every leader is dealing with, because most significant divisions, they have 17 to 20% vacancies, and they’re having a harder time filling them particularly at the non kind of prestigious institutions, you know, like the elites, and some geographical areas. And I was at a meeting recently I was in Yeah, exactly. regional institutions, a small costs small regionals, small colleges and regional spaces. I know, you know, a little, I was sharing something with an audience of Student Affairs VPS recently, and I said, Well, you know, you want us to get 150 applications for for an RD job. Now you’re getting like, you know, 20 and then somebody said, 20, how about one or two? So I think, you know, this whole how we manage this workforce crisis is is this really is gonna be a pretty big issue. And I’ll just say the last thing I mentioned it earlier, I think it might just say in 10 years. If we look back at this period, and we have not made substantial progress in closing attainment gaps for low income, first gen students of color, then we have failed. It’s just I’m just gonna say it and And shame on us for not having and I say yes, I mean, not just Student Affairs, but higher ed, but not having made progress on this because I was struck by Anthony Coronavirus report at Georgetown. separate but unequal, you know, and how already we have, you know, mostly middle class white students go to You know, one of the 140, you know, selective institutions in America and Hispanic Latinx, black, indigenous low income students go to open more open access institutions. Yeah. So that kind of we already have sort of two Americas in terms of who gets what, right. But I think that if we don’t, you know, it’s even worse if we don’t close those attainment gaps, where the economic opportunities of our country are really shifted towards folks who have privilege already. And that’s, I think that’s a national shame. And I think we, we are talking about more about it, but I think we should be held accountable for progress in that area next next 10 years.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. You’ve spoken about the past both of decades of NASPA and the Student Affairs profession, what’s happening now and even prognosticating a little bit in the future. As we are running out of time. We we’d like to end with this final question. The podcast is called Student Affairs. Now we almost always like to end with what are you? What are you thinking? What do you troubling? Or what are you pondering? Now, you spoken to some of that, but as you come up here, I concluding this career? Yeah, I know, you’ll still be active and engaged. What is really present with you now? Yeah.

Kevin Kruger
I think, you know, I mentioned I think they’re, I mean, it’s gonna highlight the ones that things are mentioned, I think workforce is number one. I mentioned these attainment gap issues. I think number number number two for me, when I didn’t mention, I’ll just throw out there as I think this is not for all institutions. But I think we have made so little progress in keeping our students safe in American fraternities on on the United States. And I think that that, that is a challenge that we have got to address, we cannot continue to allow for attorneys to continue to kill mostly the man man and they’re on their chapters. And then the last one, I think, is, you know, as a as a hope I have for our for our country, that, that we will reimburse race, equity, diversity, inclusion as a core construct for the future of our country. And, and start thick and reverse this sort of, I think harmful trend I these are the things that I worry about. And I stamped and think about, I don’t care Democrat, Republican, but there’s core human values that we should all come together on. This is one of them. And America should be about embracing that. Embracing who we are as a country, which in 2040, we will be a minority majority country already 18 years and younger, anybody 18 Years Younger is predominantly of color, and non white. And so that’s our country. That’s our country. So we should embrace that in higher education should be a part of that embracing.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Well, I love your product classifications. They make me worried. They give me hope. They give me a sense of urgency. They give me a sense of purpose and really reinvesting in the work that we do and the power and the potential and the necessity of it and to and to do it. Well. It has big implications.

Kevin Kruger
Urgency with Keith. That’s that word. I was a word. I would use urgency. Yeah. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
Well, thanks so much, Kevin. I really appreciate some time at the end of your time at NASPA to join us and to look back and look forward and offer spoke some of your insights. Really appreciate it’s

Kevin Kruger
been a good conversation. I’ve enjoyed it. Good luck to you. Thanks again. Thank you.

Keith Edwards
And thanks to our sponsors for today’s episode, Leadershape and Huron. Leadershape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences for students and professionals with a focus on creating a more just caring and thriving world. Leadershape offers engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find out more about Leadershape or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. And Huron is a professional services firm functioning globally that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice by creating sound strategies, optimizing operations, accelerating digital transformation, and empowering businesses and their people to own their future by embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo Huron create sustainable results for the organizations they serve. And thanks as always, to Nat Ambrosey who makes us look and sound good behind the scenes. Thank you Nat. And we love the support of these conversations from you. You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast to YouTube and our weekly newsletter, Keith Edwards, thanks to our fabulous guest today, Kevin Kruger, and to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it make it a great week.