Birgit Schreiber
I would like us also to remember that all the good work we do is no good if our contexts are not conducive towards good student engagement and student living and learning. So while we work at our universities, and we try and prove our spaces in the universities, we must remember our students are contextualized they live in context, they live embedded lives, together with their families with their homes with the and together with all the social ills that often that then to live with, and we must remember that and that makes us social activists that makes us activists towards creating a world and a context for our students in which they can, you know, really engage and be authentically part of focusing on these studies show I want us to to remember also about the context.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today we’re discussing Movements Toward Professionalization of Student Affairs Across the Globe. I’m joined by the editors of the new directions book on this topic. They have gathered global student affairs and services leaders to explore movements towards professionalization sharing their diverse perspectives, and looking toward the future. Student Affairs NOW is a premier podcast an online learning community for 1000s of us 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 browse our archives studentaffairsnow.com. Today’s episode is sponsored by LeaderShape. Go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you to create a just caring and thriving world. This episode is also sponsored by Routledge and Taylor and Francis view their complete catalogue of authoritative educational titles at routledge.com/education. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him, his, I’m a speaker, author, and coach helping leaders and organizations make transformations for leadership, learning and equity. You can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I am recording this in my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. So let’s get to our conversation. Thank you both for being here. And for joining me. Let’s hear a little bit about each of you. And Birgit let’s begin with you.

Birgit Schreiber
Thank you for having us, Keith. It’s I’m excited to be here. And and um, it’s so good you model for me how to introduce yourself because I was trying to think, where exactly am I sitting? So I’m sitting physically in Germany in the southern part of Germany, and we’ve just had snow in the mountains. So it’s been nice for skiing, but my professional life and most of my working life I’ve spent in southern Africa. So I’ve got a very big strong footprint in southern Sub Saharan Africa, where I’ve worked in the senior leadership in higher education institutions, mainly in student affairs. I teach there I supervise PhDs. I’m affiliated and I do all kinds of things. But I have my cup of tea here in Germany, although Yeah, exactly. So yeah,

Keith Edwards
well, I’m bright and early here this morning here in Minnesota, and you’re in the evening. They’re so wonderful. Lisa let’s learn a little bit about you.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Sure. Well, I’m an athlete. I am in in Dubai. So it’s later evening here. And I’m Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo she her and hers pronouns. And I’ve been a senior leader in Student Affairs in Higher Education now for gosh, 20 years, and then another 15 and other roles. I’m in the process of transitioning a little from full time administrative work, and just serve as a professor for the School of Business and Information Technology at Purdue University Global. And I do serve as the Secretary General. And that’s kind of the connection between Barragan and I is the International Association of Student Affairs and Student Services. So I’m thrilled to be here to keep up.

Keith Edwards
Well, thank you both for being here and engaging in the conversation today. And you edited this new directions book, which offers as we talked about sort of a conversation about professionalization, which is super complex when you’re talking about so many different cultures and perspectives and contexts and continents and perspectives on education. And then some perspectives from from so many different folks around the globe. So let’s get some context. How did this project kind of get started? How did it come to be?

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Sure, as I said, it was kind of probably maybe three years ago. I’m thinking in 2020, which seems so long ago. But I, I’ve been very enriched by meeting people from around the world with some international work. And I was talking with my colleague, because it was like during COVID. And everyone was just trying to talk with each other and figure things out, right. And so I remember talking to Evelyn, she’s a colleague in the Philippines, and I met her in 2015 when I went over there for their conference and did a keynote. And she it was interesting, because she was asking me things that I add that really brought me some ideas of maybe we shouldn’t know what’s happening around our association work because she was saying to me what what’s going on is have people changed what they were doing in associations because she was a key leader in her association. And I didn’t have the answers. I wasn’t absolutely positive. What she what she was was asking on how associations were operated differently during COVID? Or how that might have changed. So she started saying, Well, why don’t we look at writing something? And she was the first one that thought about it. And then also Birigt. Good. I don’t know if you remember, but your book came out with Roger. And you had a, you had an you had a chapter in there about professionalization and student affairs. So Alan and I were talking about that, too, is are we a profession? Are we not? That’s always seems to be a conversation that we talk about when we get together, internationally. So I picked up the phone after talking with Evelyn and we’re maybe I emailed you earlier, but I can’t remember and ask Birgit what she thought of this. And I didn’t really know where we should reach out to to see if we did get everyone together. And I don’t remember Birgit good. How did we think of new directions? I don’t remember how we chose that. Or maybe it was Evelyn, I can’t even remember. But we thought of writing a proposal to new directions for student services, because we really thought too, is after all the work with in seven years. Birgit and I really had a lot of contacts that we could use in looking at how our field is professionalizing? Are we are we a professionalized working towards it? And how is it happening? The different regions, the grassroots? So that’s really what I remember as a starting point. What about you Birgit.

Birgit Schreiber
In fact, that’s just gonna add something to how we got to think about it being a book, because I think we might have started thinking about an article saying, well why don’t we think about just professionalization across the globe. And then given your trajectory, and your walk across the globe and mind where I’ve come from in the route I’ve taken is really quite different. And we’ve been in different systems, and different systems of higher education, and they have a different need of Student Affairs. And they’ve got different practices for professionalization, and different associations. In fact, the world is really a very textured place. And I think we couldn’t pack it into an article. And that’s probably when we thought, well, you know, this might need to be a larger project. And then, and then, you know, to make it authentic, use the voices in the field. And I think that’s what the second part, we’ll talk about that in a minute. But I think getting all the other authors in was about trying to get authentic voices from right across the globe to speak to the experience and the context.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Yes. And I remember was really quick, Keith, we had to, I remember that I think we had the proposal was due in January, Birgit. And so we wrote it in December, relatively quickly. But we wrote everyone and say, hey, if we get this through, will you be part of it, and we had people emailing us back really quickly, which was so rewarding in so many ways. They were interested.

Keith Edwards
I’m sure you’re the only book proposal that got submitted within a month of being due, that’s probably never happened before. Not, that’s probably probably most of them have been a little bit a week after the due date. Well, as you mentioned, that the book is kind of in three parts. And the first one really talks about and makes the case for and sort of unpacks, this movement toward professionalization, which I found really interesting. We certainly have done that here in the US, but it’s a little mind boggling to get your head around doing that in so many different different governments, different contexts, different cultures, different continents, different languages. So help us understand a little bit about this movement toward professionalization globally.

Birgit Schreiber
So it’s good to ask that because I think that there are at least two layers, many, many layers to this, but there are at least two layers. One is what is specifically going on in the contexts across the world. So the central European, the Western European space is really being social welfare state is very, very different to let’s say, you know, Central, Southern Africa, or even you know, up in Asia, across Asia, and so forth, and of course, back in, in North America, so the models are very different. So there’s something about what is unique about the space, what is unique about the higher education models and systems that are employed, and are in play that are there. So it looks specifically at what is specifically required in the contexts that the universities in the students are in. But there’s something generic about it. And I think what’s happening across the globe, there is a generic movement towards massification. Towards diversification. Universities are trying to find niche areas. So it’s a stratification of universities. There is a move massive push towards marketization. So universities market and they, they they market for the best students, they’re trying to attract the best students. And they do that largely in many ways, of course, but Student Affairs is implicated and by doing by indicating student affairs and including it, we there is some pressure to professionalize. So I think that there’s something generic across the globe, in terms of kind of these massive movements towards marketization and, you know, global higher education to globalizing. But then there’s something quite unique in the specific contexts.

Keith Edwards
You’re really reminded me of qualitative research, right? Where we see we talk with folks, and we hear so many different divergent stories from so many different people and unique life experiences. And then you look at all of that and say, Oh, and there is a common story, a common thread that these folks sharing, you’re seeing some of those dynamics and the both and it is so diverse. It is so different. It is so complex. And there are some themes that you see across all of these different contexts. That’s really cool. Lisa, what are you seeing in this movement towards professionalization?

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Well, I think Birgit I agree with everything she said. But there’s also the internationalization piece that is big our students are coming from many of us, in different parts of the world have many international students. And we need to understand the systems we need to be aware of what’s happening. And I think that this book you’ll see in there, too. It is working towards professionalization, but also internationalization of our work as student affairs professionals. And I think that is pretty key to I think, some threads that we’ve seen throughout the different parts of the book is how important internationalization is to our professional work. We do understand globally what’s happening, but then see how we can use that context globally to our local reality.

Keith Edwards
Our I’m curious to hear from both of you a little bit about what you see as the assets of professionalization. And are there any worries that you have about that,

Birgit Schreiber
Keith I was about to interrupt and talk about, I’m always the one that sees the underbelly and the worrying. I’m usually the one that says, oh, let’s be careful here and be cautious there. And so should we start with the positive first?

Keith Edwards
What are some of that?

Birgit Schreiber
So so the positive, of course, is that it becomes a profession that identifies with a common theme, and that can advance its own practices become better at its own job, understand why it does certain things can collect data and develop a scholarship around student affairs. So we seem to get better at understanding what we do, and how we do it and why we do it. So I think that is what professionalization is largely about becoming better at understanding oneself and becoming better doing it. Yeah. And in the process, of course, we accelerate students success and institutional success. We build better contexts in which students work and learn and live. And so we get better when we do in the broadest sense. So professionalizing, and helps with that. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
and I’m also wondering about it that’s, that’s great about the scholarship and research and sharing good practices that are effective here with more people, so more people can benefit. I’m also wondering about standards of practice ethical codes, what is okay, and what is not okay, sharing some of those kinds of things? Is there more to this?

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Well, I mean, I think we be good. I don’t know if we talk a little bit about that, too, is thinking about how we take knowledge from global north to the global South, and making sure that we’re careful. We think about it more, we just don’t apply it with a lens without any context or any voices. That’s the thing that’s big is voices from that context, is this going to work and so forth. I saw that even with my own work going from America to United Arab Emirates. So I think that’s an important piece that we have to think about as that happens, because Global North does have the largest voice in research in professional associations. And we were very clear and what we wanted to do is make sure there was that we were elevating the voices equally. And even to the point Keith, if you remember bear get we talked about okay, we want to make sure we only have so many words, for each for each region. I know it sounds a little crazy keep but we wanted to keep that in mind. Keep the level playing field. So if there were four associations, you know, okay, in this group, well, maybe the four associations that should be the same amount of words I’m going babbling on now. But I think that’s something we have to think about another critique, if you don’t mind me just going on real quickly that I think about all the time. And we talked about this, too, is okay, so what about this? The we see in North America and some other places where there’s all these specialist organizations and associations. And so we’re getting so specialized, what is that doing to the field? And how and what is that doing to those that want to be part of the field and want to grow and learn are, are we doing are we may be hurting ourselves not getting enough different voices, social justice aspects, I know, there was something about that, too, that I read about like competencies and doing the credentialing and doing the certificate programs, does that leave people out? Possibly, that can be part of, you know, growing and developing in the field, so they could do their work better.

Birgit Schreiber
So I love what you say about remembering the global north global south some tension that is there. So what we do need to be very careful of is that we don’t export Global North models and knowledge sets into areas that still need to find their voice. So it is, in fact, of course, also up to the global south to develop its own language, develop its own programs to deliberate and ideas and models and so forth. And that needs to happen, a lot of that needs to happen. And by professionalizing, I think one can be quite clear on where do we professionalize with which model, it becomes explicit. So I think that that’s what’s nice about it, there is exactly that, we can defend it in a sense against the fear of saying, well, now we’re just exporting a, you know, the American model of professionalizing, to, let’s say, the Global South, or South America, or South Africa, or Southern Africa, and so forth. So I think the act of professionalizing, the process makes us enables us to be clear about what we do. And then we can defend against it or acknowledge it and do it. So I think that’s why I like it. The what I wanted to add here was that by professionalizing, we do we do end up sort of kind of circles, describing the skills very specifically Lisa, that’s what you were mentioning now. And it becomes, you know, I’m reminded when we do this micro credentialing and you know, we credential one little tiny skill in isolation of kind of not having a context. So there is a risk that when we professionalize that we narrow down the field, and we define things so narrowly. And so specifically, that then excludes or that diminishes the context. And that diminishes the sense of kind of, like, where is this professional located? Where does it belong? How does it define itself? How does it from a discipline point of view, kind of where does it live. And the other sort of the other quick risk about having professional student affairs in institutions might be that they become the, the guardians of all things caring, or all things, students success, or all things student engagement, when in fact, of course, it’s everybody’s business, to engage with students to care for students to be clear about processes and to be transparent, and so forth. So as long as these processes that are good for students and good for students success, are not just located in student affairs, but are generalized across the institution. Yep, so so that is just one of the few things to worry about when we say there’s a professional student affairs practitioner on on our staff, a

Keith Edwards
lot of the point you’re making about the process of professionalization being explicit. So we can say this is what we’re doing, these are the models we’re recommending, is that the global north being imposed or not, because if you just avoid that, it can still happen. It’s just stepping in, you know, not explicit, not transparent, no accountability, it just sort of happens. And so I’m reminded of, you know, being, let’s be explicit about our curriculum. And if you’re not explicit about it’s not that you don’t have a curriculum, it’s just a hidden curriculum that you, your students can’t hold you accountable your colleagues and how you call it accountable. So that transparency of the process, with Lisa’s comments about let’s offer what has been learned to scholarship and practice and, and decades of work, but let’s offer it lightly is, would this be helpful in your context, would it not and let’s offer that as a resource, but let those familiar with the context and their own voices determine what they take on or what they adapt. The other thing that’s really standing out to me is, I feel like both of you are pointing to a lot of the things in the US higher education and student affairs realm that many see as advancements and then you’re saying maybe but I’m not so sure. What are some things that we have learned that maybe we need to unlearn? And not just cross cultures. But just maybe that’s not a great idea? Maybe we need to think about some of this. And so the ability to question what is happening, I think is really, really useful.

Birgit Schreiber
But if I can just add something here, which is really interesting how we already speaking, and I think we’re so familiar with the with the US model around student affairs, it’s some of that, of course. So when I think, for instance, about Central and Western Europe, they’re very the countries will be the Germany of France, or Spain or Italy have very strong social welfare states. So a lot of the caring is done by the state. So the universities don’t really look after disability, or they don’t really worry about bursaries or worry about residences, because universities would say, well, we teach the caring for accommodation, and food and disability and social justice and law and those kinds of things is done by the state. We don’t do that as university. And so in many ways, the less Student Affairs we have in universities, the more the state takes on caring, and caring for everyone be that children or adults or aged or whatever, or students. So, you know, the the so in many ways, we want to, in fact, work towards a space where the state becomes a social welfare state, where state is a caring state, rather than universities being being burdened, not burden, but being, you know, taken on the role of caretaker of students, when in fact, yeah, yeah. So just want to say that the different spaces that really understand Student Affairs quite differently in different places take responsibility for it.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. And it’s great to hear that that’s, we need to think about that in the greater context, not just higher education. But what’s the context there. You really brought in the perspectives of many voices, as you said in word count, and really tending to lots of I’d love to hear a little bit about how you made some of these connections, because it’s remarkable to see the people and places and roles and contexts that people are offering and what they shared. So I’d love to hear how that came to be. I’d also love to hear what did you learn from those contributions? What what sort of richness did they offer?

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Well, the International Association of Student Affairs and Student Services, which now in its 10 years was really the impetus to bring some of these voices together. That’s how I met Birgit she, I just emailed her virtually to we needed the regional director, she was on our database. I think I emailed him, she took it. So anyway, he got voted in. But what I’m trying to say is, that’s how we started talking with each other. So the cool thing I think about this part, too, is that we did have created teams of authors, and we actually did zoom calls with them separately, trying to get a feel of what are those things that are coming that they want to make sure we cover in each of the regions and so forth? So I think that was also we were able to solidify the leaders and ask them is there someone missing here is their association missing here, that we really should be key to and so I think that was one way we did it, that I think was pretty successful. related to learning my gosh, there’s so much I have to tell you, one thing that just encourages me is just the passionate leaders and the field. And these people that take their time out from their role at a university to want to better themselves better others to create improvement in their work for students, for their universities and for their communities. So I think that’s one key thing that came out. I think also thing that came out that we just discussed a little critique that there were some regions that the voice was from the more of the global north, and I think in some of that is because the higher education models are possibly like in the Middle East are a lot of North American, but we still need to find those local voices somewhere. So maybe there’s another way to get those local voices in the conversation, you know, because it’s okay to have a couple of associations, maybe a grassroots, maybe North American, maybe the UK, whatever. But I think that is something that I think I took away. And lastly, and this goes back to our conversation. It’s okay for us in the global north to want to share what we do, but I think better yet is to help others do research. So there’s locally relevant information information so they can get the context of their students so they can develop programs that matter to the students in that area. So I would say that throughout all of the regional reports, everyone mentioned research, specifically, maybe not not as much in the North America context, but I think that is something I saw. And oh, sorry, I forgot the social justice lens, maybe you could talk about that bear get that came out too. And the regional reports, just that we all share. The essence of wanting to there might be different things we’re working on related to justice issues, but we are concerned about that and want our students to be successful and graduate and have the skills necessary to be to compete, and be good citizens.

Birgit Schreiber
So just wanted to add something about, well, Keith, when you asked, how did we get all these authors, in fact, we had to turn so many people down for the network. So luckily, to some extent, Lisa, I involved in various networks, I’m involved in the Scott in the star scholars network in, which has got, you know, 1700 members across the globe, and really kind of, you know, across the globe, so it’s really, the global north is really a small part of that. And we really, are spread very well across the globe. And so it was actually quite easy to invite people, we put a call out and people came forward saying, you know, I want to be part of it. In the end, I think we had 25 authors, Lisa.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
I can’t even remember. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. 25. Yeah, maybe 30, maybe 30? Sorry.

Birgit Schreiber
No, it was a lot. And in fact, how we started also is we workshop, the book, we said, what if we want this book to happen, right? How do we cluster things? How do we do this? And so we came up with this idea of having first three in part one, so that the general descriptive approach of what goes on in the world? What are the issues? What are the global issues? And how do we map competencies and map standards and so forth? And then we go into the regions. And at the end, we do some critique some reflections on where might we go? What are the worries and what we need to watch out for? So it was quite easy to check people, I think,

Keith Edwards
yeah, what did you learn from all these different perspectives and things that folks offered Birgit.

Birgit Schreiber
Um, what I learned, which I haven’t mastered, at all, is to be more quiet and listen more. And I think that’s something I’m so bad at that because I love teaching, and I love sharing ideas. And, and I get very excited, and I do talk a lot. But part of what I think needs to happen is that the global South, needs to find its own voice needs to be really published and research and, and they need platforms, we need platforms in which we can share that knowledge. And for that to happen. Others need to listen, you know, and I think that sometimes is a very hard balance to get right. Yeah, so.

Keith Edwards
Well, today, today, we’re gonna you’re sharing and talking. So thank you for, for doing. I’d love to hear from from you both about you. You’re both immersed in this for decades. You’re involved in associations, you edited this book and heard from so many different authors and contributors and thinkers. And of course, now you’ve shared it, and you’re talking about it. I’d love to hear from both of you what you see in the future for student affairs and student services globally, what what do you what do you see coming ahead?

Birgit Schreiber
And you know, that’s a question that I would have answered differently, even two years ago, when we started the book, when two years ago.

Keith Edwards
it’s changed for about 10 years. Two years.

Birgit Schreiber
Incredible. Exactly. So what is, so in fact, what I think is going to change tremendously, is the influence of AI on student affairs, and how we do and how we support our students and help them develop towards socially conscious and socially just citizens of the world. So I think AI is gonna play a much bigger role over the years to come. And and I think the other thing that’s going to influence the discipline of all our scholarly thinking about student affairs, is we going to become much more transdisciplinary. It’s going to be because I think at the moment, we kind of rely a lot on the on the North American sort of model. And there’s, there’s a strong, beautiful, rich, you know, scholarship runs through the face. But I think it’s time that other spaces find their voice, and they will do that. And I think that that’ll they will emerge and they will assert themselves. Yeah, and I think that that’ll, that’ll, we’ll see more of that.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
I think that goes into Birgit get the third or we call it the third professional. The third. Oh my gosh, I just

Birgit Schreiber
pardon that say I think you’re referring to the third space. This is See you? There?

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Yes, sorry, I just drove Yeah, the third space. I think that’s a very interesting concept that came out through talking with our authors and thinking about the critiques that what we’re going to do for part three. And I think that’s very interesting. I think that’s going to grow this idea. And I seen it too, in my senior leadership that not just what we say our student affairs professionals are doing the work, we’re working all together, there is different domains, faculty taking on some roles. But again, this idea that students sometimes there’s student unions in different parts of the world, and they have a voice, and they they, and they hire the professionals. So I mean, there’s different ways that we have to think about how the work is and I think that’s going to grow. And that’s why I think to the specialization could be an issue, because I think we need to be generalist and work across the areas and use the different skill sets, use faculty that are psych in the psychology department, English department for things you’re doing. So I think that’s important to support students. So I don’t know that came up to me is something I think will grow. As we further

Keith Edwards
help me understand a little bit about third spaces. I started to think about that and social spaces and things like that, but how are you using that in this context?

Birgit Schreiber
I think Homi Bhabha, and Celia Whitchurch spoke a lot about that third space as being the intersection between the soul more formal spaces. So you’ve got the kind of leadership and management and academics and they meet somewhat in this intersection between be that, in that space, our student affairs professionals, the librarians, the knowledge management, the, you know, people who deal with surgery and funding with sponsorship marketing, residences, it’s that space in the middle, and that space is going to grow enormously. As universities become market ready, or they want to be competing, there’s a much higher sort of chance of being litigious past appearance, and so forth. So that space in the middle is going to grow enormously. And that space is characterized by hybridity, by ambivalence. It’s an intersection of various disciplines. And people in the space needs need to be very, very agile to quickly work at a very high level, but quickly also work at different levels. So it’s not just horizontally but also across vertically. So there is a high kind of pressure for performance and, and yet, it’s in quite an individual, invisible space. So that’s what this third space about, and I’d come from sociology and from space from ideas of spaces. But it’s nice to to describe this intersection here.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I love it. I’ve never heard that to talk about sort of, I’m hearing sort of the Student Affairs space sort of broadly defined. And we might even think about it, let x we might think about, oh, in dining halls, we might think about just sort of the informal learning spaces. And I love some of the language about agile and both super sophisticated, right, navigating students complex mental health issues, but then also putting the chairs away and cleaning up the tables after an event. Right, yeah, both and.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
And I would say to like crossing, you know, crossing units more like sustainability. We just had the conference, and panelists in Dubai. And we were working with sustainability faculty research on creating climate literacies. So I mean, all those things are coming together. So I think that’s going to happen more. And I do agree with Birgit, and I think it’s going to grow. Yeah.

Birgit Schreiber
I mean, just as an example, he said, It’s a lovely example that you bring in now about sustainable development. So the universities are more and more getting to report on the impact on the SDGs. And

Keith Edwards
people are familiar.

Birgit Schreiber
Very well, with the United Nations, you know, have put out what we the United Nations just simply facilitated all the nations coming together in formulating the SDGs that are that are sort of premised on the Millennium Development Goals. And we’ve got agenda 2030 people going to be familiar with these terms, but it really just means universities need to report on how they contribute towards sustainable development. And again, it is people in this third space that are going to generate these reports that are going to monitor our curricula really delivering towards sustainable development. Are we environmentally sustainable? And do we have a curricula that are that are aligned to these goals? And again, it’s people in the third space that monitor this and that’s a report on it and then perhaps do it?

Keith Edwards
What else do you see here as you look to the future, or maybe what calls would you want to offer? For folks who chose to listen to this episode or watch this episode who are really interested, I’m wondering about folks who are around the globe wanting to learn. I’m also thinking about folks who are in the US who maybe are thinking about moving beyond the US and looking at higher education and other places where maybe curious about that, what would you want to offer folks?

Birgit Schreiber
Lisa, so, you know, the one thing I’m thinking, of course, I want you to refer them to the websites, to the website, which, of course has a huge list, a wonderful list of global books. But again, books that are written by a set of authors from across the globe that use references from clubs across the globe, and that use data and evidence from across the globe. So those are kind of really, they, they, they Yeah, it’s more than just writing about internationalization or Yeah, so it’s really attracting international, a bunch of mixed people. And that kind of nice books come out of that. And so the website is full of that. That’s a one thing. The second thing is ever, you know, if somebody is listening, I would give advice and say, if you want to professionalize and advance your, your professional identity and your professional standing, start doing international courses, they are amazing courses that are outside of our familiar spaces outside of the UK, outside of the US, outside of, you know, those sorts of be well trodden and be well equipped and well established spaces. Those are great spaces. But I think pick something that is beyond that is new, that it’s fresh. That gives you a lens and experience that perhaps you don’t have at home.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Yeah. And I guess I will speak to maybe those that we still haven’t heard from Keith at very good, right, you and I talked about, we say that there’s some others out there too, that maybe we haven’t reached that are doing some great things, too. And we know it keeps keeps happening. We know that now recently, we know even before the book, I mean, when the book, maybe was during it or at the end found out there’s a Kenyan Dean of Students Association that we didn’t talk with, we didn’t get a chance. So I want to say to those that are creating opportunities for professional development, practices together exchanges, that to look at our book to look at some different models and and think about how they want to create their space, and the learning for the betterment of students, themselves and the communities.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, we were running out of time, and the podcast is Student Affairs NOW. So I always like to end with this question is what are you thinking? Troubling or pondering now might be related to our conversation by related to other things. So I’d love to hear from each of you about what’s on your mind now. And then also, if folks want to connect with you, where might they be able to do that? Go ahead, Lisa.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Gosh, one of my ponder, and I said a lot already. Yeah, I I think I’m still pondering this idea of research locally. And how, even with ISIS, I struggle like the International Association is, is how can we create opportunities or enhance opportunities to research and provide spaces or journals or things that are in that journals in the sense of Scopus one are, but like, how could we create opportunities for, for people to write and to maybe write comparatively and so forth? So that is on my mind? And, and, and then I guess, just continually being careful, the reason why I want to elevate the voices that are maybe not thought of even in my first years of my time as a professional working in North America, I never thought globally, but I want to make sure those voices are heard and elevate it, because I think ultimately, it makes our practice stronger globally, if we’re all at the table.

Keith Edwards
Right? Yeah. benefits all of us. Great. Yes.

Birgit Schreiber
So keep maybe we can just add a quick last thought I know time’s running. I would like us also to remember that all the good work we do is no good if our contexts are not conducive towards good student engagement and student living and learning. So while we work at our universities, and we try and prove our spaces in the universities, we must remember our students are contextualized they live in context, they live embedded lives, together with their families with their homes with the and together with all the social ills that often that then to live with, and we must remember that and that makes us social activists that makes us activists towards creating a world and a context for our students in which they can, you know, really engage and be authentically part of focusing on these studies show I want us to to remember also about the context.

Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo
Yeah. And Keith, I think they can learn more from bear and I both are I know, I got beer good on LinkedIn more. So I think we’re both on LinkedIn space. But again, we’ve done some things around the sustainability development goals that we’d love to share with others, because I think that ties more into thinking about the global practice of student affairs as well. And what in Birgit’s talking about our communities, right.

Keith Edwards
well, we’ll get some some of those links in the resources on your episode page. And we’ll get places where folks can contact you there. I really appreciate you both in this conversation. It has me really reflecting on how to elevate and give platforms to voices that that aren’t getting them. And also, it has me thinking a lot about in the US context, what we need to unlearn what things that we serve advanced that we need to question or think differently about. And really sharing resources is not always a good thing, right? So how do we share consciously an offer but, but also think about the context and let folks who are in that context, have the ownership and the agency around all of that. Been terrific, thanks to you both. And thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode, LeaderShape, and Routledge. 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 relevant today. LeaderShape offers engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find more, please visit leadershape.org to connect with them, or you can find them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and Routledge and Taylor and Francis is the world’s leading academic publisher in education, publishing a wide range of books, journals and other resources for practitioners back the administrators and researchers. They have welcomed Stylus publishing to their publishing program and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education, teaching, Student Affairs, professional development, assessment and more. Routledge is proud to sponsor student affairs now view their complete catalogue of authoritative educational titles at routledge.com/education. And as always, huge shout out to our producer Natalie Ambrosey, who makes all of us look and sound good with all of our work behind the scenes. And we love the support for these important conversations from our community. You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing. subscribe to the podcast to YouTube and our weekly newsletter, so you get the latest on each new episode. If you’re so inclined, you can leave us a five star review. It also really helps us reach more folks with this free, great content. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guest today and to everyone who’s watching and listening. Please make it a great week. Thank you.

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