Path to Student Affairs: NASPA Staff Member Joseph DeSanto

In response to my earlier post, Path to Student Affairs, my supervisor, Joey, wrote up his story. Joey is the assistant director of educational programs here at NASPA.

Joey's path:

How did I get involved in student affairs? It's the people!! Much of the first two years of my undergraduate experience was spent navigating a large four-year institution looking for my niche'. Unfortunately, one of the things no one really tells you about looking for community in a major metropolitan area is that it can be expensive! At the beginning of my junior year I was eligible for work-study. That fact, coupled with a need to bring in more income, resulted in me looking beyond my then job as a employee of the local record shop into something more permanent. My mother (I am and forever will be an only-child) forwarded me a job posting for a mentor in something called America Reads*America Counts (ARAC). Within a short period of time I had applied, interviewed, and was working as a after-school 4th grade math mentor at a local elementary school. Math was never my strong suit and most likely will never be. You can ask my co-workers who see my handiwork on an Excel file! It was the other mentors and most importantly the ARAC office staff who kept me passionate about my work. The math was secondary.

As my first semester with ARAC continued I found myself spending more and more time doing homework, visiting, and consulting with the office staff about school, work, and life in general. Many of them were graduate assistants or graduates of what was to me an enigmatic field called "student affairs". Near the end of that first semester a position opened in the ARAC office recruiting new members and publicizing the program. Any hesitation to apply never entered my mind and the position was shortly something I was proud to call my own. My new role with ARAC lasted until graduation day and during that time period I found new challenges, opportunities and most importantly mentors. Many weren't mentors in the formal sense. I never asked them to be my mentor but they became so through the example set via their commitment to college students and practice of inclusivity. ARAC offered me more than a job. I gained role models both personally and professionally who opened up networks, challenged my thinking while simultaneously being authentic and compassionate.

There were other avenues that facilitated my foray into student affairs and higher education life, but the leadership and service experiences through ARAC were truly unparalled. The people - even more so. The relationships formed during my time there introduced me to student affairs and established a foundation for future study and professional life in the field.

Path to Student Affairs

I got my start in student affairs as an undergraduate. I had a rough freshman year, one that I jokingly describe (much to my mother's horror) as the year I dropped out of college twice. More accurately I transferred at semester and then stopped out to go to work full-time at the end of the academic year. As it turned out, spending a year working on campus was the best thing I could have done.

I served as an AmeriCorps Team Leader for the Montana Campus Compact at UM. I supervised a team of 10 part-time members who ran various poverty and literacy related programs like Habitat for Humanity and America Reads/America Counts. Although I was working full-time at the Office for Civic Engagement, the year provided me with the opportunity to explore what I wanted to do when I went back to school (despite my not-so-stellar first-year experience I knew I would go back). I was also hooked on student programming.

Upon returning to school the next fall, I signed up for a part-time AmeriCorps term of service. I worked as a service-learning liaison for the Drama/Dance Department and helped to build a course for advanced students to get them involved in Artsbridge, a national program that places art students in public schools to teach through their artistic medium. Aside from working with the students who took the course, building curriculum and working with faculty also proved to be intriguing and professionally satisfying.

During my senior year I worked as the co-coordinator of the MultiCultural Alliance at the University Center (UM's college union). This job provided me with the opportunity to explore campus climate issues, collaborate with staff, faculty, and administrators, and create programming that spoke to our particular cultural context. This work led to the implementation of the Day of Dialogue program which is still in its third year. My connection with the MultiCultural Alliance also included co-teaching a one-credit course called Intergroup Dialogue during my sophomore, junior, and senior years.

Student affairs permeated not just my 'student life', but my early professional life as well. I found things I was passionate about...and some things I was decidedly not passionate about. One of the cool things about student affairs is the broad scope of our work, as well as the many paths professionals take to get into the field. I would love to hear about how and why you got involved in student affairs. How did you know it was the field for you? Leave your stories in the comments.

NCCWSL

The National Conference for College Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL) took place at Georgetown last week. I worked a few days of the conference and was impressed by the turn out. We had more than 500 college women, undergraduates and graduate students, from a wide variety of institutions. I was particularly pleased to see such a large community college contingent and to hear about what women from two-year institutions are doing on their campuses. NASPA and the American Association of University Women (AAUW) partnered to put the conference together.

The highlight for me was the Women of Distinction Awards. It was awesome to hear from five very cool women leaders. The awards committee did an amazing job of picking a group of women with incredibly diverse experiences and identities. The student advisory committee members also did a terrific job introducing each award recipient.

On Friday, I led a workshop entitled Service and Identity: Examining the Relationship Between Who We Are and How We Serve. The participants in my session were very enthusiastic and willingly shared insights into their own core identities and how they'd like to see service grow on their campuses. I definitely walked away with a bigger picture of volunteerism on college campuses and renewed hope that we can do service in more culturally competent ways.

If you work with undergraduate women I highly recommend that you encourage them to attend next year. The annual conference occurs in June in the Washington, D.C. area.

Getting Started

Welcome! I'll be updating throughout the summer about my experience as a NASPA graduate intern. Hopefully I'll be able to give some insight into the organization, as well as current issues in student affairs. I just finished my first year of graduate school in the Higher Education Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and I graduated from The University of Montana (UM) in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in Cultural Anthropology.

So, why NASPA? As an undergrad I worked in the student affairs division at UM in a variety of capacities. I coordinated the University Center Multicultural Alliance, acted as Service-Learning liaison for the Drama/Dance Department, and took a year away from classes to serve as an AmeriCorps team leader on campus. Now, as a grad student, I work in the Illini Union Office of Volunteer Programs at UIUC supervising undergraduate student employees. I've had great experiences in student affairs and am passionate about addressing issues of access and equity on campus, so NASPA seemed like a natural fit for a summer internship in the field.

I'm looking forward to working on projects like the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL), doing some archiving (I told my mom my anthropology degree would come in handy some day...), and many more. I also look forward to hearing from you. If you have questions or issues you'd like to see addressed, please leave me a comment!