Welcome to the CAL Blog!

Greetings from August – or more accurately, the start of our academic year! As usual, the summer has flown by. Every year I hear my colleagues remark on how incredibly busy summer feels. We wrap up the prior year as we start moving to the next. I refer to summers as “in-betweening,” when we concurrently put attention on completing some of those important projects that we just could not get to, re-prioritizing others, letting some go, and creating plans for new ones. It is a time for both reflection and visioning. We take stock of our successes from the prior year (including those that were planned and those that came about as a result of circumstances), and we do our best to learn from our failures so we can do things differently next time. We re-set our compasses in light of the past and in anticipation of the future. Somehow, despite our short “in-betweening” time, we are always ready for our new year. I like to say that one of the gifts of our profession is that we have two established times for renewal: our own special one, now, at the start of the academic year and one that we share with those outside of our field at the new calendar year.

Similarly, CAL has been busy re-conceptualizing who we are and what value we add to ACPA and our profession. CAL has always been the home for Association members who are thinking about student affairs professionals’ leadership development. We have our roots in supporting senior student affairs administrators (SSAOs) by promoting discussions and white-paper authorship on various burning issues that traverse functional areas. While we continue to consider ourselves an important space for senior level staff to connect on topics that influence their leadership, we have broadened the current lens for our work to include the focus on leadership development as it emerges across all levels, as well as all functional areas. We also see ourselves as advocates for building a generalist career that enables understanding across multiple areas in student affairs. In sum, we think about how professionals build their careers over time, gaining the depth and breadth of experience required of today’s higher education leader.

With this perspective in mind, we look forward to engaging you in dialogue about how we continue to develop ourselves, our competencies, and our careers toward meeting the needs of our students, our units, our institutions, and the field of higher education. We are rolling out our new blog-style format, where various members of CAL and the Association share their thinking about developing ourselves as leaders in our profession. Contributions include a question of the month, a section on “what to do when…” that explores various leadership challenges we face, perspectives from SSAOs reflecting on the development of their careers, and an exploration of members’ unique experiences and how those have contributed to their leadership. We are excited to share this format and these ideas with you. We trust that these ideas will spark conversation among us for how we can continue to learn from the past, plan for the future, and be our best selves in the present. Happy New Year!

CAL Mission Statement

The Commission for Administrative Leadership (CAL) serves as a resource to student affairs professionals in all functional areas, settings, and experience levels.  We contribute to the association in addressing cross-functional, current, and future issues in higher education, through programming, leadership development, and member engagement.

In support of the mission of ACPA, the Commission for Administrative Leadership is guided by the following priorities:

• To develop the capacity of student affairs professionals as leaders in the higher education landscape

• To promote student affairs professionals use of tools grounded in research, professional competencies, and best practices

• To promote a well-rounded, generalist approach within the student affairs profession
• To provide a forum for students affairs professionals to address emergent trends and issues in the profession

Francy Magee, Dean of Campus Life, New York Institute of Technology