Exploding a Myth: Student Affairs’ Historical Relationship with Technology

Student affairs professionals are not technologically savvy, creative, or up-to-date. That’s the common myth, right? This myth does not appear to hold if one explores both historical and contemporary student affairs-related documents and publications, particularly the journals and conference proceedings of the two leading and historically important student affairs professional organizations, ACPA and NASPA. These documents reveal that student affairs professionals in America have throughout their history made significant and timely use of technologies as they have become available. First, let us note that “technology ” is much broader than computers and the Internet. From a very broad perspective, the use of tools and systems to help adapt to the growing complexity of the modern world has a long history. Some of the great scholars of the development of the information age, most notably Beniger (1986) and Galbraith (1971), have included organizational developments such as the committee, bureaucracy, and middle management as key technologies used to manage growth, change, and large volumes of information. Similarly, the use of common forms to standardize data collection, input, and reporting is another example of an oft-overlooked technology developed specifically to deal with complexity and volume. These familiar technologies are in widespread us