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Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession (Jossey Bass Higher and Adult Education) ReviewI just finished reading "the Green Book" from cover to cover in preparation for teaching my introduction to student affairs class for yet another semester. Clearly it remains the gold standard for central textbooks for such classes, though like any scholarly work, there is room for improvement. The editors surely had a daunting task of creating a comprehensive text for the first year master's student in student affairs, to introduce that audience to such a dynamic profession. They accomplished this task very well by gathering highly accomplished leaders in the field (one might say 'the usual suspects' for the most part) to convey their wisdom. The book reflects the prevailing philosophy, one might say world view, of the emerging profession of student affairs. This could be seen as an upside in that it does help socialize new professionals about the prevailing ways of doing and thinking in student affairs. However, the book does very little to challenge the conventional orthodoxy of the field, namely postmodernism. In fact, it barely even defines it. This indeed an omission from the previous edition where Robert Young took the reader through various schools of thought and helped one understand the difference between rationalism, empiricism, pragmatism, and postmoderism. As one who plans to use this book for years to come, it pained me greatly to see this material abandoned. The consequence is that people in our field become intoxicated by the postmodernist water in which we swim and fail to critique its limitations. I should pause to say here that the chapter that replaced Young's chapter on Philosophies and Values in the new 5th edition was, in my view, one of the strongest in the way of what it did contain. What is missing is more from the book (a chapter on philosophies and world views impacting student affairs) more than what is in the current chapter on philosophies and values.
The selection of chapter authors seems motivated by an insiders or emic perspective, reinforcing the postmodernist bent of the book as well. This comes with the strengths of having authors write about topics that they have researched in the past, thus theoretically providing a stronger review of that subject matter. The limitation this provides is that the chapters may suffer from a lack of objectivity. For example, there has been a great deal of criticism recently of the National Survey of Student Engagement, and further research published in the Journal of College Student Development regarding whether students are able to accurately report a self-reported gain. Such research undermines the accuracy of the NSSE. Yet, the chapter written about Student Success is written by the author of NSSE and focuses inordinate attention upon it. Clearly, that person should be a chapter author in this work -- but perhaps someone else might have written about Student Success who could offer a more objective, and critical, review of the subject matter in this chapter.
Some chapters were particularly strong. Gary Pavela did a super job addressing selected legal issues, Kezar brought Organizational Theory (an otherwise sleepy subject to many) to life, Komives did a bang-up job with Leadership, and Arminio gave a refreshing piece on Professionalism. Though well intentioned, a new chapter on strategy and intentionality seemed to miss the boat on helping student affairs professionals understand what strategic planning processes are like at their institution -- these processes are important for folks to understand regardless of their level in the organization.
On the whole, Student Services remains a great choice for a primary textbook for introduction to student affairs classes. There is nothing else on the market that comes anywhere close to its breadth and quality. Some years from now, we can look forward to a 6th edition!
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