More Than a Catchphrase: What Do We Mean by “Centering” the Student Affairs Workforce?
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Part 1: Defining “Centering”
Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to partner with colleagues across the field through a NASPA-supported workgroup focused on what it means to Center the Student Affairs Workforce. Together, we have published a report, engaged in national conversations, and are preparing to release an implementation companion guide, with additional scholarship on the horizon.
As this work has evolved, so has my own thinking.
I have found myself returning to a simpler, more foundational question:
What do we actually mean when we say “centering”?
The deeper I have gone into the research, the conversations, and the complexity of the challenges facing our profession, the more I have realized that if we are not clear about our language, we risk losing the very purpose of the work. Before we expand solutions, we have to be grounded in shared understanding.
This is my attempt to do just that.
Returning to the Foundation
For decades, student affairs has been anchored in a clear and powerful idea: we are student-centered.
We design programs around student needs. We allocate resources to support student success. We measure our impact through student outcomes.
That commitment remains.
As mentioned in the Centering the Student Affairs Workforce report, we are also facing a growing and undeniable reality. Across our campuses, the people doing this work are navigating increasing complexity, emotional labor, and strain. Burnout is not abstract. It is present, visible, and shaping the future of the profession.
Which raises a critical truth:
We cannot sustainably support students if the people responsible for that support are not themselves supported.
This is where the idea of centering the workforce emerges, not as a shift away from students, but as a necessary evolution in how we achieve our mission.
A Working Definition of “Centering”
At its core:
Centering means ensuring that those who support students are themselves supported by a healthy, sustainable, and value-aligned environment.
But I want to push that definition further.
To center the student affairs workforce is to treat staff experience as a strategic lever for student success and institutional resilience.
It is the recognition that the workforce is not peripheral. It is not something we attend to only when challenges arise or resources allow. It is foundational to the health, stability, and future of our work.
Centering Is a Design Choice
One of the most important distinctions I have come to understand is this:
Centering is not about adding support. It is about designing for it.
Too often, we equate care with programming. Wellness initiatives, appreciation efforts, and professional development opportunities all matter. But on their own, they do not represent centering.
Centering asks a deeper question:
Are our systems, structures, and everyday practices built in a way that supports the people within them?
This includes:
How roles are defined and workloads are distributed
How decisions are made and whose voices are included
How supervision is practiced and how leaders are developed
How recognition, advancement, and compensation are aligned with stated values
How policies reflect trust, flexibility, and humanity
Support cannot live on the margins of the employee experience. It has to be embedded into how the work actually happens.
A Shift in Leadership Practice
If centering is a design choice, then leadership is where that design comes to life.
Centering the workforce calls for a shift in how we think about leadership itself. It moves us away from a purely productivity-driven model and toward a more human-centered approach that balances accountability with care.
In practice, that shift shows up in tangible ways throughout the recommendations, strategic options, and implementation tips in the Centering the Student Affairs Workforce report.
Centering Requires Intentional Tradeoffs
One of the most important, and often unspoken, aspects of centering is that it requires choice.
To center the workforce is to prioritize it. And prioritization inevitably involves tradeoffs, whether in time, resources, or expectations.
This may mean rethinking how much we ask individuals to carry. It may mean slowing down in order to build more sustainably. It may mean making decisions that feel different from how things have always been done.
Without these choices, centering remains an idea rather than a practice.
An Ongoing Practice, Not a Final State
Finally, centering is not something we accomplish once.
It is an ongoing practice of reflection, alignment, and adjustment.
It requires us to keep asking:
Who are we designing our work around?
Whose experiences are being prioritized?
Where are our systems creating strain instead of support?
And just as importantly:
Are we willing to change what we find?
A Personal Reflection and a Challenge to the Field
This work has required me to step back from complexity and return to clarity, to examine not only what we are recommending but what we are actually saying.
Words matter. Definitions matter because they shape how we act.
If we say we are centering the workforce, then our systems, decisions, and leadership practices should reflect that commitment in tangible ways.
So I will leave us with this bold moment of self-awareness:
If staff experience were the primary metric by which your leadership was evaluated, what is the first thing you would change tomorrow?
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