The Graduate Student Voice: Results from the NASPA Consolidation Survey

by David Daniels & Judette Tobes Platz
National Co-Chairs, New Professionals & Graduate Students Knowledge Community

 As the topic of consolidation comes to a vote by the members of both ACPA and NASPA, all members are cautioned to think strategically about the benefits and challenges of dissolving NASPA as an organization and starting a new association. As national co-chairs of the New Professionals & Graduate Students Knowledge Community (NPGS KC), we have received numerous emails regarding the graduate student voice within this process. Upon taking office last March, we made a commitment to increase communication from a national and regional standpoint within the Knowledge Community. When we realized that changing the by-laws to allow graduate student members the right to vote on initiatives such as the consolidation was not feasible, we began to think strategically about ways to reach out to graduate students. A blog was posted on the NASPA Consolidation webpage and we worked to create a survey intended to represent the graduate student voice. The blog has not seen much activity and as such, the survey was used as the main way to connect with this non-voting population.  The survey was administered from January 12 to January 26 and was open to all non-voting members of the NPGS KC.

Results     

Respondents represented all regions and range of years of experience. 73.9% of participants were full time graduate students in a Master's Degree program with 21.32% full time graduate students in a doctoral or terminal degree program.  Over 35% were professionals with 3 or more years of full-time experience and close to 71% were 1-2 years of graduate-level or full-time work experience. Close to 51% of respondents were members of both NASPA and ACPA.

Of the 547 participants (approximately a 17% response rate), 81.72% support the dissolving of NASPA as an association to pursue consolidation with ACPA. Respondents were later asked to share their opinion regarding the various aspects of the proposed new association found in the document http://naspa.org/consolidation/prop.pdf. Approximately 76% of respondents indicated that they had either browsed through or read the proposal in its entirety.

278 respondents answered the questions regarding the various aspects of the proposed new associations. Additionally, we asked to provide comments on the various aspects, concerns around conference attendance and participation, potential size of the new association, change of regional structure, less leadership opportunities and proposed functional areas were highlighted.  In response to each aspect of the proposal, 65-80% approved or strongly approved of the structure and governing aspects of the new association, and 15-25% indicated a neutral opinion.

Implications

With a number of voices chiming in on this measure, NASPA members are likely to be bombarded in the coming weeks with messages regarding reasons why they should vote one way or the other. For over 3,000 members of NASPA (nearly one-quarter of its membership), the ability to vote on this matter is a major concern. Should the vote fail and NASPA continues as an organization, a proposal for graduate students to become part of the voting delegate is necessary.  Understanding and having more awareness that Graduate Students have an opportunity to vote within ACPA's organization may have an adverse effect on NASPA's membership with Graduate Students potentially choosing an organization including them in major decisions over one that does not.

Next Steps

Over the next few weeks, we plan to spend more time analyzing the data in the survey results and to share more of our findings with our KC members the larger NASPA community.   As mentioned in the initial implications, should the consolidation measure fail and NASPA continue to operate as its own organization, NPGS KC is committed to move forward with a proposal to amend the NASPA membership bylaws, which would allow graduate student members of NASPA the right to vote on all measures as professional members. Given the sheer amount of NASPA members designated in this category, we firmly believe that NASPA and any association focused on education and lifelong learning of adults should provide full voting rights to members whether they are working full-time or learning full-time.