The Q-List:  A Faculty Fellows Research Agenda for the Profession

Developed Summer 2009
Updated Summer 2010
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The Q-List is a project of the NASPA Faculty Fellows, which identifies broad lines of inquiry for the purposes of framing studies that are critical to advancing the profession and to understanding the students we serve. Although the Q-List is broadly focused it is neither exclusive nor reflective of any presumed order of importance. The scope of each topic is intentionally broad, yet admittedly not all important topics are part of this Q-List. Accordingly, the Q-List will evolve over time; questions and topics will be refined, dropped, and added. We expect that at least once every three to five years the Faculty Fellows, working with input from the community of student affairs scholars, will examine and update the Q-List.

The Q-List is provided to stimulate student affairs scholarship around themes or trends that significantly shape the context and conditions of student affairs work. The basic and applied questions within each topic area may provide strategic directions and hypotheses for advancing understanding and practice.

The Q-List is also intended to inform, for example:

(a)     Solicitation of research proposals
(b)     Priorities for NASPA Foundation research funding
(c)     Assessments of the status of current research in the field
(d)     Identification of areas of scholarship where data are limited
(e)     Design of targeted research symposia
(f)      Stimulation of new research agendas and programs

Finally, this work is an effort in collaboration with the NASPA Research Division and is intended to build bridges across the various NASPA groups, such as the annual conference program committee and association learning communities, as they pursue a shared agenda. We consider the questions that comprise the Q-List to be at the heart of our work in the coming years. The hope is that they will be interrogated and illuminated by student affairs professionals at all levels and influence the shape and quality of programming at the national conference. Thus we respectfully submit the following probes.

Returning Student Veterans
Student Mental Health
Student Development and Evolving Student Populations
Cost of Higher Education
Student Affairs and Community Colleges
Emerging Technologies
The Role of Student Affairs in Institutional Sustainability and Viability 
Globalization and Internationalization 
Social Justice
History of Student Affairs