I recently got together with a few of my colleagues from around the country that work in Student Affairs IT (SAIT), like me. We talked about some of the conferences we had been to recently. The two most common were EDUCAUSE and NASPA. We all lamented the fact that, while each of these organizations have different things to offer our discipline, neither one is very well suited to our needs. In other words, we seem to have fallen between the cracks. EDUCAUSE is focused on Higher Ed IT, but with a decidedly academic computing focus, while NASPA focuses on the discipline of Student Affairs without really knowing how to be technical. All of the NASPA events focused on tech so far (e.g., NASPATech) are focused on social media, which is related to SAIT as a service but certainly is not the totality of what we do.
Both of these organizations have made attempts to accommodate. For example, EDUCAUSE has the Student Affairs Constituent Group. NASPA has a Technology Knowledge Community. Even so, my colleagues and I discussed ways to make these groups more effective and accessible. Is our discipline so unique that we are doomed to be relegated to the fringe, living with a foot in both worlds but belonging to neither one? Hmm, something to think about for our next meeting.
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