Student Academic Services, Gary L. Kramer and Associates, Editors, John Wiley & Sons, 2003
Reviewed by Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens, Center for Teaching and Learning, Otterbein College

As Roger B. Winston, Jr. points out in the opening chapter of Student Academic Services, "educating the whole person" has become a widely proclaimed goal in college and university mission statements.  And students, themselves, tend to conceive of their institutions holistically.  Yet many parts of students' experiences remain fragmented among offices and units that operate more like "functional silos" than like integrated members of the same body, intentionally coordinated to foster and support any "whole person's" education.  The result, of course, can range from frustration and wasted time, on the one hand, to attrition or at least lost opportunities for learning, on the other.

For faculty members as well as for faculty and organization developers, this comprehensive volume provides a detailed survey of current best practices in a wide range of areas that fall under the rubric of "student academic services"—everything from academic advising, to myriad supports for the academic program (tutoring, math and English labs, remedial services, service-learning programs, first-year experience initiatives, etc.) to the institution's infrastructure (registrar, financial aid, admissions, etc.), to student affairs programming.  It offers a compact look at the complexity and nature of many colleagues' work on our campuses, and it offers opportunities to consider where there may be gaps or opportunities for us to address together.  Finally, the book can also serve as a roadmap for possible future directions. 

In part one,  John H. Schuh, explores recent collaborations that have emerged between academic affairs and student affairs, such as service-learning initiatives, student learning communities, and residential programs.  In the interest of fostering deep and meaningful student learning, such partnerships have bridged a traditional but artificial divide.  As a result, not only have students' learning experiences been enhanced, but those on the academic affairs side of the equation have come to place more value on the incidental learning that takes place outside of the classroom, and those on the student affairs side have more intentionally worked to support and complement the intentional learning of the classroom curriculum. 

While part one of the volume lays out theories and models that support a strategic approach to student development, part two presents specific services and offices.  Each chapter profiles an individual unit or service (enrollment, readiness assessment, student orientation, course planning and registration, career planning, academic record-keeping, student financial services), yet the overarching goal of individual authors and of the section as a whole remains to sound a set of related themes:  simplification of services and convenience to students; cross-training of personnel to provide better experiences to students; and consolidation of resources and offices into an integrated system.  In most cases, new technologies, such as an on-line career portfolio system; Web-based services for individualizing registration and orientation information, and e-services for financial aid, can offer support for these goals. 

Finally, part three, in its focus on new directions for the future, re-envisions institutional relationships and practices with the goal of enhancing student success.  Joseph B. Cuseo, for example, identifies the first year of college as a crucial moment for students not only personally in making the challenging transition from high school, but also intellectually.  A proactive and comprehensive academic program for first-year students rests on a wide array of collaborations: among students, between instructors and academic support services, between academic and student affairs units, and between school systems and higher education.  It includes such practices as peer tutoring, mentoring, and study groups; "early warning systems"; living-learning centers, residential learning communities, first-year experience seminars; summer bridge programs, and other academic alliances.  These programs succeed, he argues, because they are student-centered, "intrusive," proactive, and collaborative, relying for their functioning on the thoughtful and intentional integration of academics and student academic support services. 

If we are serious about to educating whole people as well as being "student-centered," we would do well, the authors urge, to look at ways to build partnerships, to cooperate and collaborate across units, and to carefully plan students' experiences of the institution, in order to help create a sense of a "seamlessness" in support of student learning.