Week 6: Partnerships and Collaboration in Student Affairs, Week 6 Assignment: Partnership Plan

Introduction
Student affairs professionals are increasingly required to engage in partnerships with academic affairs and external organizations to improve student success. For example, how can an academic advisor help student from foster care with a lack of housing over the holiday break when the dorms are closed? One option is to reach out to a community-based organization for support. Colleges are increasing engagement in cross-sector collaboration to improve student outcomes.

Activity Instructions

In this activity, review the “Action Steps” outlined by Kezar and Gerhke in Chapter 21 of the textbook. The action steps include:

1. Start with a Problem and Success Area
2. Leadership for Success, Top-Down, and Bottom-Up
3. Attend to Culture, People, and Planning
4. Sustaining Partnerships

For this assignment, design a partnership between student affairs and an external organization such as faculty in an academic department, the college’s business office, a community-based organization, or another institution of higher education. Design the partnership using Kezar and Gerhke’s action steps by identifying the problem and success areas, considering the top-down and bottom-up leadership issues, discuss the culture, people, and planning and describe how you would sustain the partnership. Use Chapters 21-24 to anticipate some of the issues with your partnership and inform the design.

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Writing Requirements (APA format)

4 pages (approx. 300 words per page), not including title page or references page
1-inch margins
Double spaced
12-point Times New Roman font
Title page with topic and name of student
References page