In spite of the well documented growth of online higher education (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018), it is only relatively recently that student affairs and co-curricular offerings for online learners have been considered (Cabellon & Junco, 2015; McKeown, 2012; Stoller, 2016). And, these student support services and programs are rarely, if ever, grounded in an integrated model like Astin’s IEO, a foundational student development theory that explores students change and develop in response to co-curricular involvement. In this presentation, we discuss how as an instiution we've leveraged that student identity development theories in the context of online learning to support the whole student and improve retention.
Historically there has been little space within online higher education to think about student identity development. Online higher education has always existed at the nexus of both educational technology and distance education and much early work was done to make online learning technically and logistically feasible and also to establish its legitimacy as a quality form of education (Larreamendy-Joerns & Leinhardt, 2006; Moore & Kearsely, 2012).
The majority of online learners are adults balancing multiple responsibilities including work and family (Cercone, 2008; Covelli, 2017; Moore & Kearsley, 2012). Many are motivated to continue their education by career growth or potential career changes (Ruffalo Noel Levitz, 2017) and it has naturally been assumed that “busy adult learners” neither want nor need traditional campus student affairs services. Additionally, many choose student affairs as a career because they value direct, highly personal interactions with students and it can be hard to envision how such programs and services can take place in online environments.
The reality, however, is that online higher education continues to grow and we have responsibilities to support online students as full learners. In this presentation we share examples of theory and programming that utilizes foundational student development theory in an online contxt. We also discuss organizational culture shifts that allowed for this pathway, and what other administrators might due to infuse student affairs theory and practice in their work to improve student engagement and retention. In this presentation we will showcase examples of why online practice, must include identiy development, and furthermore discuss rthat while online learners access our institutions differently than residential students, they don’t cease to be complex individuals with identities and inputs impacting their learning, situated in an educational environment, who we want to develop holistic outcomes.