“The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is – not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.”
– George MacDonald, A Dish of Orts
What is ACSD Ideas?
As you may find by scrolling through the archive, Ideas is a body full of impressive scholarly insight from colleagues in a variety of roles and disciplines. These articles provide resources and thoughtful ideas (pun partially intended) to help enrich our work in the day-to-day of student development. Ultimately, we hope these think pieces have been and will continue to be relevant and life-giving to the profession as a whole.
We hope Ideas can be a space for you. A space that spurs on our good work by informing our perspectives, supporting our practice, and challenging our approaches. While we seek to inform, support, and challenge, there are four important principles to this body of work we think are important to espouse.
- Scholarly. Ideas serves as the scholarly blog of ACSD, and it is our goal that the product of it will be rooted in scholarly research that is relevant and timely to the work of student development. The scholarly works we highlight may be original research from scholar-practitioners, graduate students, or longstanding research within the field.
- Accessible. Research can be difficult to digest and apply with so many buzzwords, contexts for application, and barriers to accessing academic works. We want Ideas to serve as an accessible gateway into the world of scholarship, and one that can be read, grasped, and intentionally applied.
- Encouraging. We hope that as a result of reading Ideas articles, you will have a clearer sense of purpose and encouragement in our work. Although rooted in scholarship, we don’t want our articles to be so difficult to understand they mire us down; but instead, our desire is that these articles propel you forward by encouraging you to implement new ways of thinking, strategies, and goals in your day-to-day work.
- Imaginative. The world of education can often be cyclical, preparing for a new group of students, tackling keystone events, addressing crises and challenges as they come. One of our goals with Ideas is to help us think more imaginatively in our work, to dream about ways to improve our efforts of helping students develop and foster meaningful campus partnerships.
Who are we?
Steve Villalobos serves as the Assistant Director for Student Leadership and Engagement at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. This is my second year in this role and it has been the most exciting opportunity yet! I have the blessing of being a part of the shaping of college students’ life during arguably the most transformative years of their life. I am currently working on finishing my Masters of Business Administration at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor. I love continuing my education and applying it to my day to day work! My interests involve finding new ways to make students feel adequate and protected in financial, academic, and social settings. I have had the blessing of working towards my interests by building initiatives for this through our Student Life Department.
Alex Staup recently began a new role as Director of Student Success at Bryan College after serving in several capacities over the past ten years at Lee University. I am passionate about fostering environments in which students know that they matter, wherever they find themselves. I am also a student development theories nerd, and I am always up for a cup of coffee and conversation about it, higher education, spiritual formation, or life in general. Currently, I am pursuing a PhD in Educational Studies at Purdue University, and I have loved the opportunity to read and apply research, while also conducting research of my own. My research interests have included community engagement at Christian colleges and universities and college men and masculinities. Professionally, I’ve had the joy of working in student engagement, the first-year experience, and residence life.
How can you engage?
- Write. If you’re anything like us, the idea of writing for Ideas feels a little intimidating. Perhaps you think you’re not scholarly enough or you don’t have thoughts that are perfectly articulated. Welcome to the club! If you have any interest in writing for the ACSD Ideas Blog, we would be thrilled to work alongside you in developing a publish-ready piece. Even if you only have a partial concept or passing thought, we want to help you share those ideas with our ACSD community.
- Read. An immense amount of work goes into sharing thoughts and ideas and in articulating those thoughts and ideas in meaningful, succinct ways. As we seek to release articles regularly that are prayerfully approached and written with thoughtful consideration by our colleagues across the country, we would love to extend the invitation for you to read and offer your perspective and feedback. We think one of the most meaningful ways to honor the work of our colleagues and coworkers is by thoughtfully engaging with each other’s work.
- Share. Help us play a role in achieving the mission of ACSD to equip and challenge members to infuse their Christian faith into student development practice and scholarship by sharing Ideas as a resource in your professional circles. We would love it even more if you shared your own thoughts on Ideas and the ways it is equipping your work and challenging your thoughts.
If you are interested in joining us on this Ideas journey, we would love your feedback and input. Feel free to submit our ACSD Ideas Feedback Form here!
