We started at our own institution, and then expanded to the state, and finally the country, with a presentation at the NASPA annual conference in March 2015. What does it mean to be a woman in Student Affairs? More than that, what does it look like to be authentic as a woman in Student Affairs? What story do we have to tell, and how do we tell it? We began to ask other women what it meant to lead as a woman, how they negotiated the space of Student Affairs and higher education, and what advice they had for other women in the field. We were all at different levels in our careers, and navigating different spaces, yet as we talked, there was a connection around this idea of authenticity and our shared identity as women in the field of student affairs. This heady topic was the theme of a conversation that began three years ago, and eventually included myself and three colleagues, Gretchen Moore, Kelsey Taylor, and Jessie Ashton. As practitioners and student affairs professionals, we negotiate what this looks like day to day, and how we practice authenticity is shaped by our place and the intersectionality of our identities.
And these are great, as national conference themes.
We talk about themes of navigating with courage, working towards a common purpose, and being bold without boundaries. In student affairs we talk a lot about authenticity.
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