Opinion: Should NASPA and ACPA merge?

Opinion: Should NASPA and ACPA merge??

One day, I was sitting in one of my graduate-level courses, and we were talking about the history of higher education. We started a class discussion about student affairs organizations, including NASPA and ACPA, and how they [NASPA and ACPA] once took an organization-wide vote to merge, and the decision was not in favor (Vote: 64% NASPA vs 81% ACPA, 2011). At first, I was confused: why would two organizations that serve relatively the same purpose, and same audience, deny merging? Am I wrong with the audiences that these two (2) large organizations serve, or is there something else that I may be missing??

The following questions are leading questions that are in no means intended to disrupt or “throw shade” at either NASPA and/or ACPA. My ultimate goal in student affairs is to make a difference — to break the status quo, to set the bar for myself, institution, community, and the student affairs profession. The questions are here to raise the idea of merging NASPA and ACPA as of September 2022:

1. Are the organizations’ too afraid of the years of effort that it will take to merge??
2. Are the organizations’ afraid that their leadership roles will be at risk??
3. More people in an organization means that the talent pool’s size will be increased, and “fighting” for roles to gain elevation in the organization will become more difficult??
4. Is it financial risk, for the organizations and for each paid board member, and a level of supremacy holding influential and powerful roles in the student affairs profession??
5. Will increasing the talent pool mean there are more professionals available, willing, and able to assist in committees, commissions, task forces, and working groups, without having to separate their commitments to both NASPA and ACPA??
6. Additionally, does this mean if there are more available, willing, and able professions on a group task, that the workload is lower on the individuals?
7. An individual may serve on an awards and selections committee for NASPA and then try to gain other experiences within ACPA. If the merge occurred, there would only be one organization to be of value to, and wouldn’t have to re-invent the wheel with duplicating roles.?
8. An individual may want to attend conferences for both, but financial, personal and institutional, may limit the individual from attending all of the conferences.?
9. Attending more conferences means more commitment from an institution, and an individual will have to leave work for more days.
10. An individual may want to attend an ACPA conference, but their institution is an NASPA school. Therefore, losing their opportunity to attend.?
11. For instance, NASPA and ACPA have different groups or networks of professionals within a certain scope of practice — NASPA uses knowledge communities and ACPA uses commissions.

Ta-da! This article’s intention is to highlight my opinion regarding a merge – eleven (11) years later after the vote, and almost twelve (12) years after the proposal. Throughout the following articles that I found, including a YouTube video and a presentation, my conclusion is that the two (2) organizations should merge. This would incredibly benefit higher education and student affairs and would not be a financial burden for institutions to be a part of. From my personal experience, paying membership fees for several organizations can get pricey, and hurts the bank account.?

After doing some simple calculations based off of institutions’ utilizing four (4) organizations’ membership, for membership in NASPA, ACPA, NODA, and AACRAO (based on a Class G size institution, under the guidelines of ACPA), a faculty/staff member would be paying $539/year and an institution would be paying $4,614.50/year. This is not including tax, if applicable. Additionally, if a faculty/staff member wanted to have additional involvement with submitting an article into an academic journal, according to Enago, it would cost an estimate of $3,500-$4,000. If a faculty/staff member(s) wanted to attend a conference: add registration fees, technology and other conference fees, travel, hotel services, etc.?

Is this practice equitable and accessible to allowing anyone to volunteer, attend conferences, and be a member? For volunteer leadership members who are required to travel for board meetings, summits, etc, is this feasible for only certain socioeconomic statuses, and those of privilege, whether the leadership role is paid or unpaid? Is it more fiscally responsible to have multiple conferences that serve relatively the same purpose, or one larger conference that saves institutions and individuals money? Within conferences, individuals would have a better opportunity to submit proposals if there were just conferences for the “New Association.” Instead of submitting proposals for 4 different regional conferences, there could be two regional conferences per year (per region), and be more effective than having a large amount of conferences. I would be curious to know how many individuals in student affairs are a part of both organizations, and how many individuals attend (in person) conferences for both.?

I by no complete means support the full proposal that was submitted in October 2010. I would support another joint committee. This would be a NASPA/ACPA joint committee composed of regional and national representatives, as well as regional/national board executives of both organizations, along with providing an opportunity for NASPA and ACPA members to provide feedback. Additionally, reaching out to those who authored the previous proposal, with additional information from the previous authors, as they have more information regarding the previous merge attempt. Lastly, I’ll keep this short and provide all of the resources that I was able to find on the internet about merging. The following is a list of sources that I was able to find:

1. Student Affairs Groups Won't Merge?
2. Of Visions, Values, and Voices: Consolidating ACPA and NASPA
3. https://multiracialnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/mrn-newsletter-fall-2010.pdf?
4. ACPA & NASPA Merge - Nicole Pepin
5. ACPA vs NASPA - Josie Ahlquist
6. 2 Student-Affairs Groups Vote Not to Merge
7. "ACPA person" or "NASPA person". : r/studentaffairs?
8. Higher Ed Live: NASPA and ACPA Consolidation
9. E-mail and Web Campaign Against NASPA/ACPA Consolidation – MistakenGoal.com?
10. https://uncw.edu/studentaffairs/committees/pdc/documents/101008_consolidation_proposal.pdf?
11. naspa | Old Soul Journal
12. NASPA | Professionals & Faculty?
13. NASPA | Institutional Membership
14. Individual Membership | ACPA
15. NODA | Membership?
16. AACRAO | Join or Renew?
17. AACRAO | Four-Year and Other Postgraduate Institutions Memberships?
18. What Is the Real Cost of Scientific Publishing? - Enago Academy.?