As we approach the ACPA Convention in Chicago and continue to celebrate 100 years of the organization, we are hosting conversations between members about what the organization means to them. Recently, Nancy Evans (ACPA President 2001-2002) and Vernon Wall (ACPA President 2020-2021) discussed their experiences. The following is a record of that conversation with two dedicated members, leaders, innovators, and champions of the work and mission of ACPA, student affairs, and higher education.
How did you get to where you are today?
Nancy Evans: I was one of those kids in college that was very active in just about everything, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in my life. I graduated with no career plans. I found living with Mom got a little tiresome after a while, so I decided that I’d better figure it out. I went back up to my college, which was SUNY Potsdam – yay Potsdam Bears! I love my school. Anyway, I went back up to talk to our Dean of Men. We had deans of men and deans of women then. I went to talk to him because I had been active in student government and he had been their adviser.
I started as Vice President and the President resigned at the end of the fall semester. So – lucky me! – I got to be the president of our Student Government Association. As a result, I’d spent a good bit of time with Dean [Paul] Hurley. I was talking with him, and it just kind of dawned on me that I’d like to do what he did. And so I asked him, “How do you get to be a Dean?”
Dean Hurley was an institution at Potsdam. He had been there for years before he retired. He walked me through the path. He said I’d have to go to school more. That was okay with me. I liked school. He said, “The best schools are in the Midwest, so look at those.” He gave me a few names and I ended up going to Southern Illinois.
I got into this work because of the kinds of things I did in college and because of a mentor – as I think many, many college students do. They like what they see somebody else doing and they ask, “How do you get to be that?” since nobody knows about student affairs as an undergrad. My undergrad degree was in social sciences with specialties in sociology and geography.
Vernon Wall: I was an undergrad at NC State – Go Wolfpack! – and I was also an involved student. I was an RA. I was an orientation counselor. I held an appointed position on the judicial board that worked with the Dean of Conduct. We saw all the cases before the dean did. It was cool to be part of that. My undergrad was political science. That’s why I wanted to be a part of the Judicial Board. I remember my junior year I was so excited because political science for me was about doing nonprofit law or supporting people in some way. I wasn’t thinking about criminal law at all. I was really thinking about what I could do for non-profits and community based agencies.
And then, one brisk October day, I went and took the LSATs, and walking back, realized I was never going to go to law school. I had never taken a standardized test in my life and had really no thoughts at all during that exam. It was that bad. And so, Francine Bruce was my hall director when I was an RA. And I remember walking into her office and saying, “I have no idea what I’m going to do. It’s my junior year. I’m definitely NOT going to go to law school. I need help.”
And she asked that famous question – similar to what happened with Nancy – “So, what do you like doing? I mean, what do you enjoy right now? Because you need to be passionate about something. It’s not just about your major, it’s a way of life.”
And I said, “Well, I really like what I’m doing now on campus, and I like my involvement. I’m enjoying that. I feel like I’m really gaining a lot of skills from that.”
She said, “Well, you know that there’s such a thing as a career in higher education and student affairs, right?”
And I went “What do you mean?”
She said, “You know I have a degree for this, right?”
I said, “No. I just thought you enjoyed hanging out with us.”
So that began my journey. Francine Bruce and Evelyn Reiman, who was my Director of Orientation – she retired a few years ago. She went on to be Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at NC State. Those two people along with Tom Stafford, who is a well-known Vice Chancellor at NC State were the three who shepherded me toward higher education, and I will always be grateful for that.
I actually still have a note from Dr. Stafford. When I applied to Indiana University and got accepted, he wrote me a personal note saying, “Congratulations. You’re going to make a contribution to the profession.” And to get that from a Vice Chancellor as an undergraduate student who didn’t even know Dr. Stafford. I knew of him from seeing him when he did presentations and that sort of thing. But we became good friends as I continued in my career. So that’s my story.
At some point you hear about a thing called ACPA and get involved. How did that happen?
Vernon: Well, this does connect with Nancy, of course. I did my master’s at Indiana University, and – quick story about Nancy. So I came up to interview for the program to interview for assistantships, and – full transparency – I was not a good student my sophomore year. I had a horrible sophomore year. Some of it was around coming out. Some of it was around being at a predominantly white institution. It was just a rough year.
I was digging out from that really tough sophomore year, and I met with Nancy and she, in her very direct way, said, “So. what’s up with this? Why, why is this GPA so low?” And I was honest with her. I said, “You know, I had a tough sophomore year, and it was not good.”
And then she said, “Well, I’m going to ask you to take a course in the summer, and if you make an A or B in that course I will accept you into the program. If you do not, you will not be accepted.”
So I was like, “Oh, okay.” She gave me a task. I went back and I was so excited I took – I had to take a graduate level course – and I took a graduate level course and made a B, and I was so excited. I have to share that, because it’s really important to know that Nancy is the reason why I’m in this profession because if I would not have made a B in that class, I would not have been at Indiana University. So I just say that.
And as a result of being there – we actually had a really strong faculty that were connected to both ACPA and NASPA, and so I always grew up in student affairs, not doing either/or; I always knew that they could both assist me in some way on my path.
Nancy, John Schuh,& George Kuh was there. They were both saying, “You know there are going to be times in your career where you may be doing ACPA or you may be doing ACUHO-I. Or you may be doing NASPA – based on what your role is on campus.” And George Kuh said, “Don’t let anyone tell you what professional association you should join.”
Well, my second year in graduate school, I’m going to both ACPA and NASPA, and I do remember NASPA was in Toronto – first time they ever left the country. And I drove my orange Camaro to Toronto to NASPA with Jamie Washington, which is hysterical. And then we flew down to ACPA in Houston, where Susan Komives was president at that time.
And I remember the visual of – first of all, walking into a ballroom of thousands of people who were in my profession. I didn’t get the profession thing until I went to ACPA. There were thousands of people who were interested in what I was interested in and talking about what I was talking about in class. And I was thinking, “Oh, you mean, people just have a conversation about student development theory, and they’re not getting academic credit for it?” ACPA kind of gelled for me that first time.
That was it for me. It was that first conference. I came back just completely jazzed about being in the profession and graduating and seeing what was going to be next.
Nancy: Well, for me it was a little different. I don’t recall my faculty talking about being involved – which is sad. After the fact, I thought, “I’m always going to tell students about getting involved.” But it wasn’t until my doctoral program that I learned about ACPA from my advisor, Dick Caple. He had been the journal editor and was very involved in ACPA, so joining seemed like a good thing to do, especially when my advisor was telling me, “Hey, you should go do this.” Dick was a man I respected a whole lot. He was a lovely man and because he was involved, I got involved. The first time I went, I thought “This is a very good thing. I need to be involved here. I need to be involved with other people doing what I do.”
My first place of involvement was the Commission for Professional Preparation because at that point I wanted to become a faculty member. That was incredibly helpful to me. To be around faculty and see what faculty do and how much work it really is.
Another important mentor for me there was Leila Moore (ACPA President 1991-1992). She was the one who really started pushing me to run for offices. I became the chair of the Commission for Professional Preparation later on.
Vernon: When I came back from my first ACPA, I was meeting with Nancy, and she was talking about involvement. Nancy mentioned the Commission for Professional Preparation, and the way she introduced it to me was, “Hey, here’s something to think about. There are no students on the commission and we don’t really have students involved, but we are teaching students. I would love to have you consider joining the commission.” So the first commission that I was involved in was the Commission for Professional Preparation.
And along with Nancy, Paul Oliaro (ACPA President 1996-1997), and Susan Komives (ACPA President 1982-1983), we developed Careers in Student Affairs Week. And now it’s Careers in Student Affairs Month. And then NASPA also adopted it. Eventually it left ACPA and became more of a profession thing, which is exactly what we wanted.
How have you seen ACPA change and/or stay consistent over time?
Nancy: What I think has been consistent has been the atmosphere – the sense of community, and making sure people get involved. ACPA has consistently emphasized that they want people to feel that they’re a part of something important.
One change is that there is a much greater emphasis on diversity, inclusion, and equity than there was when I initially joined. We did have the standing committees and that’s where all the DEI groups got space, but it wasn’t as infused into the whole organization as it is now with the Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization (ACPA, n.d.).
Vernon: I agree. For me the constant is that ACPA is so student centered. One of the differences between ACPA and other conferences is that at ACPA you can go to a conference for the first time and leave with a volunteer position. Access to volunteering has always been open. At NASPA that is not the case and they own it. You have to earn your time at NASPA. While that has shifted some, if you look at the leadership of NASPA you don’t see any graduate students and new professionals there – leaders are more mid- and senior-level, and the board itself is all senior level.
I will say, too, that even though, and I agree with you, Nancy, around DEI, and belonging, we did begin the conversations around equity and inclusion when other people in higher education weren’t. However, we have to own the fact that there was some gatekeeping at the beginning. The task force on race concerns, I believe that was the very first thing that happened in ACPA, when a group of Black – and it was only Black – professionals, said, “We have some concerns.” That’s how the whole category of standing committees developed.
We’d been doing some stuff, but we also had our struggle. That task force on race concerns wanted to be a commission, but the governing board at the time said, “No, we’re going to develop this new category called standing committees. So we can still hear your voice, but you cannot vote or have any sort of formal influence in the association.
I’m sure the people on the Governing Board at the time were saying, “We’re doing something.” You know – exactly what happens when privileged identities go, “Oh, you’re fine. We’re going to give you this,” but it still wasn’t exactly what was needed in the moment. But at the time I’m sure those task force members said, “We’ll take it.”
We have come up long way, but I don’t want people to think that we started off being this completely inclusive association. We’re still going through growing pains with Standing Committees for Women, LGBTQ+, and there have been growing pains as we’ve navigated identity and what it looks like.
Even during my presidency, we had a whole conversation around access and disability. You would have thought that we’d have done that years ago, knowing who we are. But it took that long for us to have really strong conversations. I commissioned a Task Force to move the conversation on access from a “conventions and events” conversation to an “association” conversation”.
What are some of the challenges you think we should be anticipating for student affairs?
Vernon: I’ve been doing some training after the multiple pandemics that we had. And there’s some reshuffling of responsibility in student affairs related to workplace satisfaction. What does it look like to be supportive of student affairs professionals in roles that are extremely time consuming? What does it look like to reimagine how we view roles all the way from hall directors to deans of students? We now know what it looks like to have a culture of folks who can work from home. We can’t ignore that. We’ve got to make sure we are listening.
When I was at NASPA I went to a great panel of senior student affairs officers who talked about, “If we don’t offer some remote work options we will lose people.” I was so proud of them; they were really focused on being committed to reimagining what work looks like in student affairs. This was great to hear because I’ve also read some articles from some other student affairs professionals saying, “I’m the VPSA. Staff should know it’s all about duty, and if they can’t handle it, they should reconsider this work.” No, no, no! I’m so glad we’ve got people thinking about new ways of doing and being.
And I will point out that Nancy did a literature review in the 1980s (Evans, 1988) on workplace satisfaction in student affairs, and one of the things she shared that needed to be done for us to retain student affairs professionals was reimagining the way that we look at our work. She wrote this in the 1980s, and I always bring it up. I just did a session for graduate students and they were all worried about entering the field of student affairs. I said I think things have settled down. We’ve got people in positions now. We don’t hear as much about vacant positions in student affairs. Of course, a lot of areas have sort of rearranged and some of the positions have been combined.
But Nancy talked about what is happening right now early on, and nobody listened. And now we’re back again, and I have to remind people that no, this is not new. We’ve been doing this. So yeah, that’s the big thing for me.
And the second thing we need to focus on would be continuing to be the voice of those that are silent around issues of equity and inclusion. I think that there’s this persistent narrative around having a “colorblind” society, and anti-Asian and anti-trans violence. We need to be the people to continue to have conversations. What I’m hearing from a lot of senior leaders now is, we need to sort of tone these dialogues down a little bit, so we don’t receive any sort of pressure or any sort of pushback from our federal government or from our state legislatures. The suggestion is that we should kind of be under the radar.
In reality, we need to do the exact opposite because we can still do this work in this current climate. I mean, come on, we’ve done this before in the midst of tough times. It’s just we’ve got social media now. So we know more about what we are facing and what is going on. So I just want to make sure that we’re not pulling back, but that we’re ramping up. This is especially important to talk about with new professionals because the situation we are in and the challenges we are facing are all new for them. You feel this sense of hopelessness, and I have to remind them that some of us have been around to see three versions of this. I don’t want to diminish the hurt that they feel. I just want to give them hope to say we’ve been through this before and we’re going to do it again. We’re a democracy, and you know the tough thing about a democracy is that change takes a while.
Nancy: We are in a place of asking “What can you do? What can you get away with doing under our current circumstances?” That constant questioning is really hard – especially for younger student affairs professionals. And it can feel like this is the worst that it could possibly be because our newer professionals don’t know any different. But for me, having been through quite a lot, it is still challenging. We have to figure out how do we attract people to the work – especially in some states where the climate around education is really challenging. And funding is an ongoing struggle we have to navigate. In student affairs our money goes to people, so cutting budgets means cutting people. But the workload is the same even with fewer people, so how do we make the workload appropriate? So our questions for the future are about how do we work in this environment?
Vernon: You got me thinking, Nancy, about the perception of higher education as being something that gives back to our world and our country. I just read an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education a few months ago. It said the perception from people in the United States about higher education is at an all-time low. Some of it is about affordability, some is about the arrogance we have in higher education. Some of it is related to politicians basically saying, “I don’t have a college degree. These higher education people are trying to be better than you, but I’m your voice because I know you.”
You know, it’s all this dynamic around access to higher education that we do need to think about. There was another great article recently in The Chronicle that talks about the way to increase public support is through college and university partnerships in terms of community action and community relationships. A lot of faculty typically don’t think about, “Oh, well, as I’m doing research involving the community as I’m talking about us and our successes. I need to talk about how my work influences the communities that we’re in. That kind of collaboration and communication builds confidence in folks, and higher education is not seen as a sort of faraway ivory tower.
Most people, specifically, folks from rural communities – they think we’re unattainable. That image is really being used by folks who want to win elections. And that’s the narrative right now. Instead, we should be talking about what we are doing in the community. How are we contributing and sharing that information? How are we being visible in the community?
What would you highlight as reasons to join and get involved with ACPA?
Nancy: I always stress the opportunity to engage with other professionals. If you’re only doing this work on your own campus, you can get pretty darn insular. Hearing other people talking about what they’re doing through informal conversations or going to conference presentations – both are really important. You can tell the difference between a professional that stays home and a professional that goes to conferences and gets involved in professional organizations. They see a bigger picture, and that’s important, so I push that.
I think, for the second year master’s or the doctoral students, I talk about getting a proposal put together for the next year. That’s a way to test your ideas and see what other people think of what you’re doing and saying. Get your name out there. Join a coalition because that’s a way to really dig in with people who are doing the kind of work you’re doing and have the interests that you are passionate about. For example, if you’re passionate about LGBTQ+ issues, or issues around social justice there’s a place in ACPA for you.
Vernon: Yeah, that’s it for me, too. ACPA is where you go for professional development. I agree with you, Nancy. You can tell the difference between someone who is not involved in associations and someone who is. And I’ve been on some of those campuses where I don’t even know the student affairs team or individuals on the team. They ask very different questions. ACPA keeps you current, it refreshes you. Sometimes you just need some ACPA – specifically the convention – to be recharged. That space and those people help us get centered and remind us why we do this work.
The other thing for me is the lifelong friendships. When I travel around and someone sees where I am… Well, I was just in Buffalo, and someone who’s in student affairs saw that I was there said, “Oh, can we have coffee?” Absolutely! With social media, we’re able to do that more.
I leave every ACPA convention with five or six new friends. We try to keep in touch with one another or visit each other during the year. Those relationships also help with the job search and help as you continue to move through the profession. I sometimes forget how many people that I’ve met along the way through ACPA who are still in my life – whether they are still in student affairs or not. I always say, “Once a student affairs, professional, always a student affairs professional” because you will, no matter what profession you choose – if you decide to leave the field, and if your life takes you in a different direction – you’ll still take student affairs with you.
What are some of your favorite memories from ACPA?
Vernon: I have one – chairing the convention for Nancy. That was a great memory for me. We had a great convention planning team. People were very nervous about ACPA going to the West Coast, because in the past they had not done well financially there. Well we actually made more money than they ever thought we would because we really did a really good job of, I believe, cultivating new memberships within the state of California. So that experience in itself – I was honored, that Nancy chose me to be convention chair, and it was just the entire experience was a pretty magical one.
That was probably the first time that I felt that I was contributing to the profession at a significant level. You know, I think we all contribute in different ways, and I enjoyed my time. On the governing board – I think I was member at large for a term or two. And I was involved in some of the coalitions and standing committees. But I felt that I was really giving back for that convention. Once you’re convention chair, you get to see areas of the association that you don’t typically see – like the International Office. You get to see all areas of the Association. And so that really helped me. That was huge for me.
Nancy: Ditto. The convention was the highlight. The convention was wonderful. When I was called and asked to run for President I said that I needed to check on a few things before I would say one way or another if I’d run. And what I needed to check on was whether or not Vernon would be my conference chair. That was the key thing for me. I knew I worked well with Vernon and that he would do a phenomenal job because he’s so creative. He just comes up with fabulous ideas.
Between the two of us we knew a lot of good people. We sat down and said, “Okay, who do you know for this?” and “Well, I have this person for that.” and “Oh, that’s a good choice.” You know that was really fun. And we had a great team so it was fun to plan. And then when we got to convention, it was so much fun.
When we weren’t expected to do well, the success that year was nice. And then we had people telling us, “Oh, that Long Beach convention – that was my favorite.” I’ve heard that a number of times and that feels really good. So that was probably my favorite memory.
But I have another one, that was much earlier. Back in the day, when we were trying to get information about LGBT issues out, the LGBT (I think those were the initials at that time) Standing Committee came up with this idea. I think Vernon had a part in this. We decided to do road shows where we would take information to campuses rather than people having to come to us. We got people who were knowledgeable around LGBT issues, we trained them on what we wanted them to present, and then a team of two or three would go wherever the people wanted us to come.
So, I got to do a road show with Vernon and Gisela Vega, who is a wonderful person. We got to do one at the University of Georgia, and that was really fun. Because I you know I’m an academic. I didn’t do much programming anymore like I did when I was a practitioner, so it was really fun to do some programming again and to do it with such talented people. That was a fun earlier experience that I keep going back to.
Vernon: And I will say everything Nancy did as president probably fueled me to make sure that we were going to have the best convention ever. Because I said, “We’re going to go out
on a high. I want her to feel good. I want her to know that her contributions to the profession – even at that point had been substantial.”
And she continues to deliver and give back constantly over and over again with her scholarship, and just with her heart, too. So I wanted to make sure that convention was perfect. And I was a little – I mean, I wasn’t really nervous, but I was definitely concerned about numbers. But as we saw the theme really resonating with people and people excited about being in Long Beach, I said, “I think we’re going to be fine.” And we were. We were more than fine. So yeah, I’m just honored to have in that space.
ACPA Presidential Reflections
Nancy: I had a hard time during my time as ACPA president. At that time, there was a lot of turmoil within the association and international office about the direction that ACPA should take and I don’t handle conflict well. It was a good learning experience for me though. And again, it was working with my convention team that made my presidency rewarding.
Vernon: Nancy’s relationship skills allowed her to navigate difficult times while keeping the association at the center and students and student affairs at the center.
Nancy: It’s hard to see it when you’re in it.
Vernon: The only thing I’ll add is, you did set the stage for things to happen, change-wise, two to three years later. It’s kind of like working on a campus where sometimes you don’t really know your impact until leave. And then you realize, “Oh, wait a minute. I did have an impact. In the moment it didn’t feel like I was impacting anything.” But Nancy set the stage for the future.
And then for my presidency, well, I’m professionally known as the Covid President, but I will say that I was lucky to have an amazing executive director and governing board, who basically said, “We’re going to navigate this. We’re going to come out of this.” It was not just COVID, but it was multiple pandemics we saw happening all at once. And you know I just love the conversations that we had as a governing board. We were, going to keep our members in focus. That was going to be our focus to support them in whatever way we could and stay afloat because so many nonprofits did not survive. Another thing I loved about my presidency was the collegial nature of all associations in higher education during that time. We all realized that if one of us went down we would all go down because we’re all a profession. I was so impressed because I didn’t know if people were going to be a little shy about sharing their struggles.
I met with Angela Batista and the NASPA board chair once a month to talk through what we needed to do. And I know Chris Moody met with Kevin Kruger as well. That was refreshing. If we wouldn’t have had that, I think that that would have been frustrating for me because we know that most of the folks who are part of NASPA were ACPA members at some point. Just because you become a VPSA doesn’t mean you don’t have ACPA, it’s still part of you – it’s still in you. And I’m always shocked when I meet a VPSA who I don’t know or who doesn’t know me. Not that they need to know me, but there’s something about this profession about being connected that says a lot about professional development. It says a lot about community and relationships.
What is the role of mentorship in ACPA?
Vernon: Nancy’s always been a mentor of mine. And I love how we began with mentoring. I did not know we were going to begin the conversation around mentoring, but that is really and truly why I continue to be in this profession. I love having conversations with graduate students and new professionals. And I think I got that from Nancy because she loves – she loved and continues to love her former students.
I can’t tell you how many people I have met on the road who say, “You’re also one of Nancy’s former students, aren’t you?” That’s the first thing they’ll say to me. I mean, that’s a badge that I wear proudly. And I think that there are many folks that are out there that do that. So I do want to highlight that whole mentorship piece. Not only us being mentors, but I continue to learn from mine. Every day, every day, every day, and even the words of wisdom of the ones who have left us are still with me in terms of thinking about the profession and doing that.
Nancy: I think that’s a good place to end because that is very important to me. One of the things now that I’m retired that I miss is I don’t have as much contact. How do you stay connected, because most of my connections and most of my friendships have developed from ACPA and from student affairs in general, but particularly ACPA. Being an introvert, for me making friends is the result of working together on things. For example, my connection with Heidi Levine (ACPA President 2011-2012) was through Leila Moore. Leila wanted to do a chapter on LGBT Identity development, and so she asked me if I would do that. And I said, “Yeah, okay, I think I can do that.” Leila asked, “Would you feel more comfortable if you did it with someone else?” She probably asked because that was still really new to me. I had done presentations, but I hadn’t written a lot at that time. I was not into it the way I am now. So, she said, I have a former student that I think would be a good person for you to write with.” So she mentioned Heidi. I didn’t know Heidi, but I was happy to see what we could do. Then I learned that Heidi was in ACPA and since then she and I have become very close friends, and that wouldn’t have happened without ACPA.
And then the people that I know were my former students. Most of my close friends were former students of mine either at the doctoral level or at the master’s level, and they’ve grown up. And it’s fun to look at them and think, “Oh, yeah, you weren’t like that as a student.”
Even seeing students I am not necessarily friends with grow into the profession is important. I’m thinking of one person in particular. I think she would admit she wasn’t a great student. She was always questioning, questioning, questioning. She wrote me a long letter about a year after she graduated and told me how much the stuff that I had taught her helped her in her first year.
Vernon: So look at you, Nancy. See what you did?
Developments invites interviews, facilitated conversations, and dialogues related to the history of the organization. If you are interested or have questions, please contact Michelle L. Boettcher ([email protected]) or Gudrun Nyunt ([email protected]).
References and Related Reading
ACPA, (n.d.). Strategic imperative for racial justice and decolonization. https://myacpa.org/sirjd/
Evans, N. J. (1988). Attrition of student affairs professionals: A review of the literature. Journal of College Student Development, 29(1), 19-24.
Hall, E. (2023, August 9). Confidence in higher ed is declining. But most people still think college is worth it. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Kelderman, E., Elias, J., & O’Leary, B. (2023, September 5). What the public really thinks about higher education. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Schermele, Z. (2023, July 1). Public trust in higher ed has plummeted. Yes, again. The Chronicle of Higher Education.