| Collaborations between academic affairs and student affairs have become a focus for higher education research and practice. The literature reveals that these partnerships can improve student retention and academic success by creating enriched learning environments that promote active engagement in academic work. Collaborative initiatives include residential learning communities, first-year experience programs, and service learning among others.The success of collaborative initiatives may depend, in large part, on the ability of student affairs professionals to become effective partners with academic affairs in institutional decision making. This study examined the organizational context for collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs within a national sample of two-year public community colleges. Specifically, the study explored the relationship between this form of collaboration and several dimensions of organizational systems, including external environments, organizational structure, human relations, organizational culture, and organizational power.A survey instrument was designed for this study to gather institutional data from a national sample of 300 community colleges. The respondents for this study were chief academic affairs officers and chief student affairs officers at the selected institutions. The independent variables for this study were external control, external partnership frequency, centralization, internally focused communication, satisfying work environment, organizational politics, and market, collegial, political, and developmental cultures in community colleges.The four key findings from the regression analysis were that centralized organizational structures have a negative relationship with collaboration, while external partnership frequency, a satisfying work environment, and market, collegial, and developmental cultures had a positive relationship with collaboration. Based on these findings, the four recommendations from the study were to promote external partnerships and support internal team planning, decentralize decision-making structures, improve equity and rewards in the work environment, and de-politicize the organizational culture. |
