Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol 49, No. 1 - 49

NACE Competencies Within Collegiate Residential Life
developmental intent, they may shift focus toward achieving a business end or departmental
goal (Blimling, 2015). It is important for housing and residence life departments
to revisit their goals with an eye toward aligning their business practices with
their philosophical approach. As our participants recommend, explicit articulations of
why a process exists and its contribution to student learning on each form or process
could aid in student development of NACE competencies.
There is a difference between utilization of a skill and development of a skill,
according to our participants, and this is an important distinction within the residential
experience. The higher education literature emphasizes skill utilization within
contexts like student employment (Anderson et al., 2018) and internships abroad
(Feldman & Bolino, 2000). The distinction between utilization and development
(Heard et al., 2020) is especially important for higher education educators, researchers,
and assessment professionals, and emphasizing the distinction in an interview
protocol or within assessments can help explore where growth or development might
be occurring rather than just whether or not an existing skillset is being utilized.
While not discussed in the findings, students, at times, were confused about how
the NACE competencies apply to a residential life setting. Although they understood
the idea of the competencies, they had a hard time understanding how they apply
to their experience in a tangible way-and they often asked for clarification. When
prompted about the career management competency, one student asked, " I'm still
unclear of what you mean by that. Can I have an example of career management? "
Students would benefit from the competency descriptors being more practical than
theoretical so they can understand how the competency plays a part in their college
experience.
IMPLICATIONS
Higher Education Professionals
Recent scholarship shows that a residential setting can provide purposeful spaces
for student learning (Graham et al., 2018). Professionals can evaluate their programming
models against NACE competencies in order to ensure that residents have opportunities
to develop and utilize their skills. For example, a facilitated program on
résumé building, where residents are asked to reflect on their time in residence life as
a means of articulating various competency development on their résumé, would
be extremely valuable. As cited in our literature review and as expressed by participants
in this study, the organic interactions between peers-the virtue of living on
campus-is an impactful experience for students. It is important to consider how
residence life professionals are documenting learning that occurs in these organic
spaces with an eye toward reflection on NACE competency development. Furthermore,
housing and residence life programs can leverage business processes such as
room changes, roommate conflicts, and work order submissions to also explicitly
connect their usage to competency development.
46 The Journal of College and University Student Housing

Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol 49, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol 49, No. 1