The Day After..

Wow. Wow. That’s what kept going through my mind last night. First the wow was that the organizations' votes were split and that NASPA was not going to unify, and the second and bigger wow was the conversation and polarization of the organizations that took place through social media following the announcement.

As some of you know, I had voted against the merger as I was concerned that we would spend so much time focusing on “how to make it work” that we would not focus on what I believe is important, specifically, improving ourselves as professionals so that we can better serve our students.
A bit of information on the vote if you haven’t seen it elsewhere:

NASPA
42% of eligible voters cast a ballot
62% voted in favor – did not meet the legally required 2/3 majority

ACPA
42% of eligible voters cast a ballot
81% voted in favor

A number of colleagues have asked if those numbers where going to be broken down any further (region, voter category, etc.) and the answer is no. The vote has been cast, and while I understand the desire to see who and what, I don’t think that it does either organization a service see that. Those numbers have not been shared with me, and the NASPA Board has agreed to not ask for a breakdown of our voters.

While there were many conversations that I was involved with between colleagues on the phone and through e-mail, which I have to guess is only the tip of the iceberg, there was one area where the comments were for public broadcast.  In case you missed it, last night’s response on the #NASPACPA Twitter stream was a mixed bag and ranged from

Funny
@AngrySAGuy Perhaps the #NASPACPA consolidation was voted down because we didn't use the right icebreakers? #studentaffairs

To interesting:
@heathergasser Inviting #NASPA colleagues who voted 4 #NASPACPA, Join ACPA, the association that will be THE uniting voice for the profession.

To polarizing
@gigglingone Oooooh, the partisan politics are starting already.... RT @ACPA ACPA proudly chose to unite, NASPA did not #ACPAvote #NASPACPA

As you might imagine, this is something that I had found frustrating, and maybe it’s simply because I HATE politics when it comes to voting or because I think that we wouldn’t approve of that behavior from our students, just not sure.

Moving forward:
As a region, we need to be addressing the needs of our group. Maybe the most telling tweet for me last night was from @cindykane Low voter turnout for #NASPACPA vote makes me think engagement of membership needs to be a focus for both associations. As a result I will be working with the Region IV-West Advisory Board to survey all of our members about strategic plans and initiatives as we move forward as a strong and vibrant region.

Please watch your e-mails and remember: @Kristendom I think we need to remember that WE are the ones that make up #NASPA and #ACPA - we need to make the effort to not polarize #NASPACPA and @JoeGinese Time to call it a night. Thanks for the convos tonight everyone. Regardless of acronyms we are all a part of student life.