By Tommy Navickas
"In the College Student Personnel Administration master's sequence we both study and apply theory—that way students understand what professionals in the field are doing and why they are doing it. Yet, I believe it is the combination of theoretical and applied knowledge that best prepares a student for an administrative position in student affairs." — Phyllis McCluskey-Titus, associate professor, Department of Educational Administration and Foundations
(June 10, 2008) Like many, McCluskey-Titus started college on a different career path than she ended it—and the switch from chemistry to student affairs can be traced back to a single occurrence. One day, after having a rough week in her original major at Western Illinois University, McCluskey-Titus' advisor informed her that she could make a career out of her then-part time job—a resident assistant position. Three years later, McCluskey-Titus entered the Student Affairs Master's Program at the same university. Through fate or otherwise, remarks McCluskey-Titus, Western was the perfect place to make her career change. The college did—and still—offers one of the best College Student Personnel departments in the country. McCluskey-Titus credits the program at Western for helping her to lay the foundation for a career in student affairs and prepared her to successfully pursue a doctorate in higher education administration at Florida State University.
McCluskey-Titus' focus for much of her career has been within the residential services field. She was the assistant director for residence life and associate director of University Housing at Florida State University. She also held professional positions at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse University. McCluskey-Titus began her teaching career at Florida State as an adjunct faculty at the College of Education's Department of Educational Leadership—she has been devoted to teaching in her field ever since. McCluskey-Titus is also the senior editor for the international Journal of College and University Student Housing, which educates her fellow housing colleagues on new developments in the field. McCluskey-Titus has served as the coordinator of the College Student Personnel Administration (CSPA) Master's Program in the Department of Educational Administration and Foundations at Illinois State for eight years.
When you ask McCluskey-Titus about teaching at the college, her eyes light up as she remarks, "Teaching is more about who I am than what I do." She says that she sees her classes as "3-hour workshops" and, from case studies to in-class role playing, McCluskey-Titus attempts to engage her students in understanding the challenging and diverse world of student affairs. As McCluskey-Titus explains, student affairs work, as practiced in diverse areas such as career services, campus recreation, student activities, TRiO programs, financial aid, academic advising, fraternity and sorority life, orientation, as well as housing, requires both interpersonal and administrative skills. "When you oversee these offices, many are run like small businesses. You are sometimes in charge of hundreds of staff and multi-million dollar budgets, in addition to expensive facilities," says McCluskey-Titus.
The CSPA master's sequence features a tight-knit student cohort program that enrolls only 25 new students each year. This allows the group to take the same classes together for both years of the cohort group, and McCluskey-Titus says that this "allows them to grow into professionals and colleagues together." McCluskey-Titus sees development from her students starting on 'day one' of the program. "They come in with degrees in all different majors, as there is no undergraduate major in CSPA, so the theories and material they learn are almost always new. Yet, the enthusiasm students bring into the program stems from their knowledge that they have found their passion and their calling in student affairs work." McCluskey-Titus notes that, "One common denominator is that our students have all been actively involved as undergraduates on their campuses. I notice the light bulb goes on for most students midway through that first semester when they realize why they have entered this profession and the difference that they can make in the lives of students on campus."
While McCluskey-Titus enjoys the exciting work her teaching position affords her, she plans to use a one-year sabbatical, starting this coming fall, to extend her research on teaching and learning between administrators and their staff and between faculty members and students in the college setting. During the sabbatical she will visit eight campuses to examine the experiences of students, faculty members, and administrators, in classrooms and in administrative offices. For McCluskey-Titus, the experience will be about more than the proposed research topic. As she explains, "Students have changed in many ways over the last eight years I have taught at Illinois State, and all the knowledge about students I had coming in as a practitioner has now become outdated." For McCluskey-Titus, the sabbatical will be a refresher course on the American student body at-large, their issues and problems. She will return to teaching the following year with greater perspective.
"All of my scholarship is applied research to make a difference on college campuses—I always hear from people who have used research I published or presented when dealing with situations on their campuses and to further their knowledge when making future decisions," explains McCluskey-Titus. Just as Western's program readied her for her future career experiences, McCluskey-Titus is committed to teaching and research that will make Illinois State's CSPA program one of the most effective in the country.
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