College Builds a Leading Program in Student Affairs

Explosive enrollment growth fueled a building boom on campus, producing the largest residence hall system in the country. MSU was not alone. As the baby boom made its way to college, higher education became a major growth industry. Beginning in the 1950s, new universities from California to Florida were built, and the demand for qualified administrators, ranging from student affairs to financial aid and housing, surged in the 1960s. The college was well positioned to ride that wave through its program in student affairs.

By the 1960s, the program, which traced its roots to the Institute of Counseling Guidance and Testing, had emerged as one of the best in the nation with national figures such as Walter Johnson, Van Johnson, Betty Fitzgerald, Max Raines, Eldon Nonnamaker, and Lou Stamatakos.

Stamatakos came to MSU in the fall 1967, after having served as dean of students at the new Grand Valley State University. He remembers clearly the amazing level of activity in the program. “You had practitioners all the way down the line in terms of the faculty. I think that is what gave this program and this department a tremendous amount of vitality, and a sense of realism,” Stamatakos said. “It grounded our program because you couldn’t snow our faculty with a bunch of baloney. They had been around and knew what was going on and were all still very active. They did not come here to retire. They came here to write, do research, direct dissertations, and recruit great students. I’ll never forget it. This place was a house afire, just seething with activity.”

Indeed, the entire university was electric, and the program was placing graduate students in assistantships across campus as student affairs began to change in the 1960s. In every office on campus that provided services to students—admissions, financial aid,

records, etc.—graduate students from the program were playing important roles. But nowhere were the program’s students more in need or more visible than in residence life, helping staff the ever-increasing system of campus housing.

It all worked hand in hand, Stamatakos said. The tremendous opportunities on campus meant that faculty could recruit aggressively with promises that prospective students would not only work closely with some of the biggest names in the field, but would also be guaranteed a position on campus.

A number of university officials taught as adjuncts in the program, and administrators of the various student affairs offices supervised and advised the students. In addition, the program would bring together all of the interns every few weeks in seminars with faculty to discuss trends in student affairs and higher education.

“You came in and took courses from the faculty, but you were also working part-time and learning the field from the various offices and those administrators,” Stamatakos said. “So everything dovetailed together. It was exciting. You felt like you were on a merry-go-round that wouldn’t stop. The university was crawling with our students. This university has benefited from the talent of some of the brightest students ever to come through this campus.”

Although it is impossible to know for sure, Stamatakos and other former faculty members are convinced that the program may well have produced more university presidents and senior-level administrators than any other program in the nation. Such was the quality of graduate students the program attracted over the years and the high regard other institutions had for its graduates.