CAS Standards and Historical Thinking: Enhancing Curriculum and Practice in Student Affairs Education

• In Event: We Did Not “Fall Out of a Coconut Tree”: Fostering Historical Thinking Within Higher Education Graduate Programs

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine how the CAS Standards support historical thinking and how these standards facilitate the broad integration of historical thinking into curriculum and practice. For over forty years, CAS has mirrored the evolution of student affairs, offering guidelines for the continuous improvement and assessment of programs and services through the most comprehensive set of standards in student affairs practice (Gordon, 2023; Henning & Roberts, 2024; Schuh et al., 2016). As a consortium, CAS includes over 40 member associations, creating a vast network of student affairs and higher education entities. The first set of CAS standards and guidelines were published after fifteen years of collaborative efforts by various groups to establish standards of practice, professional preparation, and guidelines for program and service delivery (CAS, 1986).

Perspective/Theoretical Framework

Historical thinking is a cognitive process that involves critically engaging with the past by analyzing and interpreting historical sources, understanding the context of historical events, and recognizing the complexity of historical narratives. It requires moving beyond the memorization of facts and dates to develop a deeper understanding of history through various analytical skills (Wineburg, 1999).

Methods and Preliminary Results

This study utilized a combination of content analysis and document analysis to examine how the CAS standards support historical thinking. The documents analyzed included seminal student affairs texts, all eleven editions of the CAS standards, learning outcomes, and articles discussing the application of the CAS standards. These documents were coded and analyzed using the big six framework of historical thinking (Seixas & Morton, 2013).

Initial findings indicate that CAS has supported historical thinking from its inception, with this support only growing stronger over time. Historical thinking is embedded in learning and development outcomes, contextual statements, general standards, and is particularly evident in the master’s level higher education and student affairs professional preparation programs standards and guidelines, as well as in the steps of the self-study process.

Scholarly Significance

As the field of student affairs becomes more complex and the call for accountability intensifies, it is vital that we ground our practices and clearly demonstrate their influence on student success and development. Since student learning is at the heart of higher education, our focus must be on the observable and measurable actions that students display after interventions, learning experiences, or graduation (Roberts & Biddix, 2021). Historical thinking provides a framework that cuts across curriculum areas, competencies, standards, and practices, creating an interconnected structure through which both students and staff can achieve higher levels of critical thinking. Engaging in historical thinking is crucial for both students and practitioners to meet the standards and develop within the competency areas. This type of thinking is not only integral to various competency areas and standards, but it is also a daily practice. The capacity to critically analyze documents in alignment with historical thinking principles is embedded within the standards and associated documents.

Author

• Jen Wells, Kennesaw State University