An analysis of student participation in campus governance as a contributing factor to student development

Student involvement in the management and operation of the institution of higher education is perhaps one of the most controversial issues on college and university campuses resulting from the campus unrest in the 1960's. Many university officials, faculty and administrators have ceded long standing and exclusive controls of governance to students.

The purpose of this study was to determine if student participation in campus governance activities was significantly related to student development. The study was important in approaching identification of the characteristics of students who participate in the governance process and to identify specific activities in the campus environment which enable students to master the developmental tasks isolated as factors of student development.

The Student Development Task Inventory (SDTI) is a measure of a student's mastery of nine (9) developmental tasks. The Inventory was completed by sixteen (16) students who participate in campus governance activities at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) in Washington, D.C. and twenty-one (21) students who do not so participate, before and after one semester at UDC. The students were matched on the bases of sex, age, marital status, classification and major.

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to compute Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) of the dependent variable (development as measured by the post-test scores of the SDTI) by each of the independent variables (sex, age, major, classification, previous experience in decision-making, and participation in governance activities at UDC) with each dependent variable pre-test score as a covariable. Since norm data were not provided on the SDTI, a Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) procedure was used to produce a grand mean score for the dependent variable with covariables and the independent variables.

The ANCOVA procedure showed that differences in the two groups existed prior to the analysis. The correlation did account for a significant relationship between the dependent and independent variables in three (3) developmental tasks: Developing Instrumental Autonomy, Developing Intimate Relationships with the Opposite Sex, and Developing Mature Life-Style Plans. The students who participate in governance activities showed more development than their counterparts on only four (4) of the nine (9) tasks: Emotional Autonomy, Appropriate Educational Plans, Instrumental Autonomy, and Mature Career Plans.

The data strongly suggest that the characteristics of the urban, non-traditional student may make the SDTI invalid for use with this population. The Inventory was validated on a traditional student population (campus residents, 18-23 years of age, predominantly suburban or rural, single, dependent upon parents for financial support). The UDC student profile (Spring 1979) indicates its students are distinct from traditional students (they dwell in the city, are 24 and older, predominantly urban, 61 percent are single, 20 percent are married, they are employed full- or part-time and are self-supporting).

The principal finding of the study was that student participation in campus governance activities is significantly related to student development on some developmental tasks, and not significantly related on others. Though the treatment of black liquor to remove lignin and production of carboxylated lignin for copolymerization seem practical, the microbial treatment of lignin in general is economically unattractive at present.