Everyone in the athletics enterprise understands the concept of winning and losing.

Although athletics departments and student affairs offices on campuses across the nation share a common goal of educating student-athletes, the two camps go about it in different ways, which sometimes causes tension. However, panelists in the Association-wide session January 11 at the NCAA Convention in Nashville called “Relationships Between Student Affairs and Athletics” insisted that increased partnership between the two areas can only lead to a win-win for student-athletes.

In a move toward breaking down barriers and building bridges between athletics and student affairs, presenters representing both perspectives spoke candidly about the divide and offered strategies for closing the gap. The session opened with panelists posing three questions:

•         Why not partner?

•         What would be lost through partnering?

•         What could be gained through partnering?

Panelist Sarah Feyerherm, associate vice president for student affairs at Washington College (Maryland), noted that in many cases the link between student affairs and athletics is nonexistent. Feyerherm suggested that to achieve long-term solutions, both camps must institute structural changes and seek ways to work together. Meanwhile, fellow panelist Cricket Lane, North Carolina's director of student-athlete development, looked at common areas in which that could happen such as within CHAMPS/Life Skills, speaking events, codes of conduct and with search committees and task forces.

Panelists also suggested ways of starting the conversation between student affairs and athletics, such as exploring how each works students and parents, how each connects with student-athletes and how each can help student-athletes.