By Pam Watts
As leaders in collegiate recreation, NIRSA focuses on advancing student learning through inspiring active and healthy lifestyles; but, we are also committed to working closely with our partners in higher education.
Doing so allows us to share resources, learn from our peers, place our work in a larger context, and ultimately better serve you, our members.
NIRSA is excited to announce a strategic alliance with the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) to further our respective educational missions through continued and new collaborations on opportunities for our members.
Our goal is to add to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates that intentional “outside-of-the-classroom” learning experiences can make a significant and measurable difference in distinguishing college graduates.
NIRSA shares with NACA a core value in experiential learning, those experiences that are instrumental to the value of higher education take place outside of the classroom. The alliance provides a collaborative platform for us to create new education content through conference presentations and webinars, and incentive for us to explore opportunities for common research around the value of student engagement and wellbeing. NIRSA and NACA will continue collaboration on the Student Organizations Institute and the International Experiential Learning Institute. Through agreed upon touch points between organizational leadership, the alliance offers a solid foundation for NIRSA and NACA to intentionally partner over the next three years to create additional value for members.
NIRSA and NACA are committed to the profession of student affairs and to strengthening the value of student development. Together, and with the help of other organizations in student affairs, our two associations aim to work toward developing common competencies or shared learning outcomes for student employees and student participants. Our goal is to add to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates that intentional “outside-of-the-classroom” learning experiences can make a significant and measurable difference in distinguishing college graduates. This will not only crystallize our collective professional work as essential to higher education, it will also and more importantly give those students touched by our programs a competitive edge in their careers after college.
NIRSA looks forward to the growing collaboration with NACA and its members!
About NACA
NACA offers a wide variety of events, educational institutes, publications and networking opportunities for colleges and universities across the country. The Association’s programs focus on program planning, risk management, multicultural education, concert management, student and professional leadership development, student government and more. Through its website, NACA also provides students and professional staff with a number of online programming and professional development tools.
