Running head: DIRECTOR OF UNDERGRADUATE AFFAIRS

A Day with the Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs

Daniel Lee Bickham

Louisiana State University

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A Day with the Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs

This shadowing practicum took place over the course of five hours on Friday, August 10,

2018, at George Mason University’s College of Science in Fairfax, Virginia. From approximately

10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. I spent the day with Assad Khan, a seventeen year veteran staff member

of George Mason University. Mister Khan currently serves as the College of Science’s Director of

Undergraduate Student Affairs, a suitably encompassing title for one person taking on such a vast

array of roles and responsibilities.

Background

The Institution. Founded in 1972 and named after one of the nation’s founding fathers,

George Mason University (GMU) is a 4-year, public, Division I school that currently serves over

34,000 combined graduate and undergraduate students. The relatively young GMU is home to ten

schools and colleges, offering multiple doctoral level programs (George Mason University, 2018).

Situated just outside the Washington D.C. metropolis, GMU’s Patriot basketball team famously

made a name for itself in 2006, making their way into the NCAA Final Four, beating the number

one seeded University of Connecticut and placing GMU on the proverbial collegiate map (Vander

Voort, 2016). However, as highlighted in one of my conversations with Director Khan, the

institution was concurrently christened as a “commuter school” by some of the local and major

news outlets (2018). As a result, the former president of GMU ignited a focus on GMU’s

residential housing program, resulting in the university currently having the second largest

residential housing program in the commonwealth of Virginia (Khan, A., 2018). This university,

with diversity as one of its core values and a student body comprised of individuals from more

than 130 countries (George Mason University, 2018), was a nice surprise to discover right in my

own Northern Virginia backyard.

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The Student Affairs Professional. Assad Khan began his undergraduate career as a West

Virginia University (WVU) Mountaineer. There, he found a passion for radio at the school’s own

broadcasting station. This role would serve him well throughout his career, as he now continues to

moonlight as a successful radio DJ at the major rock station of the National Capital Region,

DC101, where he is more familiarly known as “Khan”. Director Khan is a proud parent of a five-

month old, and it is clear from the walls of his office that he is equally proud of the students he

has helped throughout his career. The director attended graduate school at the very university

which he has now served for the better part of twenty years, GMU. In one of our many

conversations throughout the day he let me know that his master’s degree is his greatest academic

accomplishment, citing the unlikelihood of it ever happening and his overcoming multiple reasons

that it might not have (Khan, 2018).

Narrative

Meeting. Arriving on GMU’s scenic retreat of a campus, hidden from the normal hustle

and bustle of the Northern Virginia suburbs, I called Director Khan to let him know that I was

there. Dealing with the frequent renovations that are commonplace for many college facilities,

Mister Khan guided me to his makeshift office in one of the College of Science’s lounge areas. It

was appropriately strewn with square tables, labeled with various elements from the periodic table,

and above our heads were the arranged fossils of a prehistoric whale, on loan from the Smithsonian

Institute. With it being summer, I could instantly tell that I had overdressed for the occasion. I had

worn a fitted blue-blazer, sporting the colors of Louisiana State University on my tie and lapel.

Mister Khan was more appropriately wearing his own colors, green and gold, in the form of a

GMU polo, which would better serve him throughout the day’s activities. Nevertheless, in the

truest sense of collegiality, he made me feel right at home as a visiting graduate student.
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An Atypical Day. As a result of both the building-renovations and the time of year, I ended

up experiencing somewhat of an irregular day in the life of the Director of Undergraduate Student

Affairs. Regardless, Director Khan went out of his way to make sure I knew what would

“normally” be going on whenever we strayed from a more-typical day. He argues that “it takes

someone who can quickly go from one thing to another to be successful at this job” (Khan, A.,

2018). The day began with e-mails, an aspect that he noted could become overwhelming if

someone lets it, as it takes up a large part of his time, and is why he does not connect his work e-

mail account to his phone. He noted that, “you have to have a cut off, and for me it’s when I leave

the office” (Khan, A., 2018). It was also clear from our conversation that he did not hold “regular”

office hours, staying as long as need be to fulfill the many duties of his multifaceted position.

His position holds numerous unlisted obligations. Director Khan represents the College of

Science on multiple committees, attends frequent events, and deals with situations that are simply

unforeseeable to list as a possible responsibility. In fact, Director Khan made it clear that most of

his time is spent dealing with departmental level exceptions for students (e.g. a student is

prohibited from taking a class due to an unfulfilled prerequisite, a student is transferring a course

from another institution for which there is no equivalent at GMU, a student’s GPA is not where it

needs to be in order to do what needs to be done to graduate, etc.). We were not able to do much

of this, again due to renovations, but also in light of the sensitive confidentiality of students’

records. However, we did review hypothetical scenarios at length.

Director Khan adamantly expressed the importance of interdepartmental cooperation. After

bringing up situations in which departments might find themselves in competition for resources or

fighting to prove their own importance, he stressed the benefits of getting past this and working

together for the good of the students. For his part in advising undergraduate science majors, this
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type of collegiality and reciprocity has been able to help students on multiple occasions. Although

his title is more broad-stroke, as Director of Undergraduate Affairs for the College of Science, one

of his key roles is that of a departmental advisor. As such, Director Khan notes that he frequently

works closely with the Office of the Registrar, while other departments like New Student

Orientation have posited the argument that they might be better suited to absorb his advising roles.

Director Khan does not let this bring him down, rather he rises to the challenge, taking on roles

“higher than [his] paygrade” (Khan, A., 2018). In addition to what has already been discussed, he

also teaches a freshman seminar each semester, acquainting the students with GMU, instilling

certain success skills that may be novel in concept to incoming freshmen/transfer-students. Assad

Khan is most assuredly an invaluable piece of the GMU community.

Looking Back Fondly. In the short five hours spent at GMU Director Khan was able to

show where he really shined. It just so happened that GMU was hosting an on-campus event that

day for rising high-school juniors from all over the country. In a fashion that I was similar to from

my days in Res-Life and Career Services, Assad and I set up a table. This time, the table was for

the College of Science and the colors were an unfamiliar green and gold, but my passion was

reignited. Following a delicious backyard barbeque style luncheon, I observed the director at work.

With a steadfast tenacity, Director Khan answered questions from what seemed like an endless

line of students and parents. The questions were oftentimes similar and most had even just been

answered for the student with whom he had just spoken, but he maintained the same level of

openness and sincerity throughout the two hours this went on. This type of event was clearly not

one that took place every day, but it was one in which the director’s skills shone brightly.

On our way back to the College of Science, I could feel the day was coming to an end. I

took in as much of the campus as I could in our short stroll as Director Khan and I discussed our
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mutual affinity for GMU’s current president, Ángel Cabrera, a dynamic leader who we both follow

on social media. This time we sat down in the main lobby of the College of Science, as Director

Khan would be finishing up his day with some of the previously mentioned sensitive matters. We

discussed any questions I still had, and I was assured that I would be welcome back anytime. I

could not have asked for a better or more informative experience than the one I found at GMU

with the Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs, Assad Khan.

Integrating Research

Problems Faced as an Academic Advisor. One of the many daily challenges faced by

Director Khan is that of students’ unpreparedness for their post-secondary educations. “They’ve

never had to learn how to study” (Khan, A., 2018), referring to a lack of adequate preparation for

college at the K-12 level. I contributed to this discussion as a public school teacher, noting that

“we are somewhat limited at the middle school level, not able to require more than ten minutes of

homework per day, per class”. This type of preparation is reverse of what is to be expected at

college, where it is typically recommended that a student allot three-to-four hours of study for

every one college credit hour. This, and other related concepts, are discussed in an interview with

Charlie Nutt, member and Executive Director of NACADA, the National Academic Advising

Association (Harborth, 2015).

In keeping with the thought process of Director Khan, a relatively recent interview in the

Journal of Developmental Education notes an intervention similar to what he and I discussed. “One

such intervention recommends that ‘college advisors’ be placed in high schools to educate students

about institutional standards and requirements in order to better prepare students for a more

successful academic transition to college” (Harborth, 2015, p. 19). Given the fact that high-school

GPA and academic achievement are some of the factors that go into the decision of whether or not
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a student gets admitted, there must be some degree of dissonance in preparation for college and

the reality of what it takes once students arrive on campus and start taking courses. Khan notes

that GMU has already started taking steps towards such an undertaking through partnerships with

the local Northern Virginia Community College, and many of the local high schools (Khan, A.,

2018). However, this problem is systemic, and even a university as well-endowed as GMU would

not be able to provide such services at every high school from which it admits students.

Origins and the Future of the Field. While Director Khan wears many hats, the most

readily identifiable role he carries out is that of an academic advisor. The field of academic

advising, as it currently exists, came about at the turn of the twentieth century, at least in so far as

the development of NACADA (Burton, 2016). According to Burton, prior to then, “advising

practice leaned heavily on developmental theory” (2016, p. 4). As evidenced in the journal, the

development of the NACADA organization itself was brought about as a result of the unified belief

of certain practitioners in the field that academic advising had “lost sight of the central mission of

higher education” (Burton, 2016). Director Khan appeared to experience some of the

disenchantment referred to in the article, asserting the most negative word in higher education as

being that of “bureaucracy” (Khan, A., 2018).

In regard to future directions of the field, Burton summarized the need for advisors to share

their practices and ideas, calling for increased attention to “theory, philosophy, and history [sic]

publications and presentations” (2016, p. 15). One such theory was even discussed with me by

Director Khan, pertaining to his interest in “reverse-transfer students” (Khan, A., 2018). Director

Khan explained to me that a reverse-transfer student is one who begins his or her post-secondary

education at a 4-year institution, only to find himself or herself back at a community college for

any number of reasons (e.g. homesickness, academic problems, behavior problems, etc.). He also
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described to me how he had originally intended to conduct his doctoral research on this

classification of students. Unfortunately, he encountered some insurmountable bureaucratic

obstacles on his way to conducting such research (Khan, A., 2018). I believe this type of barrier to

furthering the field of academic advising is inhibitory to the advancements that need to be made,

as referred to by Burton (2016).

Approaches to Leadership in Higher Education. Throughout the day, two themes came

up when addressing the leadership roles of Director Khan; reciprocity and adaptability. Director

Khan noted both the benefits that come from embracing the adages of “you scratch my back, I’ll

scratch yours” and being able to “go with the flow” with whatever comes his way. “Educational

institutions are also complex organizations that have many, even competing, internal and external

factors that need to be considered when leading and making decisions” (Khan, N., 2017, p. 180).

Director Khan made reference to such complexity when conversing about interdepartmental

cooperation, and even when the discussion turned to our shared appreciation of GMU’s President

Cabrera. “Not everyone or every department is a fan of him” explained Director Khan, going on

to clarify that “in a position like his, not everyone is going to like you. Not everyone is going to

get what they want all the time” (2018).

In his own role that deals with students, especially at-risk students, on a near-daily basis,

Director Khan has come to terms with the fact that not everyone will always be appeased all the

time. He went on to explain that some students even use profanity after hearing something they

did not want to accept, but he uses transparency as much as possible to mitigate those occurrences.

“An adaptive leadership approach allows institutions to consider situations uniquely and select

actions based on what is needed currently rather than on past traditions” (Khan, N., 2017). Director

Khan will be the first person to tell a student what a policy is and their responsibility for knowing
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it, however, he also knows that sometimes those policies can bode negatively for students with

unique circumstances that need to be taken into consideration.

This was confirmed in his account of a case wherein a student only had one class left to

take within her major in order to graduate. Even if this student had achieved a grade of “A”, she

would not meet the 2.30 minimum major GPA requirement for graduation, due to the course’s

quality points value. Additionally, any non-major courses would not affect her major GPA. This

student was also a transfer student, therefore, her community college GPA (which would have

brought her GMU GPA above 2.30) was not taken into consideration. Director Khan was able to

work with the student and the department to make her graduation a possibility, something that

would have been impossible if only strictly adhering to policy (Khan, A., 2018). Following his

anecdote, Director Khan went on to explain that he addresses any new student who walks into his

office with “Who are you?, How are you?, And what can I do to help?” asserting that “Every

student has a story they need to tell someone and they just want to be heard” (2018).

Facilitating Retention and Avoiding Attrition. GMU, like many post-secondary

institutions, has programs designed to allow for a four-year graduation, from start to finish (without

needing to take any summer courses). The STEM programs at GMU are no exception, however,

as an advisor, Director Khan vehemently emphasizes the need to “love science” to prospective

STEM majors (Khan, A., 2018). “Despite diminishing resources, the number of centralized

advising units has been growing in academic institutions and increasingly includes professional

non-faculty staff members” (Braun & Zolfagharian, 2016, pp. 983-984). Director Khan is one such

staff member. Responsible for the advising efforts of an entire college, his insight and thorough

knowledge of the curricula are how he ensures that students entering his college understand the

requirements and demands to be met in order to be a successful STEM major at GMU.

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“Satisfaction with academic advising is associated with on-time graduation” (as cited in

Braun & Zolfagharian, 2016, pp. 969). This underlying belief is why Director Khan refuses to

“sugarcoat” anything, insisting on the utmost transparency (2018). Many of the rising high-school

juniors and their parents had clear aspirations for the prospective student to pursue a career in

medicine, inquiring about GMU’s “Pre-Med” program. Not only did Director Khan clarify the

misguided belief that such a program existed, but he went on to absorb the role of “high-school

counselor” and provided guidance regarding the specific courses the student should be taking to

prepare for such an intensive set of actual majors. While many of these high-achieving students

showed signs related to Braun and Zolfagharian’s students with a high “propensity to participate”

(2016, p. 970) in their academic advising, some stood out even more prominently. One student in

particular was highly inquisitive about her future prospects of being an actuary. Director Khan not

only spent a great deal of time with this student, but also made note to follow-up with her,

providing her with his contact information. Here, he took on the role of campus recruiter, as he

believed she would be of great benefit to GMU (Khan, A., 2018).

STEM Related Advising Practices. Director Khan expressed a couple of issues inherent

to being a STEM student in higher education. The first problem is students coming in without the

requisite experience in certain areas (e.g. mathematics, physics, critical-thinking, study-skills,

etc.). The second was the discord between how a course is being taught and how the students in

that course actually learn. “The need to understand the demands of the learners, but still maintain

high learning and grading standards, is essential” (Sithole et al., 2017, p. 56).

“Students entering STEM programs should be encouraged to enroll into orientation courses

which could be for a week or for a semester” (Sithole et al. 2017, p. 54). Director Khan emphasizes

college success skills in the freshman orientation course he teaches, but even a single failed course
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can offset the graduation timeline of a STEM student. Many of the courses in these majors have

prerequisites that must be taken in sequential order before proceeding to the next level. The key to

success in Director Khan’s position is in his transparent communication. He lets the student know

what is required, what it will take to achieve their goals, and through conversations with his

students, they both determine how and if they are going to make it work.

Discussion

A Shared Experience. As a former biology, pre-health medicine major, with a minor in

chemistry, I saw myself in many of the prospective students Director Khan met with that day. Even

in some of the stories of GMU students’ struggles within their respective STEM majors, I was able

to recount many of my own challenges as an undergraduate med-school hopeful. I expressed to

Director Khan that I attribute much of my current success to my third and final advisor, in the

College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences. The first two advisors I had as a STEM major

seemed to be disinterested in their advising roles, and ready to move on to their next advisee as

quickly as possible. So, in my opinion, advisors can make all the difference, good or bad.

In another unifying view, Director Khan, the former public relations and marketing major,

and I came to the conclusion that practitioners of student affairs do not tend to go to college with

the mindset of becoming a student affairs professional. He himself had been both a congressional

aide and an intern at a lobbying firm before deciding that politics was not for him. I experienced a

similar “come to Jesus” moment following my clinical hours as an emergency medical scribe, an

experience that would not take place until my (first) senior year of college.

The Functional Area. Subject to his comprehensive title as Director of Undergraduate

Student Affairs for the College of Science at George Mason University, Director Khan is
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inclusively the lead academic advisor within his department. This is one of many areas in which I

could potentially see myself serving at some point throughout my career in student affairs. I found

my passion in the field after realizing the kind of change I might affect in the lives of students who

face challenges like those I have already had to overcome. It was fitting that Director Khan holds

his position in the College of Science, a place where I could one day help students avoid certain

challenges altogether. Just as a good professor can make all the difference in the lives of his or her

students, advisors can be equally impactful in the roles they play in students’ lives.

The Day-to-Day. From my five hour experience, I could tell that composing/responding-

to e-mail is a major part of Director Khan’s position. Furthermore, he explicitly told me that

dealing with policy and unique situations take up the majority of his time. In so far as phone

communication is concerned, I only once saw him have to pick up his phone, and it was for a

professor who was unable to make a meeting. I could tell he had established excellent relationships

with faculty and staff from all across the university, conversing with as many as we made contact

with. He emphasized that the two busiest times of year are the beginning of school and the weeks

leading up to spring commencement; not dissimilar from my own experiences in Res-Life. In

addition to the integral roles of his position, Director Khan takes on those of serving on committees

and teaching courses. He does all of this while maintaining a work-life balance by leaving his work

at the office. His staff was out of the office that week, again due to the construction, but that did

not stand in the way of him single-handedly running the show.

Conclusion

It takes an amalgamation of skills to carry out the role of Director of Undergraduate Student

Affairs, especially with respect to the advisory duties for an entire college. Assad Khan is a

powerhouse of personality at GMU, where he clearly makes a difference in the lives of his students
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on a daily basis. Throughout my time with him, I was able to observe a senior student affairs

professional who values transparency and communication above all. Like many successful student

affairs professionals, Director Khan has a vibrant disposition, is amicably-loquacious, and is full

of tact.

The field of academic advising in student affairs, particularly in STEM, is constantly

evolving. It is currently adapting to serve a changing demographic of college learner. With a

growing job-market demand for graduates of the STEM disciplines, the role of academic advisors

has been placed at the forefront of addressing issues such as increasing retention and reducing

attrition. Adequate secondary preparation will remain critical in a unified undertaking of this

endeavor for students and their academic advisors.

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References

Burton, S. L. (2016). The Debate Begins: The Rise of Alternate Perspectives in Academic

Advising Theory. In R. Robbins & L. Shaffer (Eds.), NACADA Journal, 36 (1), 3-18.

Braun, J., & Zolfagharian, M. (2016). Student Participation in Academic Advising: Propensity,

Behavior, Attribution and Satisfaction. Research In Higher Education, 57 (8), 968-989.

George Mason University. (2018). About Mason. Retrieved from https://www2.gmu.edu/about-

mason

Harborth, A. (2015). The Developing Role of Student Advising: An Interview with Charlie

Nutt. Journal Of Developmental Education, 39 (1), 18-20.

Khan, A. (2018, August 10). Practicum: Personal Interview

Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief

Comparison. International Review Of Research In Open And Distributed Learning, 18 (3),

178-183.

Sithole, A., Chiyaka, E. T., McCarthy, P., Mupinga, D. M., Bucklein, B. K., & Kibirige, J. (2017).

Student Attraction, Persistence and Retention in STEM Programs: Successes and

Continuing Challenges. Higher Education Studies, 7 (1), 46-59.

Vander Voort, E. (2016). NCAA. March Madness: It’s been 10 years since George Mason’s Final

Four run. Retrieved from https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2016-03-

26/march-madness-its-been-10-years-george-masons-final-four-run