This is not a checklist: Higher education and student affairs competencies, neoliberal protocol, and poetics

Abstract

This article examines the ACPA/NASPA Competencies as functional protocol of the neoliberal state. Described as ‘not a checklist’, Competencies structure rubrics, conferences, jobs, and performance as static, indicative of a power/knowledge rooted in protocol. We utilize post qualitative thinking, specifically poetics, to create a series of experimentations (in)tension with Competencies. This micropolitical practice disrupts protocol, opening imaginative space for subversion, movement, and becoming ∼ professional.

Keywords:

• Competency
• postqualitative
• poetics
• neoliberal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Melamed (2011)

2 Weheliye (2014).

3 Deleuze (1992).

4 Galloway (2004).

5 Springgay and Truman (2018).

6 Harney and Moten (2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul William Eaton

Paul William Eaton is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Sam Houston State University. Paul’s research interests include inquiries into digital technologies in education and human identity-subjectification-becoming; complexity theory’s application to educational research; postqualitative and posthumanist inquiry; and curriculum theorizing-philosophy in the realms of postsecondary education and student affairs. Follow Paul on Twitter and Instagram @profpeaton. His reading blog is located at: www.profpeaton.com

Laura Smithers

Laura E. Smithers is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Old Dominion University. Her research focuses on the possible futures created and foreclosed by assessment regimes in undergraduate education.