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[anon]

Hello-

I am currently finishing my last year of my Juris Doctorate.  I've been attending a masters in student affairs program at the same time as my JD.  I have experience in student affairs as an undergraduate and for 2 years as a graduate assistant.  I'm set to graduate from both programs in the Spring of 2006.  

I'm interested if anyone has any opinions as to job options with this type of degree combo.  I'd like to work in higher ed/student affairs.  I'd like to eventually work my way up to a president/vice president position at a larger university.  I keep hearing that I won't have a problem finding a job when I graduate but after reading this site it has led me to some hesitation.  Any insight as to what types of jobs I should be searching for?

thanks

[%sig%]

[Anon 2]

I'd look for a student affairs position in a law school.  I suspect that you'd have the edge on other candidates because you've gone through law school yourself.   At most of the large universities they have some student affairs type positions within each department or school.   And the pay and the benefits are usually better at large universities, however, in a large university you'll start lower on the totem poll than you would at a smaller school.

I think the biggest hindrance to your finding a position will be your lack of professional experience.   Many places just don't count graduate assistant type positions because like teaching assistantships the amount of responsbility varies so much.  

I think people who want to be in student affairs and are patient do find positions.  But, I think you need to be creative about how you package yourself.  I don't know about the goal to become a President or a V.P.  I'm not sure if you'd need a Ph.D. or not.  I suspect you probably would, particularly at a large university.

[OTM]

While I agree with much of Anon2's post, I think that some in h.ed would really value the JD.  A few years back, when I was considering getting an MA in Student Affairs/Development, the Assoc VP of Student Affairs at a leading private research university specifically advised me to get a law or business degree instead.  She has a JD (and LLM) and believed that the business and legal sides of higher ed admin were more difficult to learn than the student dev. sides.  While others disagreed with her (and I ended up not following her advice) I think the combination that you have could be very appealing.  Long-term, with the right experiences and abilities, they could lead to senior positions.  

Of course, it is very difficult to get a presidency without faculty experience.  If you can find info on the recent UMass Boston search (maybe in old Boston Globe articles-probably searchable on its website), you might find them interesting.  The 3 finalists were a student affairs professional, the general counsel for another school, and a prof/former med. exec.  Some of the debate around the candidates (especially the student affairs prof who was internal) might offer some insight into the concerns that some had.  At UMB, the candidate who had been faculty finally got the positions for various reasons.

Good luck.