The Administration of Student Personnel Work

T HERE are two main aspects of personnel work, scientific data, on the one hand, and the conference or advisory function, on the other. The first includes all kinds of formal high-school and college marks, records, personal data, and the results of all tests. The second includes impressions and observations secured by the personnel officer as a result of conferences with the individual student. To a considerable extent these impressions may also be reduced to record. A complete record concerning each student, therefore, seems to be the most important single consideration in the discussion of this topic. To avoid expensive duplication and to secure unity in the personnel program, this record should be centralized in one office. The health service, for example, may of course keep more detailed records of a student's physical condition and development, and the official accounting of the high-school and college record is naturally on file in the registrar's office. If there is need for these records they should, of course, be available. For personnel purposes, however, these records should be reduced to chart form such as we have in the personnel-record card issued by the personnel committee of the American Council on Education.1 Such a card gives us a complete picture of the high-school and college record, test scores, special interests, physical condition, hobbies, and faculty actions pertaining to each student, so arranged as to show at a glance the range of native ability, the quality of work he has performed in his several studies, and the development of his special interests; in other words, the whole trend of the student's development. When the personnel-record card is supplemented by ratings as to his habits and characteristics which have been returned by his teachers and others with whom he has come in contact, one has at hand relative to each student information which is so extensive as to enable the personnel officer to proceed with surprising accuracy. Indeed, the results of personnel work are exceedingly gratifying. I have alluded to personnel records not for the purpose of accurately describing them, but rather to indicate 1 Personal Record Cards for Schools and Colleges, Educational Record, IX (July, I 928), pp. I 8-2. I

Administration (probate law · Higher education · Medical education · Pedagogy · Political science · Work (physics · Engineering · Medicine · Online and Blended Learning · Psychology

• An objective determination of the qualities of a good college teacher

  Charles L Odom•Peabody Journal of Education•1943

  Add to list