The experience of any graduate assistant can look different from institution to institution. It is easy to think “we only have them for two years” or “they are only a graduate assistant.” I would challenge that thinking and propose that you think of your graduate assistants as an investment in our profession. Far too often, we see graduate assistants entering the field with a gap in knowledge due to a lack of intentionality behind their experiences in graduate school. As a new professional and recently graduated master’s student, I know firsthand what feeling invested in and cared for in your office can do for your experience. Within this piece, I’ll explore 10 ways to elevate your FSL graduate assistant’s experience.
Introduction to Professional Associations
Early exposure to professional associations is a great tool for connecting graduate assistants to the broader field of Student Affairs and fraternity and sorority life. These spaces help them to develop their identity beyond the institution they are attending. This can include:
- Introducing them to field-relevant organizations such as AFA, AFLV, NGLA, SGLA, or NASPA.
- Share with them how you and your office personally engage with associations, and what role they have played in your professional journey.
- Help your graduate assistant understand that professional associations are not just for seasoned professionals, but for professionals of all stages.
As you introduce these professional associations, consider how you will help them engage on their own. This can include walking through how to set up and fund their membership, how to apply for scholarships, and committee involvement. Additionally, share with them announcements for proposals, volunteer opportunities, or webinars and roundtables.
This process is rooted in Socialization Theory (Weidman, Twale, & Stein, 2001), which outlines how students learn the values, knowledge, language, and behavioral norms of a profession through a multi-stage process:
- Anticipatory Socialization – prior understanding of the field
- Formal Socialization – institutional structures (classes, assistantship, etc.)
- Informal Socialization – interactions with colleagues, mentors, and professional communities
- Personal Transformation – internalizing professional norms and values
By helping your graduate assistant learn about professional associations, you are accelerating their socialization and transformation as a professional. These associations can provide representation, mentorship access, and overall a place to belong within fraternity and sorority life.
Conference Experience
One of the best ways to learn in the field, network, and share ideas collaboratively is through conferences. When framed and supported with intentionality, these can be transformative moments in a graduate assistant’s development.
Conferences are a great example of ways to gain experiential learning experiences through Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984). You can experience all 4 stages of how learning happens:
- Concrete Experience – Attending the conference
- Reflective Observation – Thinking about what happened and what was learned
- Abstract Conceptualization – Connecting those ideas to theory, past experiences, or current work
- Active Experimentation – Trying something new based on what was learned
Help them treat the conference as a structured, experiential learning opportunity. Before a conference, help your graduate assistant identify their learning goals, and review the program guide together. Encourage them to set intentions for their conference experience: this can include who they want to meet, what they want to learn, and how they plan to engage.
During the conference, I suggest they take notes and reflect after sessions. If you are attending together, schedule time to have a mid-conference or daily check-in to hear their takeaways and what they are observing. These check-ins can be a great way to help them see where they are at on their pre-conference goals. Encourage them to introduce themselves to other graduate assistants and professionals in the field.
After the conference, find time to debrief and have intentional reflections around what they learned. With this, you can offer them opportunities to apply their learning – present takeaways at a meeting, revise a project, or meet with another student or professional about their experience.
Financial support is not always feasible. One way to help your graduate assistant fund their professional development is through conference scholarships or their institution. Some conferences offer opportunities to volunteer as a student staff/intern, and will pay for your room and registration, as well as provide you with unique behind-the-scenes learning opportunities.
Intentionality in Supervision
Supervision goes beyond a weekly check-in – it is one of the most impactful development tools you have as a supervisor. When graduate assistants first enter our spaces, they are in a formative stage of their professional identity development, and intentional, growth-oriented supervision can help them gain confidence, competence, and career direction. Intentional supervision means:
- Setting shared expectations and goals early, and revisiting them frequently;
- Developing learning goals that are aligned with the graduate assistant’s academic program, career interests, and their areas of growth and strengths;
- Providing feedback in a constructive and clear manner;
- Creating time and space for reflection, not just office and task updates;
- Giving the “why” behind decisions;
- Taking time to know them as a person, not just an employee of the office
This approach directly supports Sanford’s Theory of Challenge and Support (Sanford, 1966). This allows them the opportunity to grow and learn through developmental challenges – but for this to happen, there must be support to meet those challenges.
Theory to Practice
Challenge and support means finding those opportunities where your graduate assistant can learn and grow as a professional. Remember that not everyone shows up the same in spaces and learns the same way – find ways that foster the right balance between confidence, competence, and resilience.
Bridge the academic and professional worlds for them. Find out what your graduate assistant is learning in the classroom and help them apply it in their daily work. Let them lead a project that ties directly to course content. We see that graduate students are not always afforded the necessary space to connect theory and practice. Therefore, you can take the opportunity to help them fill in these gaps.
Strategic Project Ownership
Let’s move beyond giving your graduate assistants just meaningless tasks – give them strategic projects that will allow them to lead, learn, and leave a mark. This high-impact learning opportunity supports Magolda’s Self-Authorship Theory (Baxter Magolda, 2001), which outlines how individuals move through the three phases- following external formulas, crossroads, and self-authorship.
Project ownership helps an emerging professional better understand systems, outcomes, and the full cycle of said project/initiative. At the end of the day, some projects in an office will offer more learning opportunities than others, while others will be tasks that need to get done. Make sure you help balance their work assignments. This can include finding semester-long initiatives and projects, creating assessment plans, reviewing policies, or developing training/leadership workshops.. These projects can also extend beyond the department. Encourage them to apply for institutional committees, get involved in graduate activities, or volunteer with a fraternity/sorority headquarters.
Inclusion in Decision Making
Treat your graduate assistant as a contributing paraprofessional in your workspaces, not just an extra set of hands. This mindset is grounded in Kegan’s Constructive-Development Theory (Kegan, 1982), which shows how individuals will evolve from being shaped by external expectations to becoming self-authoring professionals who can reflect on their internal values.
Involving them in appropriate decision-making processes gives them real-world insight into how events and policies are developed, how communities are sculpted, and how to make difficult choices in the field. This can include inviting them to staff meetings, staff retreats, organization conduct meetings, policy update meetings, division meetings (if appropriate), and program evaluation and budget discussions. You do not need to give them the final say, but you should create a space for them to learn, listen, and contribute. Consider guiding them in discussions by asking questions such as:
- What did you notice about how this decision was made?
- What would you have done differently?
- What perspective do you think a student might bring to this issue?
By allowing graduate assistants to be involved in meaningful decisions, you help them to move from learning the ropes to becoming an emerging colleague building their voice.
Access to Mentorship Networks
Help your graduate assistant build a meaningful network both at your institution and outside of the institution. Having a good network can help in the job process, finding unique opportunities, and sharing ideas. With your institution, find campus partners and professionals who can add value to their experience. On a larger scale, help them find connections within FSL. If you are looking for a place to start, consider introducing them to those within your professional circle. A growing graduate student benefits from exposure to different leadership styles, paths, and approaches.
Customized Learning Plan and Well-Rounded Experiences
Work with your graduate assistant to build a plan, semester-by-semester, that includes learning goals, projects, timelines, shadowing opportunities, and skill-building experiences. Areas of skill-building can include advising, budgeting, assessment, conduct and compliance, and prevention and wellness. Setting up an action plan that allows your graduate assistant to build skills and have intentionality in the experience will lead to them being a well-rounded professional as they enter the field. When building your plan, consider framing growth goals and skill-building opportunities with the ACPA/NASPA Competencies in mind (ACPA & NASPA, 2015).
Recognition and Encouragement
Graduate assistants are typically balancing multiple responsibilities such as classwork, internships/practicums, and other outside personal responsibilities. It is important to show recognition and encouragement when you have the opportunity. This can include shouting them out during a staff meeting, celebrating them for a job well done on a large project, and encouraging them to keep going even when things get tough.
A great way to celebrate your graduate assistants is during National Graduate Appreciation Week. This is a week to plan fun, appreciative events and surprises for your grads to keep morale high!
Equity, Identity, and Validation
As professionals who shape our work through equitable lenses, it is important we model this through how we treat our graduate assistants. As a supervisor, you have a responsibility to recognize the ways in which race, gender identity, socioeconomic background, ability, sexual orientation, and citizenship can shape a graduate assistant’s experience.
This begins with intentional validation, a piece of Rendón’s Validation Theory (Rendón, 1994), which states that students from historically marginalized backgrounds thrive when staff affirm their presence, capability, and value. It means recognizing lived experiences and making sure they feel they can contribute authentically. You can do this by:
- Creating space for conversations around how a graduate assistant’s racial, cultural, religious, or gender identities may shape their workplace experiences
- Connecting graduate assistants with identity-based professional networks and affinity spaces at your institution and in professional associations
- Continuous auditing and re-evaluating who gets access to high-visibility projects or speaking opportunities. Don’t be afraid to disrupt patterns of bias or exclusion
- Fostering a safe and brave environment where a graduate assistant feels seen and cared for, not tokenized
- Understanding and educating yourself on systemic barriers that may influence access to conferences, mentorship, and future employment –and help to remove those barriers where you can.
When we center our work with graduate assistants around equity and inclusion, we don’t just create a “better experience” – we create validating experiences. We teach them how to enter with integrity and cultural responsiveness in a diversifying field.
Exit Planning and Professional Transition
As the journey of a graduate assistant ends, it is important to not only help them in this transitional period but also show them what healthy transitions look like. Schlossberg’s Transition Theory tells us the 4 S’s to managing transitions and exits, and how we will handle them: Situation, Self, Support, and Strategies (Schlossberg, 1981). For graduate assistants, it is important to really help them understand the meaning of transitions. Not only could this be a new job, but it would possibly be a new environment, new responsibilities, new financial expectations, and the development of a new routine and role as they transition to full-time work. As we look at each “S,” there are different components to consider.
Situation
For this aspect, find out how your graduate assistant is feeling with this transition. Consider the following questions:
- What is the transition going to be for this person?
- Is this transition expected or sudden?
- Are there other stressors that are at play?
- Is the person viewing this as positive or negative?
Self
For this aspect, reflect on the intentional relationship building you have done with your graduate assistant to assess how this person may react or be affected by this transition. Consider the following questions:
- What coping styles does this person use?
- What characteristics does this person bring to conversations and this situation?
Within yourself, consider the socioeconomic status, race, gender, and prior experiences of your graduate assistant. Each person’s lived experiences will contribute to how they manage the transition period.
Support
In this aspect, think about what you can do to support your graduate assistant through this transitional period to ensure they feel supported and cared for. Consider the following questions:
- What kind of support are you, your office, and your institution able to provide?
- During the job search, have you provided interview practice, resume and cover letter review, or helped your graduate assistant find open positions?
You can play a critical role in their supervision, mentorship, and inclusion, and support to determine if your graduate assistant feels solid or adrift.
Strategies
In this aspect, think about how you are helping your graduate assistant develop strategies to handle the stress and varying aspects of this transition period. Consider the following questions:
- What strategies does this person have access to and use?
- How are you helping them to reframe the transition when things are not going as they planned?
- How are you helping them to develop a plan of action to carry through both in the job search and their professional career?
Our graduate assistants are people with multiple items on their plate, and at times, many uncertainties. You have the opportunity to give support and develop a personalized framework to support your graduate assistant through this transitional period with compassion and a development-focused mindset.
When we invest in our graduate assistants with intention, care, and strategic development, we are not just shaping them for the length of time they spend with our office – we are shaping the future of our field. By elevating the graduate experience through strong supervision, meaningful project ownership, access to professional communities, and opportunities to apply theory to practice, we help close those gaps. We cultivate professionals who are confident, well-rounded, and ready to lead and learn.
References
American College Personnel Association [ACPA] & National Association of Student Personnel Administrators [NASPA]. (2015). Professional competency areas for student affairs educators.
Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2001). Making their own way: Narratives for transforming higher education to promote self-development. Stylus Publishing.
Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Harvard University Press.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.
Rendón, L. I. (1994). Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development. Innovative Higher Education, 19(1), 33–51.
Sanford, N. (1966). Self and society: Social change and individual development. Atherton Press.
Schlossberg, N. K. (1981). A model for analyzing human adaptation to transition. The Counseling Psychologist, 9(2), 2–18.
Weidman, J. C., Twale, D. J., & Stein, E. L. (2001). Socialization of graduate and professional students in higher education: A perilous passage? ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 28(3). Jossey-Bass.
About the Author
Camryn Wade is the assistant director of community development and belonging at Penn State’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. She is passionate about building inclusive, growth-centered communities through leadership development and prevention education. Camryn earned her M.S.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Indiana University in spring 2025 and brings diverse experience across student affairs functional areas. She is a member of Theta Phi Alpha.
