Arthur Chickering

Arthur Chickering is a leading theorist of the psychological development of young adults. In Education and Identity, he identifies seven "vectors" of development through which young adults "typically" go in their college years:

1. Achieving competence
2. Managing emotions
3. Becoming autonomous
4. Establishing identity
5. Freeing interpersonal relationships
6. Clarifying purpose
7. Developing integrity

In the more than 30 years since Chickering first developed his theory, many questions about the details of his analysis have arisen, including, most prominently, the differences gender make in the aptness of his model of development.

But for the purposes of the academic advisor, Chickering makes clear a crucial reality about college students, regardless of the precision (or lack thereof) in his model -- college students are extremely busy with maturational tasks at the same time that they are trying to succeed in the classroom. Consider, for a moment, all the "work" Chickering tells us college students have to do inside and outside the classroom:

• Achieve intellectual competence for academic success
• Develop social and interpersonal competence for relating to others
• Resolve parent-child authority relationships
• Learn to manage emotions
• Adjust to growing sexual impulses
• Reduce dependency on others
• Become self-sufficient and goal-directed
• Learn interdependence and collaborative skills
• Clarify personal values
• Solidify sexual identity
• Select moral and ethical positions for oneself
• Answer the questions, "Who am I?" and "Where am I going?"
• Learn tolerance for a wide range of persons, their beliefs and cultures
• Develop mature interpersonal relationships with peers
• Establish the capacity for mature intimacy
• Set appropriate educational and vocational goals
• Choose one's life work
• Choose one's life style
• Decide upon a personally valid set of beliefs
• Establish congruence between personal values and behavior
• Learn to tolerate ambiguity in life

There is considerable overlap and interdependence between these "tasks", but one's overwhelming impression reviewing them must be a renewed appreciation for how busy college students are simply with growing up! And the most critical moment in the typical college student's life in this respect is the first term, when all of these developmental issues hit them at once, at the same time that they are learning how to learn in college.

The most important thing for an advisor to learn from Chickering is that first-year college students do not stand on a still point in this turning world. Everything in their lives has recently changed, and they themselves are in the midst of often dizzying personal change. If these social and psychological realities aren't respected, an advisor might make the mistake of attributing academic problems simply to "indolence," "irresponsibility," or "absence of self-discipline." And while these words do describe some freshman behaviors, they may also be superficial descriptions of more important changes freshmen are experiencing. Often, appreciating the social and psychological realities of college freshmen will open insights into their behavior. With these insights, advisors may be more effective mentors to people who are doing their very best to cope with the changes in their lives.