A tale of rhetoric and survival: a multi-case analysis of student affairs within public universities in the Philippines

In the light of decreasing government support albeit growing complexities of providing quality higher education, universities are adapting various coping strategies. The student affairs unit is one sector within the university which can reflect such adaptive strategies. Using a multisite-case study method of seven selected public universities in the Philippines, the study explores the roles of student affairs from the perception of its stakeholders and its tacit roles as emergent from an analysis of the university’s context, these are: a) as a catalyst for sustaining institutional identity; b) as a source for supplemental material resource, c) as a provider of alternative learning from the academics, and, finally, d) as a mediator between the external and institutional environment. These roles reflect the attempts of student affairs in public universities in the Philippines to contribute to the holistic development of the students regardless of the challenges of its milieu. The findings could shed insight for policy makers, educational leaders and political leaders on how best to encourage, sustain and harness these substantive coping strategies.