Let the games begin!

"Let the games begin!" as some may believe the final bullet point on ACPA President Heidi Levine's Consolidation vote blog post may mean. She wrote, "Collaborate with NASPA when appropriate, and compete with NASPA when appropriate." While the tone of the overall post was a little on the self-righteous side, it was the latter half of that statement which elicited great response on the #NASPACPA Twitter conversation, especially the word "compete."

In student affairs, we know collaboration. We collaborate with our colleagues, we collaborate with faculty, and we collaborate with students. Student affairs as a profession adheres to the maxim, "Two heads (or more) are better than one." Our graduate preparation programs particularly promote this doctrine, claiming it sets us apart from other programs which are (as we see it) more competitive and foster less trust. And with that context, it was a huge surprise to see the word "compete" in a post by one of our association presidents.

To me, it was refreshing. While it feels countercultural to say it, deep down we already know that our associations compete. But someone finally acknowledged that fact publicly. And that's okay. I think it's even more healthy that this "bad word" has been brought out into the light. I think it's a concept to bring more openly and more often into our student affairs lexicon. One great outcome from the result of this consolidation vote could be a broader discussion of the role competition plays--and could play--in student affairs.

Another "bad word" which emerged from the conversation which ensued following the announcement of the results was "confrontation." This one was not expressed as openly, but it definitely happened through the #NASPACPA Twitter feed. Many people expressed exactly how they felt about the vote--often in uncensored, unrestrained, and uncompromising ways. To some, particularly Stacy Oliver, this was seen as unprofessional and antithetical to the values of our profession. To me, it was another rare--and refreshing--moment where we abandoned restraint and spoke our minds exactly the way we were feeling.

Our profession could use a huge, healthy dose of confrontation. Of raw, unadulterated, even uncensored emotion. Sometimes I think we work too hard to be people pleasers, to make everyone happy, often to our own (and our students') detriment. I can agree with Stacy that using insults (like "stupid" or "selfish") is not productive in discussion and can damage relationships. But I don't agree with her that voices were "marginalized" in this discussion.

Now that I've had a little time to reflect on this matter, I think I can articulate myself a little better than I attempted via Twitter in 140 characters or fewer. The main reason I don't agree with her that people were "marginalized" is that everyone did speak their minds through the vote. (Frankly, the only marginalized voices were those of graduate students in NASPA, but that's for another time.) What happened on Twitter was not a marginalization but rather an outnumbering. I can see how it might have been intimidating to jump into the conversation when your viewpoint is the distinct minority of your community. But, in this instance, it was that minority that was able to speak the loudest--38% of NASPA was all it took to block consolidation--those voices were hardly marginalized.

(Side note: I will state that I agreed with the process. I think for such a major change to take place we should have been expected to reach a higher hurdle than a simple majority. I was disappointed with the outcome, but that's separate.)

Competition and confrontation happen in our field all the time, and most often we try to mask that fact for the sake of the comfort of our colleagues. The job search is competitive, but we try to cover that up by talking about "best fit." Student conduct is confrontational, but we try to hide that behind "opportunity for growth." Maybe every now and then we could name these for what they are--and learn and grow from those moments!

As someone who works in multicultural affairs, it reminds of the "safe space" problem: are we trying to create a space where it's safe to speak your mind, or an emotionally safe space that's concerned more about participants' comfort? To me, a safe space is a space where you can speak your truth, even if it's a difficult truth to hear. One of the major problems with diversity trainings and workshops is that we get too concerned about "safety" for the sake of "going there" and having a truly transformative learning experience. Maybe we ought to be open as professionals to being uncomfortable and being called out more often in our training and development. It may look and feel ugly to begin with, but letting it out could lead to far more productive dialogues in our field than "safety" and "politeness" ever have.

To me, the major lesson from this vote is that we as a profession have a problem with conflict. Perhaps if we could invite more (healthy) competition and confrontation into our professional development (either structured or unstructured), and into our work, we will reap the benefits that come from the tremendous growth that follows conflict.

And as for #NASPACPA, it's coming. If 81% of ACPA and 62% of NASPA in 2011 believe in consolidation, those percentages are sure to increase. And the next time it comes to a vote, we will unite. Perhaps the lessons from this consolidation vote will make the actual consolidation that much greater.

Bryce

Blogger's Block

I realized the other day that for wanting to post once a week this year, I am desperately behind on my goal. My last post was in March. I think around the time my #SAchat colleagues headed to conferences my own motivation took an extended vacation. I've had different post ideas come to mind over the ensuing weeks since my last update, and a little pressure to force myself to post when I did not necessarily have something ready to write, but overall I've faced various psychological blocks in my attempt to maintain this blog.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Lisa Endersby, who I have been getting to know virtually over the past few months and who has played a major role in keeping me reading, thinking, learning, and writing, recently suggested a blog "support group." In her latest blog post, she told the story of how this idea came to be. Overall, it's not about getting blog posts churned out. It's about the relationships and the mentorship that is happening in 140 characters (or fewer) on Twitter, and then how that expands to email, blogs, Skype chats, and eventually real-life meetings. But in this post she examines some of the blocks that keep her from posting, and I wanted to engage in a similar exercise. In what ways do I sabotage my own attempts to meet my blogging goals, dragging my blog into oblivion rather than building it up as a dynamic tool to augment my professional development? What are the half-truths I tell myself in my head to stop myself from writing that next post, for no productive reason?

Well, in an attempt to kill those half-truths and outright lies, I am going to post them here. Feel free to comment if you've dealt with similar anti-productive self-talk, and how you dispelled it. Some of what I tell myself:

• I don't want to deal with my slow laptop. (I often use a "recycled" iPhone as essentially an iPod Touch when WiFi is available rather than my 7-year old Dell Inspiron.)




• We're watching tv/a movie/etc tonight and I don't have time.




• I think my post idea is provocative, and I don't want to shy away from controversy, but I don't want to offend. (Which, considering the fact that I've written about how I don't shy away from controversy, is obviously just an excuse.)




• I don't think I've thought through my idea enough. (Could be a good reason, but not to avoid writing about it.)




• I don't know enough about the topic. (I'm too prone to want to write about issues, especially if I have a strong opinion, and not enough of my own reflections or about me.)




• I want to write a personal post, but I'm probably crossing the line between vulnerable and vain. (Isn't the internet a healthy mix of both?)




• This will probably be the post that makes me one of those internet horror stories, that my career will be over as soon as my future employers find it on Google. (Of course it can happen, but some of the ideas that ruminate in my head are incredibly benign and it's only self-doubt that causes me to believe they have the potential to come back and bite.)

I do know one major block has been a signficant occurrence in my personal life that I am not able to share publicly just yet, but has resided in most of my conscious reflection in the time since my last post. Either way, I know I have a lot I'd like to share, and if I can push back against those inner voices which stand in the way of me producing a more active blog, I am confident I can beat my blogger's block.

How do you beat blogger's block?

Bryce

Learning to Earn

If you ask many students their reason for attending college, they'd tell you it was to get a good job and make more money than they would without. And it's true, one of the main ploys we use to entice young people to attend college is future earning potential. Self-improvement is simply icing on the cake to success and financial stability.

Yet with the job market as stagnant as it has been the past few years, and the proliferation of BAs competing for jobs that may not even require it, are we able to keep our promises of better employment and brighter futures?

The University of Regina in Saskatchewan is working hard to keep this promise. The university has started an employment guarantee program where students who fail to gain employment within six months of graduation can get another year of free tuition to pursue other certification and/or vocational training toward their chosen field.

Yet is more class time truly going to make someone more employable?

Paul Krugman discusses this in a recent column in The New York Times. He makes the argument that education cannot be the be-all, end-all to attaining livable, stable employment. Education is important, but can only be expected to do so much. The rest is up to us; if we value stable employment, affordable health care, and safe working conditions, we need to work as a society to make these greater changes. Providing more college degrees cannot directly solve greater market issues around labor and employment.

And there's the case for not attending college. Recently James Altucher, a well-known hedge fund manager and author, infamously implored parents not to send their children to college. He argued that entrepreneurial skills were far more important for young people to learn, that colleges were not teaching these marketable skills, and that the money parents spend on college could net much more if invested over their offsprings' lifetimes. While I am careful to take advice on matters of what to do with my life from a hedge fund manager, I do have to agree that the skills and attitudes learned through entrepreneurship--independence, self-motivation, confidence, to name a few--are extremely important for anyone looking to shape their own future to know.

So, if obtaining a college degree isn't about getting a better job, and a good argument can be made to not attend college, maybe we should be asking a different question. What is the purpose of getting a college degree?

This discussion about the purpose of college reminds me of conversations I used to have with classmates in my Master's program about the reason for our Master's degree. Many of my colleagues wanted more practical training in our grad program, such as budgeting, supervision, and other on-the-job skills, to be more marketable in searching for Student Affairs positions. I could appreciate my classmates' concern for a successful job search after graduation, but I also believed that if our program truly shifted in focus it would devolve into a professional certification program rather than a Master's degree level program of study. Much of this has gone into my reflection on why a Master's degree is important to our field--if it isn't about being "certified" to work in Student Affairs, it must serve some other greater purpose of relevance and importance to our field (see my earlier post on the matter).

Why did you go to college? If you pursued graduate study, why did you choose to continue your education?

Did you go to college to get a better job, or did you consider potential career fields because you wanted to get a college degree (and you wanted it to be relevant to your work)?

My answers to these questions may appear in future blog posts...

Bryce

The "White Male Gap" in Scholarship Funding

Laura Lambeth recently posted on Twitter that her most recent blog post "opens up [a] can of worms." As a student affairs professional in Texas, she posted her thoughts on a new nonprofit organization started by college students in Texas aimed at providing scholarships for White males. In her post, she ruminated over how she understood why organizations and institutions provide minority-targeted scholarships, but could also understand the frustration of the students forming the association. In particular, she mentioned students with whom she has worked who experienced the same issues with accessing financial aid, particularly the lack of knowledge on how to navigate the complex array of funding (and not just FAFSA) opportunities around the nation.

I don't think she herself "opened a can of worms." I went to school with students who had the same complaint, and I know I must have worked with students who feel the same way, though none have specifically shared this concern with me. Rather, the group itself, the "Former Majority Association for Equality," is the entity that has opened the proverbial can of worms. According to the group's website, their mission is "to fill in the gap in the scholarships offered to prospective students." And it sounds like a laudable effort. The fact that a group of students has identified a need and is taking the entrepreneurial step of forming an organization to meet is commendable.

But does the need, as the group has described it, truly exist?

This is not the first time White college students (particularly politically conservative students) have claimed that there is a lack of opportunity for them to receive scholarships for their study. Where I am skeptical of this, and others', group's claim is on what data they concluded that there is a "gap" for White male students in access to scholarship money. Was it simply based on their own subjective qualitative experiences that they felt like there were no scholarships available to them? Are White male students really suffering lack of access to college as a group because no one will provide them scholarship funding?

Based on the methods I assume they used to collect their data, I can tell you from my experience as a White male this lack of scholarship opportunity does not exist. I received two generous scholarships from Gonzaga University to attend the college, one due to my academic merit as demonstrated by my college application and one for being an alumnus of a Catholic high school, and then a Byrd scholarship (I think) for academic merit as well. In fact, I had to turn down a scholarship from the State of Montana given to all high school valedictorians because I chose not to attend in state. From my standpoint, my data, apparently collected in the same manner, contradicts their data, and causes me to question how real this perceived "gap" truly is. In fact, I believe my privilege as a White male made me more likely to access this money than many of my peers who also attended Gonzaga (and I could expand this idea much further, but that would be a much longer post). Which is why I decided to do some informal research to see if there are numbers that truly demonstrated this apparent disparity in scholarship awarding in the United States.

As it were to happen, I stumbled onto one of the best writers on the topic of White privilege in the nation. Tim Wise actually wrote a post on his blog about the topic around four years ago, and cited a study that was conducted by the General Accounting Office in 1994 on minority-targeted scholarships. (I wasn't able to find a more recent study, but I would argue the data may have only shifted minimally, if at all, and likely toward less money in minority-targeted scholarships.) The study found that 4% of all scholarship money considers race as a factor at all, and that 0.25% is restricted to just people of color. That means 99.75% (or 96%, if we use a conservative measure) of scholarship money is open to these students for whom there are, according to FMAE, no scholarship opportunities at all. And chances are, if White males are able to compete for this money, privilege will play a major role, and they will more likely be the recipients of this money than their counterparts. As for the impact of scholarships that are restricted by race, only 3.5% of students of color in college receive money from these scholarships. The truth is that scholarships restricted by race are a very small proportion of all the money awarded annually to college students, and very few students of color actually reap the benefits of these awards.

I will let you read through Tim's post more for his analysis of White privilege with regard to college funding as it is extremely insightful. As for me, after finding out that my suspicions were confirmed, I got to thinking about what the real issues might be behind this group's concern over college funding. Typically, when White people claim affirmative action or any other attempt to correct institutional racism is "reverse racism," often it comes from a place of not being aware of one's advantages in society. Sometimes there are other systemic oppressions involved, though, and when Laura highlighted the story of the student who had trouble navigating the financial aid process, I began to wonder what other experiences this student may have had. Is this student the first in his family to attend college? First generation students face unique barriers from not having the same guidance and information as other students have when they apply to college. Is the student from a lower socioeconomic background? He may be facing greater financial need than many of his peers who have parents contributing more to their education, and it can feel like he cannot access enough aid to cover everything. It doesn't help though to claim that the reason for a lack of resources are students of color disproportionately receiving scholarships and that he is simply being denied aid for being White and male without having rigorous data to support this claim.

Now, if a group of private citizens decides they want to contribute toward a need or a cause that they have identified and they believe important, they are free to do so. I actually believe the reason many of these minority-targeted scholarships exist is due to the hard work of those who broke institutional barriers and decided it was important to contribute to their own communities to promote similar positive outcomes. I have been involved with the Pride Foundation in Seattle for a couple of years, a group that has been giving scholarships to LGBTQ-identified and allied individuals for approximately 25 years. The Foundation was started by LGBTQ-identified people and their allies who believed in funding people and initiatives that worked to end discrimination against the LGBTQ community and promoted positive outcomes within the community and society at large. If this Former Majority Association for Equality believes this is an important cause to support and fund, it is completely within their right, but usually initiatives like this die out in the long run because it is hard to sustain support for a need that is difficult to prove (especially if that proof lies solely in those who started the initiative).

Typically though, White anger comes from an unacknowledged fear of loss of privilege in society. I usually wonder if the passion for issues like this comes from an suppressed awareness that as privilege breaks down, people like these with FMAE are not as competitive for scholarship awards (or other benefits) as they once believed they were...

Do you really need a Master's degree for that job?

As much as I love the field of Student Affairs, I would be willing to bet I'm not the only one in the field who can become cynical from time to time. The question which serves as the title of this post came back to mind as I was reading Stephanie Lynch's latest blog post. I loved her humorous cynicism as she recalled asking herself a similar question, toward the beginning of her foray into student affairs: "What? Why do I need a Master's degree to sing the fight song to new students?" I appreciated hearing it from a colleague this time as it echoed a feeling I've struggled with throughout the process of achieving my degree and getting my first job in the field. Do I really need a Master's degree for this job?

The main answer I hear from current grad students, and even some new professionals, is that in our programs we learn how to identify where students are in their development and how we can then cause them to grow through it. The reason hearing this statement causes the inner cynic I spoke of earlier to emerge is that, I think, many of us mistakenly believe that we need to buy that student development theory outlines very rigid, concrete stages of development--and that our goal as practitioners is to recognize these stages in our students in order to diagnose their development and prescribe an educational opportunity that pushes a student to the next level. I know finding ways to understand how theory translates into practice takes some work, but is the purpose of theory really diagnostic?

Honestly, I know most of us realize that it is not. Trying to make theory diagnostic would demonstrate the opposite of understanding how to put theory to practice, and we're taught to be critical of student development theory from the get go. Most student development theory emerged itself from critique of more foundational theories--most notably how Carol Gilligan's work on women's moral development emerged from her critique of her own professor William Perry's theory of intellectual and ethical development. Yet these questions still nagged me. Why do we learn theory? What is the purpose of all those classes we take? Why do we invest so much time and energy into papers, theses, and comprehensive exams? What is the purpose for our Master's degrees?

I don't think the answer lies in examining the question, "What have you done today that requires a degree in Student Affairs?" It does provide a great reflection on our work, but I don't think we're looking for particular moments throughout our workday or individual decisions we made where having the Master's degree would have made the difference. Taking the time to reflect on what what my role is on campus and the philosophy behind how I approach my work, looking at what I do from a broader perspective, led me to my answer as to why I need a Master's degree to do what I do.

The main conclusion I reached is that I am a better teacher in my role because of my education. Theory plays an important role in conceptualizing how we approach our work, so rather than being a direct diagnosis of how to help a student, it provides paradigms for framing our interactions. Steph hit the mark with her example of her former supervisor. She described how her supervisor's understanding of theory shaped how she worked with students, leading to more successful outcomes. While theory itself is not dogmatic nor prophetic with regard to how young adults develop, having engaged with research and study on that development provides us frameworks for leading students to learning and developmental outcomes, and causes us to approach our work as educators, rather than service providers. I do a better job teaching and facilitating learning because of my own education.

Bringing in student affairs staff with student affairs graduate degrees ensures the campus continues to be infused with scholars. The classroom does not need to be the only place students come into contact with people engaged in scholarly work. Co-curricular involvement has the opportunity to become more meaningful, educational, and impactful when grounded in research. A key component of a Master's degree is engagement with current, relevant research.

Having a Master's degree is also a way I express to my students how important I value my own education. Many of us know we become mentors to our students through our work with them; I would argue that having mentors who have achieved their goals and attained higher levels of education would foster in students a greater desire to do so themselves. I'm not trying to suggest we mentor all our students toward working in student affairs, but seeing how we reached our own goals might cause the spark which provides them the efficacy to establish and achieve their own. I can also advise them better in pursuing a higher education because I have done it and I understand how the system works.

Overall, I feel like I'm a better educator in my role due to my own education, which I think makes me more effective in my work. I've realized that someone, if needed, most likely could perform the essential duties of my job without a Master's degree, but I am more effective, my students achieve better outcomes, and our field is stronger as a whole because of the research and graduate preparation happening in Student Affairs.

Bryce

To Mentor...or to Navigate?

I posted on Twitter the other day that I had just presented to the student government budget committee asking for increased funding for the program I supervise. I work at Green River Community College where I oversee the Commencement Achievement Program, an initiative out of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs geared toward helping students independently navigate the college system. I received a response from Lisa Endersby, a student affairs guru out of our neighbor to the north, which led to an email conversation about mentorship. She asked me why we call my student staff Peer Navigators, rather than mentors, and how that structures the paradigm of their work.

Many of us work in some capacity supporting or supervising student mentors. This mentorship appears in various paradigms, such as student leadership, peer tutoring, or, quite often, explicitly defined mentorship. Each of these different titles describes the various roles and functions our students fill in our programs/departments/divisions/colleges/etc., yet each title was intentionally chosen to frame their work within a specific paradigm and provide them a framework for reflection on how they serve their peers. Our exchange got me thinking a little deeper about why our program chooses to call them "navigators" rather than something more common, like "mentors." It was a term I inherited, but my director and I built it explicitly into my program's mission statement. Why do we consider it such a unique and valuable title?

Over the past two years, I've worked with our Student Life graphic designer to come up with a graphic to use in our literature and our promotional materials. Because we call our students "Peer Navigators," and the program has a mission around college navigation, she recommended a compass. I loved the idea as it symbolizes navigation, and the concept of direction (North, South, East, and West) has cross-cultural meaning. It provides a conceptualization of the college environment as a stormy sea, and our program provides navigation and direction to help students keep afloat above the waves. We work with mostly first-generation, low income, and otherwise underserved students, for whom the college environment is terribly unfamiliar and very intimidating. Our students can become overwhelmed by the process of attending college itself, let alone their coursework to complete their degrees, and quickly feel strong feelings of isolation and the desire to return to "friendlier shore."

I train the Peer Navigators to be a mentor to their students, but also to guide their peers toward developing their own skills to independently navigate the college system. Since many of them had similar college experiences, they can empathize with the students who access our program and authentically guide them from that common understanding. Often if a student thinks a question she has is stupid, she begins to believe she is the only one with that question, and that college staff may belittle her for not having all the information needed to attend in the first place. Asking another student can be much more comfortable, especially if the response is, "Oh yeah, I had that same question. Let me show you how I got that information."

Transitioning from high school to college includes a huge cultural shift in how each institution functions. College requires a greater degree of independence and self-motivation on the part of the student, and also requires prior knowledge of the lingo and processes on which all the aspects of college attendance operate. For students who do not have access to this information prior to admission to college, the transition becomes a barrier to degree completion. The college becomes a stormy sea, and the student a solitary captain navigating the murky waters rising on all sides. We call our students Peer Navigators because they become a compass, map, and literal navigator to walk side-by-side with their peers relying on their own experiences to help navigate the storms toward calmer waters.

Bryce

Are there lessons to learn AFTER the consolidation vote?

I found myself in the midst of an impromptu discussion about the upcoming NASPA/ACPA consolidation vote this morning when I posted two items to my Twitter account: "What happens if the membership of one organization votes to consolidate, and the other no?" and "And are we prepared to break down votes by demographics, to see who's voting 'yes' and who's voting 'no'?" I had recently read a thought-provoking post by Kristen Abell on her Kristendom Talks Tech blog stressing the importance of an informed vote on the consolidation matter, and I think this is why it was still ruminating in my mind over the weekend. So I threw it out there to the Twitterati to see if it might catch a response, and possibly lead me to deeper thought on the issue.

And it did. In fact, Kristen and I engaged in a brief discussion about whether breaking down the vote by demographics or comparing the results between NASPA and ACPA would even be productive or lead to greater tension and discord (and thus my decision to expand my thoughts here in this post). Some other posts echoed my question about breaking down the results to get a glimpse of who voted which way on the matter, and one from Chris Conzen that read, "I heard 1 official say in this situation, org that votes no tends to lose members if the other votes yes," a post that resonated with what I had originally been thinking--what happens if one membership votes no and the other votes yes? What does that say about each group, their belief in their own organization, their belief in the other organization, and how collaboration moves forward in the future?

Currently my only active membership is in ACPA. As a graduate student, I joined both (since the membership was much more affordable). I had a glimpse into what a joint organization might look like attending the 2007 joint meeting, and attended regional and national NASPA conferences before graduating. I haven't had a chance to participate as much since I took my current position as a spending freeze went into place in the fall of 2008 that prevented any out-of-state travel on state funds.

My interest in the first question was me wondering some of the reasons people are voting one way or another, and how it relates to their perceptions of both organizations. Perhaps many want to vote "yes" on consolidation so they no longer have to pay two membership dues. Perhaps some are not as interested in consolidation out of concern about losing the identity of their professional association(s). For me, I'm semi-passionately in favor of consolidation--not particularly enthusiastic about it, but from what I've read it could be a move forward toward a unified voice/vision for our field moving into the future. I'd love to retain memberships in both organizations again, but without being able to travel to participate in either organization's professional development opportunities, it hasn't seemed cost-effective to maintain both memberships.

As for my interest in my second question, that comes from my background in diversity. Mostly I imagined the biggest difference in the vote would be along the lines of age or years in the field--newer and younger professionals would be more open to consolidation while older and more seasoned professionals might be more hesitant to charge forward with such a dramatic restructure. But I also wondered if we might see significant differences in opinion along other demographic lines. And Kristen made a good point that often these types of breakdowns can be used in harmful ways, but I also see exploring the "why"s behind these differences as providing some excellent information regarding how our associations--or association--move forward. Perhaps there are unmet needs that some people believe might be addressed through consolidation that, though it may not pass, are uncovered through the learning process after the vote. Research like this would have to be conducted skillfully, aimed at moving forward beyond the vote, and done in a way that respects the memberships of both organizations (whether still intact or combined).

What I found provocative about Chris's Twitter post was the thought that a discrepancy in the vote, one organization voting in favor of consolidation and the other voting against, might sway members of one or the other to switch memberships. Not that I've ever believed there is some sort of "competition" between NASPA and ACPA to bring in the highest number of members, but could it cause someone to view their professional association in a different manner? I'm not sure it would cause me to up and realign my affiliations, but a discrepancy between the two could be a surprising result.

And then, of course, we return to the question of what our reasons are for voting one way or another. Which is in the best interest of our professional development? Which is in the best interest of our students, our ability to serve them well? Which might be more fiscally responsible both for our associations and our employing institutions? Which is a more efficient system? Kristen hit the nail on the head in driving home the point that we need to approach this vote as informed as possible--and deeply reflect on our reasons for voting either way.

Should we examine the demographics of the vote, or should the ultimate decision be allowed to stand alone? Would the opinions of your colleagues on the consolidation issue cause you to reassess your professional association?