University of Michigan. Vice President for Student Affairs.

The position of vice-president for student services traces its institutional ancestry back through the vice-president for student affairs, to the director of the Office of Student Affairs, finally to the Office of the Dean of Students. Through all of these metamorphoses the office's primary responsibility was the administration of programs related to the life of the student outside of the classroom. This encompasses a broad spectrum of programs dealing with counseling, financial aid, student housing, student activities and organizations, the health service, student discipline, and fraternities. The office reflects the changing interests and composition of the student body and the increasing complexity of the University's administrative bureaucracy.

Joseph A. Bursley, the first dean of students, took office February 1, 1921, to fulfill the Regents' dictate to act "as friend, counselor and guide to the student body and to have the general oversight of its welfare and of its general activities." Given this open-ended directive, Bursley soon found need to add an assistant dean and support staff to meet his mission tending to the housing, financial, social, and moral needs of students. By the time Bursley retired in 1945, the pattern of assuming increasing responsibilities with a larger staff and more complex bureaucracy was well established.

...