After years of enrolling high numbers of Hispanic/Latinx students, Northern Arizona University (NAU) gained Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) status in Spring 2021. The institution currently enrolls a Hispanic/Latinx community of 25%. However, servingness is not accurately reflected through percentages alone. Rather, a university that engages in…

Systemic oppression is a pervasive and insidious problem in U.S. society. In higher education, challenging oppression sometimes requires exposing how institutions perpetuate violence toward minoritized populations, passionate confrontations with people who have committed undeniably egregious acts or are key powerbrokers actively perpetuating…

The aim of this essay is to show the importance of faculty collaboration in combating structural educational inequities and how it can help to radically reimagine pedagogy and higher education in the pandemic and beyond. Abolitionist teaching and pedagogy can begin with peer exchange--a teaching commons--that can support faculty before they even…

In this article, the authors share how they facilitated remote work-study options during COVID-19 as a united university community following anti-oppressive practice (AOP). Work-study is a Title IV campus-based program that had been somewhat static since its inception in 1964 but now has been challenged to reignite its role in addressing social…

In their bold vision Forward Framework, the Association for College Personnel Administrators (ACPA; 2018) has defined an explorative divesting of power from colonizers as decolonization. The definition of decolonization is "a long-term process of first recognizing and then divesting bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic, educational, and…

Just as important as the power of student activism to catalyze change on college campuses is the potential of Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI) programs to create the conditions for college students to develop their consciousness of systemic injustices and capacities to engage in…

The American College Personnel Association recognized the increased prominence of digital technologies in student affairs work, developing a technology competency area that includes foundational, intermediate, and advanced objectives for data use. However, as the role of technology use in student affairs practice rapidly changes, it is…

Along with a host of higher education institutions (HEI), Ryerson University has championed social innovation in its programming for the past several years, culminating in the development of the Office of Social Innovation (OSI). They define social innovation as the practice of using creative and collaborative approaches to challenge historical…

In recent years, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been in the midst of student unrest that is derivative of the surging racial turmoil across the country. HBCU students, fueled by a desire for change have been less inclined to acquiesce to campus administrations whom they believe do not have their best interests in mind.…

In 2006, Una, the feminist student organization at Saint Louis University (SLU)--a midsized, Midwestern, urban, Jesuit/Catholic university--was denied campus space to perform Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," an episodic play that portrays women's experiences with their bodies to raise awareness and funds for charitable organizations…

At North Carolina State University (NC State), first-year master's students in the Higher Education Administration program enroll in the Foundations of Higher Education & Student Affairs (EAC 540) course that provides an introduction to the field of higher education and student affairs administration, including the historical and philosophical…

Routine practices in federal and state penal facilities deny undocumented individuals access to various programming, including sentence-mandated and education programs. Many prison higher education programs also exclude individuals who are not US citizens and because undocumented people cannot access Pell Grant funds, it is unlikely they will…

Shelly L. Francis posits that we will need collective courage to truly embrace cultural diversity. So what is courage and can we cultivate it in ourselves and our students? First, we need more people with the skills to foster trust, especially with others who are different. Perhaps not surprisingly, these people will also need a strong sense of…

Alan Mueller explores the tension between helping students reach their career aspirations and being true to his personal and professional values of justice and equity. He identifies this as "inhabiting the gap," that is, remaining in the discomfort of the ethical or moral dilemma. One way he does this is by practicing unconditional…

Instructors and professors know from their experiences as learners that engaged, interactive, dialogical learning can enhance understanding and increase joy in the learning process. Yet many were primarily taught through traditional lecture-style techniques and continue that pattern in their own teaching. As a professor who believes learning…