Student affairs professionals have often relied on the professional development of staff rather than innovative design approaches to fulfill the challenge of creating programs, services, and activities that serve today's global and multicultural students. In this article, Jordan Harper and Adrianna Kezar introduce Liberatory Design Thinking (LDT)…

This study examines how involvement in four undergraduate faculty communities of practice is associated with faculty perceiving they improved in individual practices related to STEM reform. It is informed by the communities of practice and faculty change literature and utilizes data gathered through a survey of community members (n = 2503). The…

Contingent, VITAL faculty make up the majority of faculty positions in the United States, and their role is primarily instruction. Yet they often face numerous barriers to participating in professional development and engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), activities that can support their instructional effectiveness. This…

In this article, the authors describe how college transition programs and campuses can go about creating and curating a major and career ecology to support at-promise students and their major and career success. They review literature about the systemic barriers and lack of institutional support for at-promise students as it relates to their major…

Systemic inequalities in higher education have contributed to lower retention and completion rates among low-income, first generation, and racially/ethnically minoritized students, who we refer to as "at-promise" students. In response, educators have implemented comprehensive college transition programs that offer students holistic…

This report, the fifth in the "On Shared Equity Leadership series," explores ways to build capacity for the work of shared equity leadership (SEL) in higher education. SEL is a leadership approach that scales diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work and creates culture change by connecting individual and organizational transformation.…

There are few accounts in the higher education literature of mixing methods at the survey design stage and very little guidance targeting higher education researchers and practitioners who want to implement a mixed methods approach to design survey tools. This article explores an eight-step, iterative, mixed methods approach for creating a…

Little research examines scaled culture change attempted across a network of institutions moving toward more enterprise-level changes. This study attempts to fill that gap by studying the American Association of Universities (AAU) Undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) Initiative and its attempt to scale culture…

In this publication, the first in the "On Shared Equity Leadership" series, we describe how broadly inclusive and collaborative approaches to leadership are necessary to achieve equitable outcomes. We term this approach "shared equity leadership" (SEL), in which equity becomes everyone's responsibility and multiple campus…

Emerging evidence demonstrates that integrated programs, which combine academic and socioemotional supports and bridge boundaries between academic and student affairs, can improve college success rates for low-income, first-generation college students. This article explores the organizational value of integrated transition programs across several…

This chapter explores the ways faculty and staff work with students to support their activism as well as the way students tap faculty and staff to support their movements.

Certain widely tested educational practices have been shown to have a significantly beneficial impact on student learning and success in college. These "high-impact practices" include first-year experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, collaborative assignments and projects,…

STEM undergraduate education reforms are more likely to be effective if undertaken not by individual faculty members but by faculty networks or "communities of transformation." The article describes four such communities that have persisted over many years and served large numbers of faculty through annual events, newsletters and…

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it as they interact regularly. Higher education leaders are attracted to CoPs because they are a peer-based model of learning with colleagues, which works well for professionals such as faculty. These authors identified…

It is important for administrators, faculty, and policy makers to understand and consider how policies commonly associated with non-tenure-track faculty roles and working environments impact student learning. Many policies impede the ability of faculty to provide effective instruction that is aligned with departmental and institutional goals for…