Over the last 3 years, the advocacy organization Speech First has filed six lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of bias response teams on the grounds that they violate free speech. Bias response teams are university-wide committees that respond to reports of racially charged incidents on college campuses to promote institutional goals of…

Do inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) courses geared toward Latinx students help create a collectivist community on a college campus? We argue that courses incorporating IDEA initiatives into their curriculum and focusing on Latinx individuals provide students the face, place, and space to create the cultural wealth required for…

This study examined the relationship between acceptance of disability, perceived stigma of students on a college campus and adaptation to college for students with disabilities. One hundred forty-five surveys were collected from student participants via the disability support services offices at sixteen colleges or universities in the northeast…

The case study is guided by Bell's critical race theory as a lens for understanding racial discrimination. Critical race theory was used at a collegiate institution that served as a representation of a larger societal pattern throughout the United States. A hypothetical university was created, and scenarios were integrated based on actual events…

In partnership with the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB), the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) has had an ongoing commitment toward providing support for Illinois community colleges, with the goal of advancing equitable outcomes for students. In pursuit of this objective, OCCRL researchers have worked with…

In the history of US news media, partisanship, class, race, and gender biases have always infused the press and that coverage has often been shaped behind closed doors by those with the greatest power. People of color have been systematically excluded from the press, both in general society and on college campuses. However over the past several…

To say that there is a need for social justice is to assume that there is inequitable access to resources and unequal distribution of power (Golightly et al., 2017). Resources are needed for LGBTQ+ college students to achieve higher success rates in their programs of study ("LGBTQ+" stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,…

A rise in racial tensions nationwide has heightened the need for community college leaders to have candid conversations about race on their campuses. "Dialogue is the only path to creating community," says Joseph Grenny, co-author of "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High." But talking about race,…

As the number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs; postsecondary institutions that enroll 25% or more Latinx students) in the United States increases annually, so does the need to theorize about what it means to have an HSI organizational identity. Using interview data from a multiple case study of three institutionally diverse HSIs in the…

Through an illustrative example of Together We Achieve at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, this chapter outlines an institutional approach for improving conditions for Black men on campus.

Black males are scarce on White campuses. Still, they experience hypervisibility and are targets of hypersurveillance. This study used focus groups and semi-structured interviews to examine the experiences of 36 Black male students attending seven "elite" historically White Research I institutions. Two themes emerged: (a) anti-Black male…

This article provides an overview of the research on targeted violence, including campus violence, and the implications for policy and practice at institutions of higher education. Unique challenges of threat assessment in the community college setting are explored, and an overview of an effective threat assessment policy and team at William…

A baccalaureate degree is essential to success in the contemporary United States. The degree offers improved economic security and the development of capabilities such as critical thinking, effective communication, quantitative reasoning, creativity, problem solving, personal and social responsibility, and social and cultural capital. Failure to…

In the course of developing and co-­teaching Social Research Methods (SRM), an interdisciplinary, upper-­division undergraduate course at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS), the authors discovered that this type of partnership is ripe ground for exploring integration of anthropology and sociology on epistemological and methodological…

As physical evidence of institutional aspiration and achievement, ambition and accomplishment, campus heritage (broadly defined) has emerged as a major component in comprehensive campus planning and in devising a site-specific sense of place. Physical actions related to campus heritage include the renewal and/or repurposing of landmark…