Bell's (1992) thesis of racial realism, in concert with the work of Wilderson (2007), Hartman (1997), and Sharpe (2016), positions the afterlife of slavery as an irreconciled event that is ongoing and permanent. If the assumption is that racism exists and, subsequently, racial battle fatigue is and will be an enduring embodied experience that…

In this manuscript, I discuss the experiences of African American male scholars at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in the American South and the impact of their academic and social experiences on their respective campuses. Furthermore, I discuss their utilization of code-switching or a lack thereof as a tool to navigate their…

This chapter asserts that data are more likely to improve learning when assessment focuses on sensemaking conversations among students, faculty, and student affairs administrators, rather than on advanced statistical techniques.

The transition to adulthood is a complex process, and college is pivotal to this experience. "The Science of College" aids entering college students--and the people who support them--in navigating college successfully, with up-to-date recommendations based upon real student situations, sound social science research, and the collective…

As the nation's personal, social, and political divides deepen and become more contentious, administrators, faculty, staff, and students face the challenge of navigating this division. Issues of human rights, free speech, and college and university policy converge with remarkable contention, leaving many higher education professionals believing…

Author Anne Lamott wrote "This is a difficult country to look different in...and if you are too skinny or too tall or dark or weird or short or frizzy or homely or poor or nearsighted, you get crucified." Lamott's comment speaks to what happens when people do not fit into neat social categories. Such experiences of not fitting, of being…

This book is about student success and how to support and improve it. It takes as its point of departure that we--as faculty, assessment directors, student affairs professionals, and staff--reflect together in a purposeful and informed way about how our teaching, curricula, the co-curriculum, and assessment work in concert to support and improve…

This article presents a two-phase study exploring the usage of technology in higher education as well as the role of the general innovativeness in predicting the actual use of technology. During the first phase of the study, which involved 502 staff members, a descriptive analysis of their usage of social media, technological devices, and…

In this study I explored the experiences of institutional actors (e.g. administrators, faculty and staff members) responsible for student success efforts at research universities. Through Critical Discourse Analysis of interview transcripts and institutional documents, I traced how neoliberalism and other economic logics propagated through the…

With the 2015 update to the professional competencies document for the student affairs profession, the necessity exists to explore the professional development needs in each of the ten competency areas. This study investigates student affairs professionals' survey responses to determine their self-reported needs for professional development based…

College students are increasingly interested in spiritual and religious identity exploration. Factors influencing such inquiry at public institutions of higher education include rational empiricism, cultural norms, and faculty and student affairs professionals' uncertainty about what is permissible, as well as their perceived level of preparation…

Stories and storytelling provide meaning and build connections between individuals. Using various narrative frameworks developed in the medical and career development disciplines, the author makes the case that narrative approaches can be applied to higher education and student affairs contexts. The use and misuse of technology can serve as a…

Maximizing the positive impact of first-year experience (FYE) courses on students relies on effective collaboration between academic and student affairs. Professional development activities, especially with faculty, can be difficult to institute as power struggles, discordant goals, and unclear expectations abound. A Learner-centered Professional…

In this report, the fourth in the "On Shared Equity Leadership series," the authors describe the ways that leaders in different campus roles contribute to shared equity leadership (SEL) efforts. SEL is a leadership approach that scales diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work and creates culture change by connecting individual and…

The campus climate for LGBQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer) communities in higher education has improved, but not necessarily at religiously affiliated institutions. This case study explores how faculty, staff, and students at a Jesuit, Catholic university address LGBQ issues through interviews, participant observation, and document review.…