Inherent challenges affect first-generation students' persistence from as early as the first college year. Using cultural capital as a guide, this study is unique in that it investigates the contribution of first-year policies and programs to the success of first-generation students in 57 bachelor's degree-granting institutions across five states…

Scholarship about ethics in higher education often focuses on wrongdoing: cheating, incivility, and a host of other misdeeds. We focus, instead, on ethicality as the enactment of integrity across everyday work life. This approach is particularly true in student affairs where administrators, faculty members, staff members, and students intersect…

A diverse faculty and staff reflects an important measure of success for higher education institutions. Recent gains in diversifying higher education have become more evident, as growing numbers of individuals from racialized minority communities have assumed senior executive leadership positions, from vice presidents for student affairs to…

Creating impactful partnerships across university divisions can enhance the effectiveness and impact of the Disability Services Office. Research has shown the benefits of practitioners and faculty members collaborating; however, careful consideration and communication is needed in order for these collaborations to be successful and beneficial. In…

Student affairs administration in Chinese universities is characterised by a dual-layer system of governance, with student affairs practitioners, i.e. advisors to students, being supervised by either central university administration or by affiliated colleges. In the last decade, government-oriented developments have achieved great success in…

Positive mentorship perceptions relate to higher intent to persist (Baier et al., 2016) and sense of belonging (e.g., Apriceno et al., 2020). Apriceno and colleagues (2020) used multiple survey items to examine student engagement with mentors, but they were unable to consider how mentors incorporate Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)…

Do the narratives of employability constructed by higher education institutions for marketing purposes differ from the conceptualisation and/or the realisation of employability within those institutions? The study reported here drew on interviews with 16 senior academic and student support staff who were tasked with developing student…

This article considers student affairs practice within the Completion Agenda by studying community college student affairs educators' beliefs about their work related to the value others attribute to it. The Completion Agenda's goals are largely economic, and community colleges have been asked to focus on speed rather than the quality of the…

Since incorporation, the economic value of students to colleges has seen the language of 'risk' and 'drop-out' permeate the further education sector, placing retention and achievement high up on the agenda, with what appears to be little consideration for the consequences this might have for the students the terms describe. This study provides a…

Little scholarship explores the attention to religious, spiritual, and secular identity in the graduate preparation of student affairs professionals. To address this gap, we undertook a phenomenological examination of the experiences of second-year graduate students in four elite master of education programs with respect to these identities. We…

Colleges and universities looking to reduce cost often use non-tenure track instructional staff. One understudied group within the literature of non-tenure track instructional staff includes higher education and student affairs administrators who teach classes alongside their non-academic administrative work. This study leveraged critical race…

The book was written to assist those who plan to work as student affairs educators soon and those who are new student affairs educators to become competent in social justice and inclusion. It will provide trainees and new student affairs educators not only content knowledge and skills but also strategies and ways to develop competency in social…

Each year hundreds of institutions will administer national surveys to measure the engagement of their students. However, stakeholders on college campuses, such as educators (faculty, instructors, student affairs educators, and disability services administrators) and institutional research staff who work with this information are often unaware of…

Unfortunately, within the extant scholarship that has explored queer and trans* historically Black college and university (HBCU) students, the discourse(s) that deliberately center how they can be retained, persist, and ultimately graduate have largely been absent from the literature. Thus, this conceptual exploration offers strategies that HBCUs…

A debate currently rages as to the value of higher education, including topics as broad as learning outcomes, employability, safety, and politics. It might seem to a casual observer that the modern college landscape is riddled with criticism and doubt. Up until the 2010s higher education long enjoyed popular support. For decades, overall…