Some student affairs professionals who are employed at public colleges and universities feel conflicted about the degree to which they should or should not discuss their religious and/or spiritual beliefs at work. The purpose of this article is to present an overview of legal, developmental, and ethical considerations that should be factored into…

Decisions in student affairs often require the integration of multiple knowledge bases (O'Brien, 2018). Although learning and development have historically been core values of the profession (Evans & Reason, 2001), legal demands on student affairs professionals have grown with increasing responsibility for compliance in areas like Title IX and…

The author provides a personal and professional reflection on her 40-plus-year career in higher education and student affairs within the perspective of current national events. She outlines the new challenges and responsibilities that the 2016 election and the ongoing aftermath create for the profession and proposes three guideposts for scholars…

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…

Because the work of scholars and student affairs practitioners is primarily confined within colonial institutions of higher education, their ethics of research and practice are also primarily bound by the same colonial perspective. Colonial practices perpetuate white dominance and therefore harm students, specifically those from marginalized…

Student affairs professionals committed to principles of social justice continually seek ways to align their values with their professional practice. However, such commitments and aspirational goals are not enough to dismantle systems, policies, and practices embedded in the inequitable and oppressive structures often found in higher education.…

Among the many issues facing today's higher education, the change in student demographic posits significant challenges to effectively managing higher education. Enrollment statistics predict that minorities will fill up to 48% of the student population by 2050 (Enyeart Smith, Wessel and Polacek, 2017). Because universities play a primary role as…

The purpose of this critical content analysis study was to examine higher education/student affairs (HE/SA) preparation toward a racial framing that centers and honors Black mattering. We explored linkages between Black literacies and epistemic credibility as indicators of Black mattering by analyzing 24 syllabi of foundational courses in HE/SA…

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…

In the changing religious landscape of American higher education, campus chaplains offer vital resources to student affairs professionals. Drawing from interviews with 16 religiously diverse chaplains, this article presents the respondents' perspectives on the challenges facing students, as well as their own contributions to campus life. Chaplains…

This chapter highlights opportunities in the digital space for student affairs professionals. A blended approach, grounded in the new technology competency recently added in the ACPA and NASPA student affairs professional competencies, is proposed for student affairs professionals' digital identity development. It includes the awareness of one's…

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…

This article aims to illuminate the transcendent relevance of Patricia Hill Collins' Black feminist thought (BFT) by explicating the role the theory plays in grounding the work of a student affairs faculty member. The criticality of culturally responsive practice is highlighted by centering the ways an intentionally Black feminist consciousness…

Special interest groups (SIGs) offer spaces for interests that may not be supported or adequately addressed by the larger organization. NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA) calls its SIGs "knowledge communities." This article describes the ways the members of the Indigenous Peoples knowledge community (IPKC)…

The US academy has been anti-democratic in philosophy and practice from its inception, seeking to discipline students as docile bodies cooperative with a white supremacist status quo. This Foucauldian analysis highlights how the academy's historical and ongoing enforcement of discipline and normalizing judgments made the outcome of the 2016 US…