Student support practitioners, who provide students with academic, emotional and social support, are integral to higher education institutions' initiatives to widen participation of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Yet, despite calls for a deeper understanding of widening-participation practice, the work of these professionals has received…

Just over ten years ago, John Schuh and Ann Gansemer-Topf authored NILOA Occasional Paper #7, "The Role of Student Affairs in Student Learning Assessment" (2010). The authors identified contributions and challenges for student affairs assessment and called on student affairs professionals not only to develop meaningful programs and…

The authors, coming from different generations, know that their colleagues have differing perspectives on how one responds to the demanding work in student affairs. Generational differences, however, create a diverse work environment that benefits students. Currently there are four generations gainfully employed in the US workforce. This includes…

Emerging from a worldwide study of 29 U.S.-trained student affairs professionals with higher education work experience abroad, this study explored the perspectives and skills developed through working abroad. The findings of this study provide useful advocacy for this group of professionals to demonstrate their unique perspectives and critical…

Decades of established research have focused on the attrition, workplace trauma, and career burnout of student affairs (SA) professionals working at colleges and universities (see N. J. Evans, 1988; Herr & Strange, 1985; Perez & Bettencourt, 2024; Walterbusch, 2019). The purpose of this generic qualitative research study (Khalke, 2016) was…

This article prompts a new examination of advising practice. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted normal modes of operation, it presents a unique opportunity to determine new approaches that address the equity gap in student degree attainment. A specific theory of racialized organizations is used as a lens for examining advising practice…

This chapter explores the transition from the master's-level graduate school experience to life as an early career professional in higher education and student affairs.

Guided by the three-dimensional narrative inquiry framework, this study explored the career experiences of women support staff with advanced degrees who work at higher education institutions. The researcher interviewed eight participants for this study. The participants also completed a written reflection detailing their career journeys. Two…

Disruptive activism has been a part of college campus since 1766 when the Bad Butter Rebellion at Harvard took place (Dickey, 2016; Ireland, 2012; Moore, 1976). More recently institutions have been facing an increase in disruptive campus activism (Dickey, 2016). When disruptive campus activism occurs on a college campus it is often the student…

This research utilizes an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis design to investigate female senior student affairs officers (SSAOs) as they experience and implement gendered communication practices in the higher education workplace. Research regarding female SSAO interactions are absent from discourse on gendered communication and no…

College expansion throughout the twentieth century was accompanied by the growth of a profession centered on supporting student learning and development. Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) programs multiplied across the United States to train these professionals with a focus on administration, leadership, and student affairs. As…

This narrative study examines how student affairs administrators in eight institutions in the southern United States became change agents in higher education for LGBTQ students. Participants shared stories of their identity development, turning points about needs of LGBTQ students, and their choice to advocate in higher education. Implications for…

Following the format of autoethnographic vignettes, this study describes the experience of a student affairs educator as they navigate their trans* becoming while working on a university campus. While many higher education institutions include gender identity and gender in their nondiscrimination policy, and offer trans* affirming healthcare,…

Henryism as a construct draws comparisons to what is commonly referred to as respectability politics, or the active adoption of standards rooted in whiteness as a regulatory instrument of one's behavior and emotions. This manuscript will bring Henryism and respectability politics into conversation in an effort to illuminate the paradox of…

Student affairs, a field comprised of many co- and extra-curricular university functions outside of academic affairs, has a durable left-leaning reputation. Roderick Ferguson's theorization of minority absorption serves as the concept through which we investigate the practices of student affairs. Ferguson argues that student movements of the 1960s…