The landscape of higher education campus environments continues to change as student populations diversify (Parsons, 2023; Renn & Reason, 2013) and campus spaces extend into the digital realm. This critical phenomenological study examined organizational features that racialize digital campus ecology by examining the phenomena of interest,…

In this study, researchers investigated the library experiences of Black undergraduate students at Penn State in University Park, a predominately white institution. Their goal was to improve services and spaces and to highlight and validate experiences with race, racism, and microaggressions on campus and in the library. Twenty undergraduate…

The creation of the cisgender binary through the advent of settler colonialism in the land now known as the United States contributed to centuries of violence against and erasure of trans* communities. Structural oppression against trans*ness at a societal level contributes to similar modes of oppression in microcosms of society, including all…

Across the disciplines, universities increasingly incorporate course offerings focusing on human rights in which students examine problems that disproportionately affect communities of color. Instructors often assume our teaching about these issues contributes to the cause of social justice by spotlighting the problems themselves, but this…

This constructivist grounded theory study reveals nine interrelated components that describe white undergraduates' processes for making meaning of issues of race and racism in their environments. Findings also reveal how these processes perpetuate whiteness and anti-blackness. I present the theory as a composite counternarrative that draws upon…

This study explores the lived experiences on campus of five female undergraduate students of colour. Drawing on a critical race theory perspective and inspired by CRiT walking, walking interviews were conducted to give voice to the students' experiences of marginalisation, both metaphorical and physical. The findings reveal how whiteness impacts…

This study seeks to expand the conceptualization of campus safety incorporating both physical and psychological dimensions and drawing attention to the experiences of Black college students. Using the 2019 ACHA-NCHA biannual assessment, this study examined campus safety experiences of Black/African American in comparison to White undergraduate…

This qualitative study examines how Black undergraduate students attending a predominately White institution (PWI) assess and interpret their university's diversity and inclusion initiatives given their everyday experiences with campus-based racism. Using critical race theory (CRT) this article illuminates how Black students at a PWI interpret…

In 2021, the Association of American Universities formed an Advisory Board on Racial Equity in Higher Education. The board conducted its work through four different subgroups, each tasked with studying promising practices and communicating potential strategies to mitigate structural barriers to equity in different aspects of the life of leading…

The purpose of this article was to examine how Whiteness functions to underwrite and maintain racially hostile campus climates. Utilizing narrative inquiry, results illuminate two rhetorical devices that White students utilized to rationalize and justify the racial status quo: Narratives of Campus Racial Harmony and Narratives of Imposition.…

This paper provides new insights into the process of college adjustment by examining week-by-week trends in college belonging and well-being within a sample of 12,529 responses from 882 students at a private, selective university. These adjustment outcomes generally improve throughout the first semester, but the patterns are certainly not linear,…

This mixed methods study examines the institutional mechanisms related to ethnicity that shape the differential experiences of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students. By conducting in-depth interviews with AAPI students as well as analyzing data from the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, this study sought to…

Given the critical significance of empirical studies of diversity, it is important for researchers and assessment practitioners to gain insight into how students are interpreting and answering survey items that have noteworthy implications for policy and practice. To examine how students make meaning of survey items related to diversity, we…

The systemic racism in US society being resisted through larger movements such as Black Lives Matter is also reflected and reproduced in US higher education. In this qualitative study, we examined how Black students contextualize their campus racial climate within broader race issues, tensions, and movements occurring across the nation. Findings…

The way Black men make meaning of their college experience is implicitly tied to how they internalize and demonstrate their masculinity. This research briefly reviews the concept of Black masculinity from a critical theory lens, situating it within the college milieu. Critical race theory (CRT) is introduced as a practical approach for challenging…