Student affairs work—like higher education—is fundamentally about change. Principally, the change work performed by student affairs practitioners is about supporting the growth and development of individual students and student groups. Increasingly, that work has called for practitioners to become more active in working to change higher education so that it lives up to its radically democratic, inclusive ideals. This means adopting new strategies to transform student affairs staff, students, and institutions, and drawing on insights from critical, liberatory theories. This text represents an effort to describe and document these practices of intentionally centering critical theories.The first section of this text examines the ways that critically-minded practitioners lead through equitable, liberatory frameworks, offering important models for reimagining the future of higher education. In the second section, the editors take up thinking and acting to support the development of critical consciousness in students, providing examples of programs, initiatives, and student support offices that center social justice in their work, and foster a critical lens through their interactions with students. In their conclusion, the editors provide a model for critical praxis, offering enduring strategies for practitioners seeking to incorporate critical, socially just praxis into their everyday work, and defining areas for future research and praxis, including identifying strategies for effective assessment of critical praxis, and modalities for “scaling up” the work for maximal impact.

A major new contribution to college student development theory, this book brings "third wave" theories to bear on this vitally important topic. The first section includes a chapter that provides an overview of the evolution of student development theories as well as chapters describing the critical and poststructural theories most relevant to the next iteration of student development theory. These theories include critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theories, intersectionality, decolonizing/indigenous theories, and crip theories. These chapters also include a discussion of how each theory is relevant to the central questions of student development theory. The second section provides critical interpretations of the primary constructs associated with student development theory. These constructs and their related ideas include resilience, dissonance, socially constructed identities, authenticity, agency, context, development (consistency/coherence/stability), and knowledge (sources of truth and belief systems). Each chapter begins with brief personal narratives on a particular construct; the chapter authors then re-envision the narrative’s highlighted construct using one or more critical theories. The third section will focus on implications for practice. Specifically, these chapters will consider possibilities for how student development constructs re-envisioned through critical perspectives can be utilized in practice. The primary audience for the book is faculty members who teach in graduate programs in higher education and student affairs and their students. The book will also be useful to practitioners seeking guidance in working effectively with students across the convergence of multiple aspects of identity and development.

"This text represents an effort to describe and document these practices of intentionally centering critical theories"--

Inclusive Supervision in Student Affairs provides a new, action-oriented model that addresses what supervisors should do to create more inclusive environments for all staff and to help inform socially just practice. Grounded in theory and research and framed through the lens of continuous professional development and personal growth, this book helps Student Affairs professionals at all levels develop effective leadership skills that demonstrate multicultural competence. Providing a conceptual model and self-assessment tool to enhance professionals’ preparation for supervision, this book also helps readers reflect upon their own capacity to enact an inclusive supervisory approach through the use of case studies and end-of-chapter questions.

College and university administrators are increasingly called to confront the deeply entrenched racial inequities in higher education. To do so, corresponding attention must be given to historical and contemporary manifestations of whiteness in higher education and student affairs.This book bridges theoretical and practical considerations regarding the ways whiteness functions to underwrite racially hostile and unwelcoming campus communities for People of Color, all the while upholding the interests and values of white students, faculty, and staff.While higher education scholars and practitioners have long explored the role of race and racism in college and university contexts, rarely have they done so through a lens of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). Exploring such topics through the lens of CWS offers new opportunities to both examine white identities, attitudes, and ways of being, and to explicitly name how whiteness is embedded in environments that marginalize and oppress students, faculty, and staff of color. This book is especially concerned with naming the material consequences of whiteness in the lives of People of Color on college and university campuses in the United States.Part one of the book introduces theoretical ideas and concepts administrators, scholars, and activists might use to interrogate how whiteness functions on campus. Part two of the book explores practical considerations for how whiteness functions across campus spaces, including student leadership programs, fraternity and sorority life, faculty tenure and promotion, LGBTQ support services, and so forth.

FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS "…a concise, manageable, lucid summary of the best scholarship, practices, and future-oriented thinking about how to effectively recruit, educate, develop, retain, and ultimately graduate first-generation students." —from the foreword by JOHN N. GARDNER First-generation students are frequently marginalized on their campuses, treated with benign disregard, and placed at a competitive disadvantage because of their invisibility. While they include 51% of all undergraduates, or approximately 9.3 million students, they are less likely than their peers to earn degrees. Among students enrolled in two-year institutions, they are significantly less likely to persist into a second year. First-Generation College Students offers academic leaders and student affairs professionals a guide for understanding the special challenges and common barriers these students face and provides the necessary strategies for helping them transition through and graduate from their chosen institutions. Based in solid research, the authors describe best practices and include suggestions and techniques that can help leaders design and implement effective curricula, out-of-class learning experiences, and student support services, as well as develop strategic plans that address issues sure to arise in the future. The authors offer an analysis of first-generation student expectations for college life and academics and examine the powerful role cultural capital plays in shaping their experiences and socialization. Providing a template for other campuses, the book highlights programmatic initiatives at colleges around the county that effectively serve first-generation students and create a powerful learning environment for their success. First-Generation College Students provides a much-needed portrait of the cognitive, developmental, and social factors that affect the college-going experiences and retention rates of this growing population of college students.

This book is a practical resource designed to raise leadership educators understanding of culturally relevant leadership pedagogy for the purpose of creating inclusive learning spaces that are socially just for students. For leadership educators seeking personal and professional development to assist in building and enhancing their levels of cultural competence in leadership education, this book is a guide. The audience for the book ranges from new and entry-level leadership educator roles to senior scholars in leadership education. Operationalizing Culturally Relevant Leadership Learning, provides leadership educators with a substantive and comprehensive approach to the topic, offering personal narratives from leadership educators who have operationalized the model in their own personal and professional contexts. We believe that reframing leadership education with the culturally relevant leadership learning model, leadership educators will be able to integrate new insights into their own pedagogy and practice and move towards action. This book illustrates how leadership educators can shift the way they experience and facilitate leadership learning. By framing the operationalization of culturally relevant leadership learning, this book discusses the why, who, what, where, when, and how of developing culturally relevant and socially just leadership education. Readers of this text are encouraged to actively engage in the content through the questions each chapter pose and consider for themselves how culturally relevant leadership learning can be implemented in their own context.