1st Edition

Contested Issues in Troubled Times Student Affairs Dialogues on Equity, Civility, and Safety

    540 Pages
    by Routledge

    540 Pages
    by Routledge

    Contested Issues in Troubled Times provides student affairs educators with frameworks to constructively think about and navigate the contentious climate they are increasingly encountering on campus.The 54 contributors address the book’s overarching question: How do we create an equitable climate conducive to learning in a dynamic environment fraught with complexity and a socio-political context characterized by escalating intolerance, incivility, and overt discrimination?Rather than attempting to offer readers definitive solutions, this book illustrates the possibilities and promise of acknowledging multiple approaches to addressing contentious issues, articulating a persuasive argument anchored in professional judgment, listening attentively to others for points of connection as well as divergence, and drawing upon new ways of thinking to foster safe and inclusive campuses.Among the issues this volume addresses are such topics as sexual violence; historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups; transgender and undocumented students; the professional skills, knowledge and/or dispositions needed to thrive and facilitate systemic change in contemporary higher education organizations; the implications of maintaining personal and professional identities via social media; and self-care.In this companion volume to Contested Issues in Student Affairs (whose issues remain as relevant today as they were upon publication in 2011), a new set of contributors explore new questions which foreground issues of equity, safety, and civility – themes which dominate today’s higher education headlines and campus conversations.The book concludes with calls to action, encouraging student affairs educators to exhibit the moral courage needed to critically examine routine practices that (un)knowingly perpetuate inequity and enact the foundational values and principles upon which the student affairs profession was founded.

    Foreword—Lori D. Patton Preface—Peter M. Magolda, Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, and Rozana Carducci Acknowledgments Companion Social Media Opportunities—Nick Rathbone Part One. Introduction 1. Why Is It So Hard for the Student Affairs Profession to Foster Inclusive Environments for Learning? • Bonding and Bridging for Community and Democracy—Penny Rue • History Matters. Against Romanticizing Student Affairs' Role in Inclusion—Dafina-Lazarus (D-L. Stewart 2. How Do Student Affairs Educators Help Students Learn to Engage Productively in Difficult Dialogue? • Learning Dialogic Skills for Effective Campus Conversations—Kelly E. Maxwell and Monita C. Thompson • Systemic Integration of Dialogic Skills. An Opportunity for Student Affairs/Academic Affairs Partnerships—Jeannie Brown Leonard Part Two. Cultivating Inclusive Learning Environments. Equity, Civility and Safety 3. How Should Institutions Address Student Demands Related to Campus Racial Climate? • To Address Today’s Student Demands for Racial Justice, Institutions Must Shift From Multiculturalism to Polyculturalism—Ajay Nair • Critical Considerations in Advancing Social Justice Agendas in Higher Education—Samuel D. Museus 4. What Are the Responsibilities and Limits of Student Affairs’ Roles in Preparing Students for Political Activism? • Student Affairs Educators’ Brokering Role in Political Activism—Sandra Rodríguez • Brokering Students’ Political Activism. Expanding Student Affairs Professionals’ Views—Cassie L. Barnhardt 5. What Does It Mean for Student Affairs Educators to Establish Safe and Just Responses to Campus Sexual Violence? • Moving Beyond Policy to Address Campus Sexual Violence—Chris Linder • Abating Campus Sexual Violence Requires a Multifaceted Approach—Frank Shushok Jr. 6. How Do Student Affairs Educators Navigate the Tension Between the First Amendment Right to Free Speech and the Expression of Ideas That Create a Hostile Campus Climate? • Free Expression, Civic Education, and Inclusive Campuses—Rafael E. Alvarado • Balancing Free Speech and Inclusive Campus Environments. A Worthy Yet Complicated Commitment—Naomi Daradar Sigg 7. How Should Institutions Redefine and Measure Student Success? • Student Success as Liberal Education Escapes Definition and Measurement—Laura Elizabeth Smithers • Redefining Student Success to Foster More Inclusive Learning Environments—Molly Reas Hall 8. What Are the Risks of Assuming the Sharing of Proper Pronouns Is a Best Practice for Trans* Inclusion? • More Than Pronouns. Problematizing Best Practices of Trans* Inclusion—Kathryn S. Jaekel and D. Chase J. Catalano • What Happens to a Dream Deferred?. Sharing Proper Pronouns as an Act of Gender Self-Determination—Z Nicolazzo 9. How Should Institutions Support Students With Marginalized Identities? What Practices Are Essential for the Establishment of Safe and Inclusive Learning Environments? • What is Equitable?—Engaging the Four Is of Oppression to Support Students of Color—Jonathan A. McElderry and Stephanie Hernandez Rivera • Intersectionality, Culture, and Mentoring. Critical Needs for Student Affairs Educators—Julie A. Manley White 10. What Role Should Student Affairs Educators Play in Supporting Undocumented Students in the Current Political Climate? • Confronting Anti-Immigration Rhetoric on Campus. A Student Affairs Imperative—Susana M. Muñoz • Emphasizing Institution-Wide Strategies to Support Undocumented Students in Higher Education—Maria Sanchez Luna and Mei-Yen Ireland 11. How Does Social Class Influence Student Learning and the Work of Student Affairs Educators? • Social Class Complexities in Curricular and Cocurricular Learning. Options Do Not Mean Access—Sonja Ardoin • Disrupting Educational Privilege. Partnering With Students and Communities to Create True Inclusion—Angela Cook 12. What Is the Role of Student Affairs Educators in Helping Students Whose Learning Is Complicated by Experiencing Trauma? • Navigating the Complex Space of Supporting Student Survivors of Trauma—Tricia R. Shalka • A Focus on Relational and Narrative Aspects of Trauma. Challenges and Opportunities for Higher Education—Kelli D. Zaytoun 13. Why Is Religion a Difficult Issue In American Higher Education and How Should Student Affairs Respond? • Balancing Competing Interests Through Principled Practice—P. Jesse Rine and Brian D. Reed • Supporting Interfaith Climates and Outcomes. Considerations and Practices for Student Affairs Educators—Benjamin S. Selznick 14. What Is the Student Affairs Educator’s Role in Navigating Tensions Between Legislative Action and Institutional Policy? • From Guns to Transgender Students’ Rights. When Policy and Personal Positions Do Not Align—Amelia Parnell and Jill Dunlap • Passion and Policy. How Student Affairs Educators Navigate Their Roles in the Face of Legislative Restrictions—R. Bradley Johnson Part Three. Cultivating Professional Capacities to Foster Inclusive Learning Environments 15. Given the Complexity Associated With Fostering Equitable, Civil, and Safe Learning Environments, How Should Graduate Preparation Programs Prepare Students to Work in Higher Education? • Advancing Power- and Identity-Conscious Student Affairs Graduate Programs—Rosemary J. Perez • A Systemic Approach to Enacting Equitable, Civil, and Safe Learning Environments—Jessica C. Harris 16. What Professional Development Opportunities Are Necessary to Ensure that Professionals Have the Capacities and Competencies to Make Good Decisions When Faced With the Unknown? • Trust Your Instincts, Pack a Compass, and Never Hike Alone—Cynthia H. Love • Professional Development as a Healing Community Practice—Michelle M. Espino 17. What Responsibility Does Student Affairs Have to Help Graduate Assistants Navigate the Ambiguity Between Their Student and Professional Roles? • Navigating Two Worlds. Supporting Graduate Students in Their Dual Roles as Students and Professionals—Jessica Gunzburger • Caught in the Middle. A Stable Anchor for Graduate Students Amid a Discursive Struggle—Hoa Bui 18. How Should Student Affairs Professional Preparation Programs Address Discrimination and Bias in the Graduate Classroom? • No Struggle, No Progress. The Complexities of Pre-Tenure Minoritized Faculty Addressing Bias, Discrimination, and Oppression in Student Affairs Graduate Preparation Programs—David Pérez II • You Are Not Alone. Graduate Preparation Programs’ Responsibility and Commitment to Addressing Discrimination and Bias in Classrooms and Beyond—Bridget Turner Kelly 19. What Is the Value of Student Affairs Research as It Relates to Issues of Equity, Civility, and Safety? • The Value and Disconnect of Student Affairs Research Related to Equity, Civility, and Safety—JoNes R. VanHecke • Considering the Practical Usefulness of Higher Education Research and Theory in Promoting Equity, Civility, and Safety—Nicholas A. Bowman 20. How Can/Should Student Affairs Educators Use Assessment to Improve Educational Practices Related to Equity, Civility, and Safety? • Using Deconstructed Assessment to Address Issues of Equity, Civility, and Safety on College Campuses—Gavin W. Henning • Assessment as Power. Using Our Privilege to Center the Student Voice—Abby C. Trout 21. What Would It Take for Student Affairs Educators to Facilitate a Personal Learning Design Approach That Enhances Equity, Civility, and Safety? • Pursuing Equity, Civility, and Safety Through Personal Learning Design—Taran Cardone • A Personal Learning Design Approach. Are Student Affairs Educators Ready?—Matthew R. Johnson 22. How Do Student Affairs Educators Integrate Personal and Professional Identities in Digital Spaces/Social Media? • Orchestrated in Harmony or Forced With a Disconnect—Josie Ahlquist • Speaking Up. How Student Affairs Professionals of Color Navigate Social Media with Authenticity—Julia R. Golden 23. What Does It Mean for Student Affairs Educators to Maintain Self-Care in Turbulent Times? • Practicing Self-Care Is a Radical Notion in Student Affairs and It Shouldn’t Be—Tiffany J. Davis • More Than Consumption. Creating Space for Self-Care in Higher Education—Shamika N. Karikari Part Four. Epilogue 24. What Is the Promise/Potential of the Student Affairs Profession to Foster Inclusive Environments for Learning? • Putting Potential to Work—Susan R. Jones • It’s the Means, Not the Ends. Incorporating Humanity Into Our Practice—Craig R. Berger Contributors Index

    Biography

    Peter M. Magolda was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University. He focused his scholarship on ethnographic studies of college students, critical issues in qualitative research, and program evaluation. He is author of The Lives of Campus Custodians and co-author of Contested Issues in Student Affairs, Contested Issues in Troubled Times, and It’s All About Jesus!: Faith as an Oppositional Collegiate Subculture, and has served on the editorial boards of Research in Higher Education and the Journal of Educational Research. He was an ACPA Senior Scholar inductee, and in 2013 received the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Mentoring Award. He also received Miami University’s Richard Delp Outstanding Faculty Member award, as well Alumni Award from The Ohio State University and Indiana University. We deeply mourn the loss of author, teacher, and friend Peter M. Magolda. Marcia B. Baxter Magolda is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Miami University of Ohio and a nationally recognized author and speaker on student development and learning. She received the American College Personnel Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Research Achievement Award in 2007, for her outstanding contribution to advancing student learning. Her scholarship addresses the evolution of learning and development in college and subsequent adult life, and educational practice to promote self-authorship. Her seventh and eighth books respectively are Authoring Your Life and Development and Assessment of Self-Authorship. Rozana Carducci is the graduate director of the Master of Arts in Higher Education Program at Elon University.She was previously at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts, where she served as assistant professor in the Department of Secondary and Higher Education and coordinator of the Higher Education in Student Affairs graduate program. Ahe ha

    "Contested Issues in Troubled Times offers fresh perspectives on the role of student affairs educators and practitioners in engaging in the difficult but crucial work of promoting inclusive environments on college campuses. Importantly, it does so in a way that does not hide—and indeed celebrates—the diversity of viewpoints shared among colleagues. This book will undoubtedly serve as a valuable springboard for rich discussions in the classroom and in the student affairs profession."

    Linda J. Sax, Professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies

    University of California Los Angeles

    "Just as the first, the second edition of Contested Issues will become a go-to book for student affairs graduate courses and professional development opportunities on campus. Magolda, Baxter-Magolda, and Carducci have assembled a timely book that engages the most difficult and important issues facing student affairs professionals today—and likely into the future. The array of authors—representing faculty members and professional staff at all stages of careers—lends to the usefulness of this volume through the presentation of diverse and challenging perspectives."

    Robert D. Reason, Professor, Student Affairs and Higher Education

    Iowa State University

    "In this update to the original Contested Issues, a new generation of scholars challenges the usefulness and authenticity of many of the habits that we have lazily and superficially adopted. They rightly question best practices and position the profession of student affairs to focus on changing systems and structures to increase equity for marginalized students.”

    Anna Ortiz, Professor of Educational Leadership

    Long Beach State University

    “A cross between professional development resource and inspirational essays, Contested Issues in Troubled Times artfully draws readers into a series of carefully crafted conversations about contentious issues in higher education, invites personal reflection and then encourages courageous action. The book promises to help student affairs educators channel their potential to put professional philosophy, commitments, research, and competencies to work to become agents for cultivating and sustaining inclusive learning environments."

    Jillian Kinzie, Assistant Director, Center for Postsecondary Research

    Indiana University Bloomington

    "Just as the first, the second edition of Contested Issues will become a go-to book for student affairs graduate courses and professional development opportunities on campus. Magolda, Baxter Magolda, and Carducci have assembled a timely book that engages the most difficult and important issues facing student affairs professionals today—and likely into the future. The array of authors—representing faculty members and professional staff at all stages of careers—lends to the usefulness of this volume through the presentation of diverse and challenging perspectives."

    Robert D. Reason, Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs

    Iowa State University

    "Contested Issues in Troubled Times invites readers to engage some of the most perplexing issues confronting college and university educators in the 21st century. As the essayists wrestle with provocative questions that defy simplistic solutions, they model productive dialogue and offer a rich constellation of perspectives for the reader to consider. Contested Issues urges those of us invested in the student affairs profession to think beyond traditional field assumptions and strategies as we construct novel and nuanced practices that will help us move from troubled times toward a promising future."

    Alyssa Rockenbach, Professor of Higher Education

    North Carolina State University

    "Magolda, Baxter-Magolda, and Carducci have curated an impressive volume, assembling an impressive collection of leading voices to grapple with how student affairs scholars and practitioners can and should promote growth, learning, and development for all students as they navigate environments marked by various forms of oppression and marginalization. In addition to tackling everything from how to support students managing trauma to student affairs’ larger role as an agent of social justice, this text is a primer on how to engage in complex, sometimes contentious, discourse around difficult issues. So much can be learned from how the authors affirm, challenge, and push each other and our field to have the hard conversations necessary to move colleges and universities forward. We don’t always agree and there isn’t always a clear-cut 'right' or 'wrong,' but the authors of this text show us how authentic, thoughtful, critical engagement can lead to action and progress towards real solutions to persistent challenges facing the academy."

    Kimberly A. Griffin, Associate Professor

    University of Maryland; Editor, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education

    "In an era where overt oppression, righteous indignation, and name-calling are on the rise, an important skill for student affairs educators to practice is engaging about difficult issues productively. The contributors of this book model this kind of dialogue in thoughtful ways. Stemming from their previous innovative Contested Issues in Student Affairs volume, this companion book by Peter Magolda, Marcia Baxter Magolda, and Rozana Carducci adds a unique perspective on the important goal of building coalitions across differences."

    Stephen John Quaye, Past President

    ACPA: College Student Educators International, Associate Professor, Miami University

    From the Foreword:

    "Contested Issues in Troubled Times: Student Affairs Dialogues on Equity, Civility, and Safety is a resource that has the capacity to bridge the gap between who we say we are as student affairs educators, who we actually are, and who we hope to become. The contributors effectively grapple with issues plaguing our campuses and influencing our roles as professionals. The ques­tions to which contributors respond not only raise awareness of critical and contested issues but also prompt readers to do the difficult work of consider­ing how the field both fuels and works to disrupt them."

    Lori D. Patton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

    Iowa State University

    "Contested Issues is structured in four parts. The first provides an introduction to the book’s purpose and an overview of key issues in higher education and student affairs administration. The second addresses challenges and opportunities related to the creation of inclusive campus learning environments. The third explores how to engage in socially just, intentional student affairs practice. Finally, in its fourth section, Contested Issues comes close to answering the question it posed at the outset, suggesting both that the creation of 'an equitable climate conducive to learning' is possible and that the responsibility for doing so belongs to individual higher education and student affairs administrators acting in a variety of big and small ways every day. In short, the book describes how colleges and universities ought to be more so than it offers the precise steps for how to get to that point.

    The scope and scale of the contemporary issues covered across the volume’s 24 paired contributions is daunting. The chapters make clear both the challenges associated with the current socio-political reality and also that it has merely brought to the foreground long-simmering issues associated with equity, inclusion, and social justice in higher education institutions. That is, the challenges described in Contested Issues are not new, they merely appear so to some because the current socio-political environment has swept away the thin veil of civility and laid bare the fact that college and university campuses have long disregarded their role in perpetuating systems of power, privilege, and oppression.

    Taken as a whole, Contested Issues makes the case that higher education and student affairs administrators must change the way they approach their work to navigate the troubled times in which colleges and universities find themselves. It does not make the case that the problems they must confront are new nor that the solutions to them are simple. It does not provide the answers but rather the questions that will lead to this change. In so doing, Contested Issues is a powerfully useful tool for anyone who seeks to understand colleges and universities in a thoughtful, reflexive way and appreciate more fully the systems of power, privilege, and oppression that are fundamentally intertwined with higher education."

    Teachers College Record