This case study explains varied perspectives on a difficult dialogue. It provides recommendations for student affairs professionals and faculty members who work with students and teach courses in content areas that are related to diversity, social justice, and privilege.

The authors describe social justice advocacy interventions to initiate difficult discussions at the university where they are employed. They emphasize the need to foster difficult dialogues about the problem of institutional racism among students, faculty members, and administrators where they work. The Privileged Identity Exploration (PIE) model…

A dialogic model for the discussion of issues related to Christian privilege and religious oppression of minority religious groups and non-believers in the United States is presented. The goal of the dialogue circles is to create and maintain a true multicultural community on the university campus.

This article describes a student affairs practitioner's experience with co-instructing a course entitled, "Queer(y)ing Religion and Spirituality". The ways practitioners can facilitate difficult dialogues with students about the intersection of spirituality and GLBT issues are explored.

Male privilege is one aspect of social inequality that underlies much of the oppression and violence that occurs on college campuses. Mad Skills, a program addressing power and privilege with college men, is described along with general recommendations about how to engage men in difficult dialogues. The PIE Model is used to describe defensive…

This article offers a case study outlining promising practices and effective dialogues on gender identity, privilege, and trans gender issues. Also presented are methods for student affairs professionals to foster organizational change to serve transgender student needs.

This article comments on the utility of the Privileged Identity Exploration (PIE) model in student affairs theory and practice and draws upon examples from the preceding articles.

Unrest in the early 1970s stimulated a need to understand undergraduates' motivations. The Clark-Trow Typology (Clark & Trow, 1966) examined student behavior (i.e., academic, collegiate, vocational, and non-conformist) according to identification with the institution and involvement with ideas. The Student Interest Survey included questions based…

Few studies have examined graduate students and stress. At a large, Southeastern university, 223 graduate students completed a survey about factors contributing their stress, current coping strategies and related university services. A majority felt stressed (48.9%) or very stressed (24.7%). There were significant differences in coping strategies…

Many professions require members to be involved in continuing education in order to maintain skill levels, to remain current on issues, and often to remain licensed or certified in that field. The same level of continuous professional development does not always occur in student affairs, and there exists no system for documenting such activities…

Shaffer and Hall (1997) have estimated college student gambling to be three times as high as their adult counterparts. Despite a considerable amount of research on gambling, researchers have struggled to develop a universal theory that explains gambling behavior. This study explored the potential of Ajzen and Fishbein's (1980) Theory of Reasoned…

Colleges often seek to promote a psychological sense of community (PSOC) among their students. However, there is limited research on factors promoting PSOC, and little empirical evidence on whether students of different ethnic backgrounds might experience PSOC differently. This study, which took place on a predominantly White campus, explored…

The relationship between Black Greek-letter organization membership and African American student engagement in almost exclusively White college classrooms was explored in this study. Data were collected through interviews with 131 members from seven undergraduate chapters at a large, predominantly White university in the Midwest. This study…

This qualitative research study investigated the development of heuristic knowledge and its role in the academic and social journeys of five Vietnamese American students enrolled at a community college located in the American Midwest. The participants were interviewed in depth to understand their "lived experiences" while attending the community…

This study examined differences between participation in academic and non-academic student organizations at a large, predominantly White, public research institution. A survey of 354 undergraduates revealed that students joined academic organizations to prepare for their futures while students joined non-academic organizations for immediate…