Higher education institutions can often serve as sites of growth and possibility. At the same time, trauma in varying forms permeates higher education across institutional types. The authors define trauma as the short- and long-term direct and indirect response to deeply distressing events. Students, faculty, and staff all experience various…

Many student affairs professionals had impactful experiences as undergraduate students, themselves, and they want to facilitate those same opportunities. They believe their work is meaningful to students' experiences and is also valued by institutions. So if that is what motivates many student affairs professionals, what happens when they begin to…

Student affairs professionals have often relied on the professional development of staff rather than innovative design approaches to fulfill the challenge of creating programs, services, and activities that serve today's global and multicultural students. In this article, Jordan Harper and Adrianna Kezar introduce Liberatory Design Thinking (LDT)…

Canonical research and identity-evasive best practices have pushed Student Affairs Professionals (SAP) to limit the applicability and effectiveness of involvement for a swath of the student body. By examining the push for involvement on college campuses, it is imperative to critically examine the impact traditional forms of student engagement have…

Using data from "The National Study on Latino Male Achievement in Higher Education," the authors have spent the last few years seeking to understand how queer Latino men negotiate their familial relationships at selective colleges and universities. After completing a couple of studies, the authors now find it important to ask the…

In the spring of 2020, the US Department of Education updated Title IX guidelines addressing the way campuses investigate gender-based violence. This paper explores how then Vice President of Student Affairs at Phoenix College handled changes to Title IX compliance in the early months of the Coronavirus pandemic while also transitioning to remote…

This article relays the author's experiences and lessons learned after she was selected to serve as the faculty coordinator for first-year student scheduling at her institution. The new assignment to run the first-year scheduling function in the summer was supposed to be a way to do something interesting and engaging in the summer. It turned out…

The United States continues to become more racially and ethnically diverse, and the nation's colleges and universities' demographics are commensurate with that growth. Between 1976 and 2017, the percentage of White students enrolled in postsecondary institutions fell from 84% to 56%, while the percentage of American college students who identify…

In this article, the author explores how higher education and student affairs (HESA) administrators can conceptualize servingness by understanding the experiences of Black students, administrators, and faculty at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). The author uses an organizational conflict lens to propose recommendations that could support HESA…

In this article, the author describes the changes to their work in higher education due to the COVID-19 international pandemic. The move away from campus and in-person meetings and interactions to work-from-home and videoconferencing led the author to consider the changes to the students lives: What was it like for them taking their last steps off…

Alternative Spring Break (ASB) is a program hosted by college campuses in which students use their traditional vacation to serve the community locally, domestically, or internationally. There are 101 recognized and accredited Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the United States (National Center for Education Statistics,…

The authors of this article are both men of color (Chicano and Filipino) and former student affairs educators. For over a year, the authors have been engaged in a multiple case study of five comprehensive state universities that have institutionalized support for men of color. The study sites are all within the same state higher education system,…

This conversation started in the fall of 2019 and continued through the pandemic transitions in the spring of 2020. The conversation was between faculty and graduate students about what student affairs (SA) says it values and what practice actually looks like. The authors talk about SA aspiring to support all students personally, academically, and…

Informal partnerships between divisions of academic and student affairs units are common practice on many university campuses. History and traditions are rich at institutions, and individuals often assume successful programs and services between divisions of academic and student affairs will always continue; however, there is no guarantee because…

This article describes one Syrian student's experience coming to the United States to study at a private research university. Based on his time in the US, Musbah Shaheen asserts that the current practices of working with international students on college campuses contribute to the erosion of international students' cultural belonging. The ability…